Doctoral Dissertation Research: Economy, Society, and the Use of Domestic Space at Classic Period Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico

在罗斯玛丽·a·乔伊斯博士的指导下，斯科特·哈特森将分析他在玛雅春楚密遗址考古发掘期间收集的数据。春楚密位于墨西哥的尤卡坦半岛，在公元300年至公元600年间作为一个大都市中心而蓬勃发展。春楚密以其密集的住宅区而闻名，住宅区包括用栅栏隔开的房屋，以及将这些房屋与城市其他地方连接起来的小巷网络。房屋由小型建筑组成，如睡眠结构、神龛和厨房，嵌入更大的露天庭院、院子和活动区域。赫特森的挖掘工作重点是恢复数据，这些数据将有助于确定这些建筑和开放区域是如何被使用的。专注于个体家庭及其亲属的研究很重要，因为它针对的是社会组织的一个非常基本的层面：社会赖以存在的家庭基石。如果不记录个别家庭及其成员的日常需要和选择如何促成这些过程并受到这些过程的影响，就无法理解诸如贸易、城市化和社会不平等等广义的人类学过程。本项目考察了三个特定的家庭，并比较了在其中进行的活动。检测在这些家庭主妇中进行的活动（工艺、园艺、作物加工、资源消耗等）的变化将有助于解释经济战略、社会不平等、定居密度和空间利用之间的关系。同样，记录跨空间活动地点的模式将有助于了解在人口稠密的城市环境中解决废物管理、隐私和其他问题的各种方式。由于许多活动的副产品通常不会以大型耐用文物（破碎的陶器、石器）的形式保存下来，或者因为这些耐用物品可能已经从古代的原始环境中移走了，因此该项目旨在恢复和分析微残留物，如植物岩、烧焦的植物遗骸和古代活动的化学特征（磷酸盐、重金属）。除了社会科学家感兴趣的研究问题之外，该项目还将通过提高尤卡坦地区古代遗址附近社区和美国各地公众对科学的理解水平，产生更广泛的影响。在尤卡坦半岛，与该项目相关的公众宣传主要集中在两个村庄：现代的春楚密尔和邻近的科乔尔。这些外联工作（海报、学校访问、市镇会议）将在完成上述分析后继续进行。在美国，拓展工作包括持续访问奥克兰的ASCEND特许学校。建立一个网站将提高公众对该项目的可见度，同时在评审期刊和专业通讯上发表将把结果传达给科学界。此外，作者和各机构的本科生助理都将获得上述分析方法的培训。

Under the supervision of Dr. Rosemary A. Joyce, Scott Hutson will analyze data gathered during his archaeological excavations at the Maya site of Chunchucmil. Chunchucmil is located in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and thrived as a metropolitan center between 300 A.D. and 600 A.D. Chunchucmil is notable for its dense residential zones, which contain fenced-off houselots and a network of alleyways connecting these houselots to the rest of the city. Houselots consist of small buildings, such as sleeping structures, shrines, and kitchens, embedded within much larger open-air patios, yards, and activity areas. Hutson's excavations focused on the recovery of data that will help determine how these buildings and open areas were used. Research focusing on individual houselots and the kin that occupied them is important because it targets a very basic level of social organization: the familial bedrock upon which society exists. Generalized anthropological processes such as trade, urbanization and social inequality cannot be understood without documenting how the everyday needs and choices of individual families and their members contribute to and are affected by such processes. This project examines three specific houselots and compares the activities performed within them. Detecting variation in the activities (craftwork, gardening, crop processing, consumption of resources, etc.) performed among these houselots will contribute to an explanation of the relations between economic strategies, social inequality, settlement density, and the use of space. Likewise, documenting patterns in the location of activities across space will contribute to an understanding of the variety of ways in which waste management, privacy and other issues are resolved in a densely populated urban setting. Because the byproducts of many activities are often not preserved in the form of large durable artifacts (broken pottery, stone tools) or because such durables may have been removed from their original context in antiquity, this project is geared toward the recovery and analysis of micro-residues, such as phytoliths, charred plant remains, and chemical signatures of ancient activities (Phosphates, heavy metals). Beyond research questions of interest to social scientists, this project will have a broader impact by enhancing the level of public understanding of science both in the communities in Yucatan near the ancient site, and at various locations in the United States. In Yucatan, public outreach associated with the project has focused on two villages: modern-day Chunchucmil and neighboring Kochol. These outreach efforts (posters, school visits, town meetings) will continue when the analyses mentioned above are completed. In the US, outreach efforts include ongoing visits to the ASCEND charter school in Oakland. The preparation of a website will enhance public visibility of the project, while publication in both refereed journals and professional newsletters will communicate the results to the scientific community. Furthermore, both the author as well as undergraduate assistants at various institutions will gain training in the methods of analysis mentioned above.