Anabel Ford has distinguished herself as a Mesoamerican archaeologist in the field of settlement and environmental studies of the lowland Maya of Guatemala and Belize. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology for her work in archeology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she continues as a research archeologist. Her 1978 landmark investigation of the settlement patterns between Tikal and Yaxhá, Guatemala, challenge the perceptions of rural and urban divides, demonstrating that preferred locations for ancient Maya settlements are equally occupied where near or far from centers. Living in the Maya forest for nine months and relying on the resources that were native to that place, she began to gain an appreciation for the local knowledge of and economic value inherent in what first looked like a jungle but really was a garden.Discovering the major city of El Pilar in 1983 changed her strictly academic course of study. Committed to understanding the ancient Maya landscape, Anabel surveyed from the Belize River valley to the El Pilar ridges to understand