Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Classic Maya Urban Planning in Central Quintana Roo, Mexico

在Joyce Marcus博士的指导下，Laura Villamil女士将为她的博士论文收集数据。她将在位于墨西哥低地金塔纳罗奥地区的两个玛雅考古遗址Lagartera和Margarita Maza de Juarez （MMJ）进行调查和测试挖掘。事实上，这种类型的中心是工业化前的城市，因为它们将成千上万的人聚集在一个空间整合的单元中。这两个地点都包含寺庙和广场综合体，这表明统治者有能力动员大量个人参与公共工程项目。这些城市建筑类型的差异表明，它们在本质上具有公共和家庭的多重功能。考古学家把相当多的注意力集中在这些实体的空间组织上，因为他们相信这些数据将为了解玛雅人的社会、政治和经济组织提供洞见。维拉米尔和其他研究人员注意到，即使在一个地区，城市的形式也有很大的不同，有些城市只有一个明确的中心，而另一些城市似乎有多个明确界定的公共建筑区域。她希望了解为什么会出现这种情况，并假设具有单一核心的中心随着时间的推移发展缓慢，并且位于区域等级的顶端。她认为，多个核心中心源于单一的建筑片段，这些核心中心的功能是互补的，而不是冗余的。她认为，这样的城市代表着次要中心，出现的时间比单一核心城市稍晚。为了验证这个想法，她将比较Lagartera和MMJ，它们分别具有单核和多核。利用航拍照片，她将绘制这两个地点的地图，并在两个实地季节进行地面调查，以核实这些地图并补充更多细节。然后，她将挖掘一系列的测试坑来收集分层陶瓷，这将使单个结构和区域能够相对地确定年代。通过这种方式，她将决定建筑当代性的程度。这种对不同规划的详细考察将有助于理解城市社会的发展。对玛雅地区不同城市模式以及导致其发展的特定历史轨迹的调查，将有助于跨文化研究，旨在了解各种社会政治环境对城市外观、增长和转型的影响。该项目还将帮助培训一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Joyce Marcus, MS Laura Villamil will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will survey and conduct test excavations at two Mayan archaeological sites, Lagartera and Margarita Maza de Juarez (MMJ), located in the Quintana Roo region of lowland Mexico. Centers of this type were, in fact, pre-industrial cities because they incorporated thousands of individuals into single spatially integrated units. Both sites contain temple and plaza complexes which indicate the ability of rulers to mobilize large numbers of individuals for public work projects. Differences in building type within such cities demonstrate they served multiple functions both public and domestic in nature. Archaeologists have focused considerable attention on the spatial organization of such entities because they believe such data will provide insight into the social, political and economic organization of the Maya. MS Villamil, along with other researchers, has noted that even within a single region cities vary significantly in form and that some have a single well defined center while others appear to have multiple clearly defined areas of public buildings. She wishes to understand why such is the case and hypothesizes that centers with a single core developed slowly over time and were situated at the top of the regional hierarchy. Multiple core centers, she believes resulted from a single building episode and that the cores serve complementary rather than redundant functions. Such cities, she argues represent secondary centers and appeared slightly later in time than their single core counterparts. To test this idea she will compare Lagartera and MMJ which have single and multiple cores respectively. Using aerial photographs she will create maps of both sites and over the course of two field seasons conduct ground surveys to verify them and to fill in additional detail. She will then excavate a large series of test pits to collect stratified ceramics which will allow individual structures and areas to be dated relative to each other. In this way she will determine the extent of construction contemporanity. This detailed examination of contrasting site plans will contribute to understanding of the development of urban society. The investigation of different urban patterns in the Maya area and of the specific historical trajectories which led to their development will contribute to cross-cultural studies seeking to understand the effects which various sociopolitical circumstances have on the appearance, growth and transformation of cities. The project will also assist in training a promising young scientist.