Max Wells Jakeman (1910 – July 22, 1998) was the founder of the department of archaeology at Brigham Young University (BYU) and an early member of the advisory board of the New World Archaeology Foundation (NWAF).
[1] 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 was also closely connected with the Society for Early Historic Archaeology of which he served for a time as the director.
[citation needed] Jakeman was also the author of The Origin and History of the Mayans: Vol.
1[2] 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.