Doctoral Dissertation Research: Architectural Variability and Community Organization at Xculoc, Campeche, Mexico

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Under the direction of Dr. James Boone, Mr. Christopher Dore will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will work in the Mayan village of Xculoc, located in the Puuc region of Campeche Mexico and will collect information which will allow him to link behavior to the built environment. The inhabitants of Xculoc follow a traditional subsistence way of life and the results of this work will be applicable to similar Mesoamerican villages, both past and present. Mr. Dore will obtain aerial photographs and use them to construct a village map. All structures will be noted. He will then list artifacts associated with each. To complete this first part of his research, he will note the individuals who use each structure and collect demographic information about them. This will include such variables as socioeconomic status. The second stage of the research consists of a behavioral analysis where a sampling technique will be employed to relate behavior to the built environment. In this way it will be possible to determine how these two variables interact. In Middle America, as well as many other parts of the world, archaeologists often excavate prehistoric villages of roughly the same scale as Xculoc. Remains of houses and other architectural features, as well as artifacts are often recovered and with these data, an attempt is made to reconstruct inhabitants' behavior. Assumptions are often made: for example, it is usually stated that higher status people have larger dwellings. However, no one has ever examined such issues in a controlled circumstance where both behavior and structures can be directly observed. Mr. Dore's research will begin to fill this gap. The work is important for several reasons. Xculoc is located in a region with many large prehistoric sites and the data Mr. Dore collects is directly relevant to their interpretation. On a broader scale, the general methodological tools which he forges will be useful in many archaeological situations where no direct historic link exists. Finally, this project will assist in the training of an extremely promising young scientist.