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

论文：洪都拉斯乌卢阿山谷的社会变迁：对大理石花瓶及其来源的科学研究

• 批准号: 9908680
• 负责人: John Henderson
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-11-15 至 2001-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9908680&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Social; Change; Ulua; Valley

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)

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兴起和维持的过程，她将重点关注洪都拉斯乌卢阿山谷和邻近伯利兹的古典晚期民族。虽然玛雅人和阿兹特克人是这一地区最著名的文明，但其他多个群体也达到了同样的复杂程度。乌鲁瓦山谷协会在生产高度标准化的精雕细刻的大理石器皿方面是独一无二的，工匠们掌握了制作这种相对较软的岩石的技术。这些船只只生产了几百年，处于文明的鼎盛时期，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邻近地区的尺子之间的联系。通过了解它们是如何以及在哪里产生的，卢克相信，将有可能在这个交换网络内重建网站之间的互动。对标准化程度的审查还将揭示对其生产的集中控制程度以及全职工艺专家在场的程度。卢克女士将对许多博物馆收藏的出土标本进行风格研究。她还将从乌鲁阿山谷的多个地质露头收集大理石样本，并确定它们的微量元素和同位素特征。这些再加上岩相学分析，有望让她将成品与地质来源进行匹配。初步结果表明，源区内的化学和岩石学差异足够小，而源区之间的差异明显较大，足以取得成功。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将首次提供美国中部大理石的化学特征，并提供一个具有巨大潜在价值的数据库。它将为美国中部文明的发展以及精英物品的生产和分配在其创造和维护中所起的作用提供新的线索。它还将帮助培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。