M. Wells Jakeman
Max Wells Jakeman was the founder of the department of archaeology at Brigham Young University and an early member of the advisory board of the New [World Archaeology Foundation]. Jakeman has been described as "the father of Book of Mormon archaeology".
Jakeman received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley where he wrote his doctoral dissertation based on a combination of archaeological evidence and Spanish documents relating to the history of the Yucatan. Jakeman believed that archaeology must be grounded in a firm understanding of documents, and he did not see archaeology as a sub-discipline of anthropology.
In 1946 Jakeman joined the faculty of BYU where he worked to teach archaeology in the framework of "historical archaeology," that is, archaeology based on a close connection with historical documents. Jakeman was also closely connected with the Society for [Early Historic Archaeology] of which he served for a time as the director.
Jakeman was also the author of The Origin and History of the Mayans: Vol. 1
Jakeman was a member of the [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] and a believer in the historicity of [the Book of Mormon].