William Saturno

William Andrew "Bill" Saturno is an American archaeologist and Mayanist scholar who has made significant contributions toward the study of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. As of February 2015, Saturno holds a position as Assistant Professor in Archaeology at Boston University's College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). . He is also the Director of the Proyecto San Bartolo-Xultun at the Instito de Antropologia e Historia in Guatemala, a National Space SciResearch Scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, as well as a Research Associate at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Prior to his position at BU, Saturno was a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire. Saturno is most well known for his discovery of the discovery in 2001 of one of the oldest extant murals yet discovered in the Maya region, at the site of San Bartolo in northeastern Guatemala.[1] Of this discovery, he has said that it was his favorite and most challenging experience of his career, and that "being the first person to see them [the murals] after more than 2,000 years, uncovering them bit by bit, with each part more beautiful than the last, is an experience unlikely to be matched." In 2010, Saturno and Franco Rossi discovered what they believe to be a workroom of a Xultún record keeper. The Mayan hieroglyphics at the site included representations of dates roughly 7000 years in the future, casting doubt on the speculation that the conclusion of the Long Count calendar would result in a 2012 doomsday scenario His current research interests are New World and Mesoamerican civilizations, landscape archaeology, remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) application in archaeology, Mesoamerican iconography and religion, the evolution of complex societies, and archaeology in pop culture.

Born in Albany, New York, Saturno wanted to be an archaeologist since he was a small child, and first became interested in ancient Maya civilization when he visited the Maya site of Palenque while working in Mexico. Having worked in archaeology for over 20 years, in an interview with National Geographic he stated: "I see being an archaeologist as both a great privilege and a great responsibility. I have been entrusted with the recovery, interpretation, and preservation of the material remains of the past, with the history of an ancient people, and the heritage of a modern one." For the last 7 years, when he is not teaching or conducting field work, Saturno has led scholarly tours in Guatemala and Maya Mexico for Archaeological Tours. Saturno currently lives with his wife and their three sons James, David, and Giancarlo, in Clinton, Connecticut and enjoys soccer, opera, and snowboarding in his free time.

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