Alec McLellan

I am an archaeologist who is interested in settlement patterns and spatial analysis, especially as they relate to space-time systematics, human/environment interactions, and early complex societies in the Americas. My geographic areas of expertise are in Mesoamerica, as part of an ongoing project to map and document Ancient Maya settlement in Northcentral Belize using Lidar and UAV-based photogrammetry and in Northeastern North America, where I spent many years in Culture Resource Management (CRM) surveying and excavating Indigenous and Euro-Canadian archaeological sites.

A. McLellan, H.R. Haines, and J. Bacon (2026) Lidar, Hydrology and Wetland Management Strategies in the Periphery of Lamanai. Latin American Antiquity, 1–16.

B. Britton, A. McLellan, and N. Dunning (2026) Maya Pottery Red: Hue as a Perceptual Prior for Object Detection in UAV-Based Areal Survey. Remote Sensing 18:1-29.

C.G. Tremain, H. Herrick, and A. McLellan (2026) A Co-Created Approach for Community Heritage: A Case Study of Archaeological Engagement in Belize. Journal of Archaeology and Education 10(1):1-39.

Oriol A Gali, Sarah E. Metcalfe, Elizabeth A.C. Rushton, Betsabé de la Barreda Bautista, Georgina H. Endfield, Sofia Márdero, Franziska Schrodt, and A. McLellan (2026) Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771-1981). Submitted to Climate of the Past 22 (1):25-47

B. Britton, A. McLellan, J. Brewer, R. Beck, C. Carr, N. Dunning, and L. Liu (2025) Evaluating Deep Learning for Maya Settlement Detection in Lidar Data. Submitted to Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 33(15):1-38.

A. McLellan and C. Woolsey (2024) Thematic Analysis of Indigenous Perspectives on Archaeology and Culture Resource Management Industries. American Antiquity 89(2):185-201.

A. McLellan and H.R. Haines (2023) Equality in the Periphery of Lamanai: Assessing a Maya Community in the 10th and 11th Centuries. Journal of Field Archaeology 48(5):350-365.

Undergraduate Courses 

ANTHRO 1022A/B – Introduction to Biological Anthropology and Archaeology

ANTHRO 2226A/B – Biological Anthropology

ANTHRO 2229F/G – Principles of Archaeology

ANTHRO 3308F/G – Archaeological Theory and Practice

ANTHRO 3395F/G – Landscape Archaeology