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

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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)