Dissertation: Social Change in the Ulua Valley of Honduras: A Scientific Study of the Marble Vases and Sources

在约翰亨德森博士的指导下，克里斯蒂娜·卢克女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她的目标是了解导致中美洲复杂的史前社会的兴起和维持的过程，她将专注于洪都拉斯乌卢亚山谷和邻近的伯利兹的古典时期晚期人民。虽然玛雅人和阿兹特克是这个地区最著名的文明，但其他多个群体也达到了同样的复杂程度。Ulua山谷的社会在生产高度标准化的精心雕刻的大理石器皿方面是独一无二的，工匠掌握了制作这种相对柔软的岩石的技术。这些船只在文明的鼎盛时期只生产了几百年，只出现在精英阶层的背景下，卢克女士假设它们有助于加强相邻地区统治者之间的联系。通过了解它们是如何以及在哪里产生的，卢克女士相信，在这个交换网络中，重建网站之间的互动是可能的。对标准化程度的审查也将有助于了解对这些产品的生产实行集中控制的程度以及有多少全职工艺专家在场。卢克女士将对许多博物馆收藏的出土标本进行文体研究。她还将从Ulua山谷的多个地质露头中收集大理石样本，并确定其微量元素和同位素特征。这些与岩相分析一起，有望使她能够将成品与地质来源相匹配。初步结果表明，源内化学和岩相学的变化是足够小，源之间的变化显着大，以允许成功。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供中美洲大理石的第一个化学表征，并提供一个具有巨大潜在价值的数据库。它将为中美洲文明的发展以及精英物品的生产和分配在其创造和维持中所起的作用提供新的启示。它还将协助培养一名有前途的青年科学家。（9908680）

Under the direction of Dr. John Henderson, MS Christina Luke will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. Her goal is to understand the processes which led to the rise and maintenance of complex prehistoric societies in Middle America and she shall focus on Late Classic period peoples in the Ulua Valley of Honduras and adjacent Belize. Although the Mayans and Aztec are the best known civilizations in this general region, this same level of complexity was achieved by multiple other groups. Ulua Valley societies were unique in their production of highly standardized elaborately carved marble vessels and artisans mastered techniques of crafting this relatively soft rock. Produced for only several hundred years at the height of the civilization, these vessels appear in exclusively elite contexts and MS Luke hypothesizes that they served to reinforce ties between rulers in adjacent areas. By understanding how and where they were produced, MS Luke believes it will be possible to reconstruct interactions between sites within this exchange network. Examination of degree of standardization will also shed light on the degree of centralized control over their production and the extent to which full time craft specialists were present. MS Luke will conduct a stylistic study of excavated specimens housed in many museums. She will also collect marble samples from multiple geological outcrops in the Ulua Valley and determine their trace element and isotopic signatures. These together with petrographic analysis will, hopefully, permit her to match finished product to geological source. Preliminary results indicate that within source chemical and petrographic variation is small enough and between source variation significantly large to allow success. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide the first chemical characterization of Middle American marble and provide a data base of great potential value. It will shed new light on the development of civilization in Middle America and the role which the production and distribution of elite items played in its creation and maintenance. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.(9908680)