Rate My Professor Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University, where he has been a faculty member since 2003, progressing from Assistant Professor (2003-2009) to Associate Professor (2009-2016) and full Professor since 2016. He also serves as a Research Fellow at the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, since 2002. Brown earned a B.A. cum laude in Archaeology from Yale University in 1983, an M.A. in Anthropology from Tulane University in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Tulane University in 1999, with a dissertation titled Mayapán Society and Ancient Maya Social Organization. Prior to his academic career, he held positions as Senior Archaeologist and Consultant for U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and firms like R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, and he is a Registered Professional Archaeologist since 2000. His research centers on Mesoamerican archaeology, encompassing central and eastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and western Honduras, with recent work in northwest Nicaragua. Key interests include the origins of civilization and emergence of inequality and social complexity, ceramic analysis, lithic analysis, and quantitative methods, particularly fractal analysis.

Brown's fieldwork includes excavations at Mayapan, surveys in Yucatan, ethnoarchaeological research in a Yucatec Maya hamlet, and survey and excavations in Chinandega, Nicaragua (2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017-2018). He has authored influential publications, including the books Fractal Analysis (2010, co-authored with Larry S. Liebovitch) and Historical Dictionary of Ancient Mesoamerica (2011, with Walter R. T. Witschey), as well as highly cited articles such as "Lévy Flights in Dobe Ju/’hoansi Foraging Patterns" (Human Ecology, 2007), "The Fractal Geometry of Ancient Maya Settlement" (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2003), "The Broken Past: Fractals in Archaeology" (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2005), and "The Fractal Dimensions of Lithic Reduction" (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2001). He received the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Mentor of the Year award in 2016, Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 2015, and earlier honors including National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention (1987). Brown has chaired the Undergraduate Programs Committee of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters (2014-2015) and contributes to teaching and research in Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University.