Reconstructing Vertebrate Exploitation and Resource Focus at Ujuxte, Guatemala

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With National Science Foundation support Dr. Thomas Wake will analyze faunal remains excavated at the archaeological site of Ujuxte in Pacific coastal Guatemala. Ujuxte dates to the Formative period and thus documents the rise of complex social organization in Middle America - the stage at which societies shifted from a mobile hunting and gathering way of life when small groups moved frequently over the landscape to a more settled existence with aggregation into large settled villages. Associated with the process is the development of more complex political forms of organization in which the egalitarian hunter gather lifestyle is replaced by a more hierarchical form which is subsumed under the term `chiefdom.` While this transformation has been well documented on a worldwide basis, archaeologists do not understand just what factors led to the emergence of high status chiefs, the extent to which social stratification extended across entire societies or the factors which allowed chiefs to maintain their power. Ujuxte covers a considerable time span within the Formative period and has yielded a large series of faunal remains. These result from the consumption of food and through the analysis of their spatial distribution across the site they provide insight into issues of social stratification. It is possible to determine whether the choicest cuts of meat from highly desirable species such as deer are spatially concentrated and associated with a small number of dwellings or whether they are more evenly distributed across the site. When viewed in a diachronic perspective, these data will provide insight into changes in the nature of status over time. This research is important because it addresses a central anthropological question. It will provide information of interest to many archaeologists and will increase understanding of the prehistory of Middle America.