MacLeod, Barbara

MacLeod, Barbara –

“Pathways Into Darkness Revisited: The Archaeology and Mystery of Petroglyph Cave, Cayo District, Belize” with Barbara MacLeod and Dorie Reents-Budet, Ph.D.

“In the spring of 1978, a group of graduate students and cave explorers undertook a five-month archaeology project in a deep sinkhole cavern largely unknown to the outside world. Visited once in the late 60s and next in 1971 by Barb MacLeod and local bushman Reuben Cox (who had found it previously), the cave was immediately recognized as the locus of extensive Classic Maya ritual practice within an awe-inspiring ceremonial space. Subsequent visits over several years by MacLeod (then attached to the Belize Department of Archaeology as a Peace Corps Volunteer), together with Department staff and visiting cavers from the US – led to further exploration and new discoveries in the great entrance chamber and the cathedral-like rooms downstream reachable via a deep underground river. Dozens of human sacrificial remains – both infants and adults – were found in two principal chambers.
The 1978 University of Texas-Austin project was the first formal archaeological investigation of Petroglyph Cave – named for the many geometric images carved in ancient times along the edges of a steep series of dry rimstone dams. Barb’s talk will share images, stories, and artifacts found in the cave during the years long before its transformation into a destination for high-adrenaline adventure tourism.”

 – InstituteOfMayaStudies

 

 

“Barb MacLeod was born June 10,1943, in New York City. She explored her interest in caving as a geology majorat Antioch College, but she preferred working in the dirt to working in theclassroom. Since opportunities for women in geology were rare, she switched toanthropology, and now holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas.

Her education took her through plenty of aviation-heavy towns, including St.Louis, Yellow Springs (near Dayton) and Seattle, but the death of two friends ina canoeing accident had left Barb with a flying phobia, which turned commutingto archaeological digs into long and frustrating trips. After a bus trip fromAustin to Raleigh-Durham in 1993, she decided to get help to deal with thephobia. As the phobia passed, she enrolled in a ground school, intending only toseparate myth from math. The school offered an introductory flight, which shetook, and it became the flight that changed her life. In 1993 she went from afear of flying through primary flight instruction and was doing loops and stallsby the fall of that year.

She still finds time to publish as one of only a couple dozen specialists onancient Maya hieroglyphic decipherment, and still finds time to compose, recordand perform songs about aviation, but her full-timejob and passion is teaching flying at FirstClass Aviation in Austin, Tex. She’s also an active member of the TexasAviation Association, which has had its hands full lately keeping generalaviation alive in the Austin area.”

  – AVweb.com

 

 

 

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