LILIA LIZAMA ARANDA, was born and raised in Valladolid, Yucatan. She moved to its capital Merida at the age of 15 to attend high school and complete her studies in archeology at the University of Yucatan.

She graduated in 1995 from the faculty of Anthropological Sciences, continuing her studies on the U.S.A. with a scholarship for a semester at Green Bay University. She worked exhaustively for 4 years on her thesis until she defended her research at the Faculty of Anthropology with the title: Salvage Archaeology in Dzibilchaltun, Yucatan, Mexico.

She has obtained a number of local and foreign grants and scholarships throughout her student life, worked at Ek Balam and Xamana Ha, in modern Playa del Carmen, Q, Roo. She focused her studies at the Dzibilchaltun Project for eight years until 2000, acquiring a wide variety of experience on analyses of artifacts made of obsidian, flint, bone and prehispanic and Hispanic ceramics under the project director/researcher Ruben Maldonado of INAH.

Under the sponsorship of Dr. Edward Kurjack she traveled to Greece and Egypt. On this month long tour, hours were spent discussing cultural differences, architecture, sculpture and art and life and death mythology between two ancient civilizations. Much time was spent studying the dynamics of these two cultures in relationship to her area of expertise in ancient Maya and modern culture.

She has been asked to participate at the World Archaeological Congress 2003 to be held next June in Washington, D.C.

Lilia is spearheading a new concept in Mexican archeology where the preservation and protection of Mexico's cultural heritage will create jobs for hundreds of unemployed archaeologists. Cultural Resource Management, CRM, is a consulting company Empresa del Manejo Cultural recently opened which offer services of recognizance, survey and documentation of Mayan archeological sites to Riviera Maya developers in Quintana Roo before any construction or modification of the land is pursued. She works via email with a senator's team in Mexico City of the culture commission to help modify federal legislation regarding the protection and preservation of these precious archeological sites and Mexico's rich historical heritage.

She also participated as a volunteer with the Promotion Committee and taught a children's archaeology workshop at the Casa de la Cultura in Puerto Morelos throughout the year 2002.