The Amazonian Travels of Richard Evans Schultes

The story of Maya culture as a once-great civilization that built towering pyramids in the jungles of Central America was developed and popularized by national governments, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Previously unable to control the story of their own culture, Maya communities today are actively reframing their heritage and centering their most recent history—not the distant past—to regain power and self-determination. Richard Leventhal will discuss the importance and role that the nineteenth-century Caste War—one of the largest and most successful Indigenous rebellions—is playing in the Maya’s contested heritage.

Presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology in collaboration with the Amazon Conservation Team and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies

Reception supported by the Harvard Chapter of Sigma Xi.

About the Speakers

Mark Plotkin is an ethnobotanist and conservationist who has focused on the plants and peoples of the Amazon since the late 1970s. A former student of the renowned ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, Plotkin is well known for his bestselling book, Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice and the Academy Award-nominated IMAX film Amazon. Plotkin is President and a board member of the Amazon Conservation Team(ACT). He previously served as a vice president of Conservation International and as U.S. Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund. Previously, he was a research associate in ethnobotanical conservation at the Harvard University Herbaria. He received his education at Harvard, Yale, and Tufts universities.

Brian Hettler is a cartographer with the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) who works with Indigenous communities in South America on participatory mapping initiatives that support Indigenous land rights and rainforest conservation. For the past six years, Brian has been leading ACT’s efforts to map and monitor isolated Indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest—and the many threats facing these vulnerable communities—using high-resolution satellite imagery provided by DigitalGlobe. When not in the field, Brian partakes in a range of projects including monitoring forest covering using remote-sensing techniques, designing maps in both static and interactive digital formats, and supporting ACT’s field staff and Indigenous partners in the innovative use of spatial data collection and monitoring tools.