Dissertation Research: Ceramic Production in the Maya Formative: A Study of Ceramic Technology at K'axob, Belize

在Patricia McAnany博士的指导下，Mary Lee Angelini女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将分析考古遗址K‘axob的陶瓷，这是一个史前玛雅村庄。她的目标是观察陶瓷制造随着时间的推移而发生的变化。为了确定K‘axob陶工开采的粘土类型，她将从现场采集的338件陶器的陶浆与来自靠近K’axob的伯利兹北部地区的100个粘土样本进行比较。比较将基于陶瓷岩石学和INAA。将对船只进行抽样，以获得有关现有各种类型的信息，并将根据土壤数据和地形特征对粘土地点进行测试。确定生产技术的变化将通过分析地层技术，如通过破碎模式、X光照相和岩相学揭示的，并通过岩相学和实验测试确定粘土改性策略来进行。船只大小和形状的变化也将被注意到。由于陶器在许多史前遗址中非常丰富，而且它们在地下保存完好，它们为许多考古分析提供了重点。考古学家试图在对这些遗迹进行详细分析的基础上，重建史前的社会、政治和经济组织。K‘axob遗址跨越了复杂的玛雅社会出现的时期。大多数考古学家认为，随着社会复杂性的增加和中央集权的出现，陶瓷等物品变得更加标准化，因为生产由专家接管，他们在分级控制的形式下运作。K‘axob的案例非常有趣，因为--基于对陶瓷形态的目测--似乎发生了相反的情况。如果是这样的话，它挑战了考古学的一个基本假设。安吉里尼希望，当人们从技术角度检查同一公司的数据，并确定原材料是在哪里收集的，以及船只是如何制造的时，这种模式是否成立。这个项目之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供许多中美主义考古学家感兴趣的数据。它将帮助科学家改进分析工具和模型，并将有助于培养有前途的年轻科学家。

McAnany Under the direction of Dr. Patricia McAnany, Ms. Mary Lee Angelini will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will analyze ceramics from the archaeological site of K'axob, a prehistoric Mayan village. Her goal is to look at changes in the manufacture of ceramics over time. To determine the types of clays which the K'axob potters exploited, she will compare ceramic pastes from three hundred and thirty-eight vessels from the site to one hundred clay samples from locations in northern Belize proximate to K'axob. Comparisons will be based on ceramic petrography and INAA. Vessels will be sampled to obtain information on the full range of types present and clay locales will be tested on the basis of soil data and topographical features. Determination of changes in production technology will be investigated through analysis of formation techniques as revealed through breakage patterns, xeroradiography and petrography and determination of clay modification strategies through petrography and experimental testing. Changes in vessel size and form will also be noted. Because ceramics are so abundant in many prehistoric sites and because they preserve well in the ground, they provide a focus for much archaeological analysis. Archaeologists try to reconstruct prehistoric social, political and economic organization on the basis of detailed analysis of such remains. The site of K'axob spans the time period when complex Mayan society emerged. Most archaeologists believe that as social complexity increases and centralized authority appears, objects such as ceramics become more standardized because production is taken over by specialists who operate under a hierarchical form of control. The case of K'axob is very interesting because - based on visual inspection of ceramic form - just the opposite seems to occur. If this is the case, it challenges a basic archaeological assumption. Ms. Angelini wishes to see if this pattern holds when one examines the same corp us of data from a technological perspective and determines where raw materials were collected and how vessels were made. This project is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many Middle Americanist archaeologists. It will help scientists to refine analytic tools and models and it will assist in the training of a promising young scientist.