Landscape Succession in Lowland Maya Archaeology

在国家科学基金会的支持下，史蒂芬·休斯顿博士和托马斯·加里森博士将与同事组成的跨学科团队合作，在危地马拉中北部进行为期三个季节的考古野外和实验室研究。该团队汇集了考古学、肖像学、金石学、地貌学、古水文学、遥感、古饮食和人类骨学方面的专家，研究从公元前1000年到公元前1500年的古代玛雅景观演替问题。景观演替是指对景观的文化认知如何影响人类决策，特别是关于定居的决策，以及这些认知和决策如何随着历史环境的变化而变化。该项目的研究范围集中在位于北藤区中部的San Miguel de la Palotada生物区内的三个地点。从前古典主义时期晚期(约公元前250年)起，埃尔帕尔马尔、贝朱卡尔和埃尔佐茨的遗址似乎在地区上相继出现。这将是第一个在中部玛雅低地系统研究玛雅文明过程中多种景观演替的项目。这项研究的重点是与生存战略和定居点位置相关的决策如何取决于玛雅人认为对周围景观影响最大的因素。景观演替的概念将被证明对世界各地研究复杂社会的考古学家很有用。这项拟议的研究将使玛雅人处于美索不达米亚、印度、中国和南美洲等地区景观动态的讨论范围内。提出的两个主要研究假设是：(1)在前经典晚期(公元前400年-公元300年)，当大规模的社区在该地区聚集时，被开发的聚落及其位置受到资源丰富的自然景观的制约；以及(2)这些聚落被古典时期(公元300-900年)的聚落所取代，这些聚落被战略性地建立起来，以在新兴的、日益复杂的地缘政治景观中发挥作用。为了解决这些建议，该团队将通过调查、挖掘、古环境研究和金石学相结合的方式重建古代的自然、政治、经济、城市和乡村景观。这些重建将被用于制定、测试和完善古玛雅的景观演替模式。拟议项目的更广泛影响是不同的。这项研究集中在玛雅生物圈的一个濒危区域，在进一步的掠夺和环境损失破坏古代玛雅人的重要证据之前，迫切需要进行考古研究。了解对古代环境的成功适应将有助于制定应对当前低地生物圈人口扩张问题的对策，并有助于增加关于环境历史以及人类对这种变化的反应和煽动的文献。该项目将维持一个可更新的维基网站，向公众和学术界传播一般调查结果。研究的跨学科性质使项目成员能够在智力上为考古学、环境科学、地理学、遥感和地理信息科学的辩论做出贡献。

With National Science Foundation Support, Dr. Stephen Houston and Dr. Thomas Garrison, in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues, will conduct three seasons of archaeological field and lab research in north-central Guatemala. The team brings together experts in archaeology, iconography, epigraphy, geomorphology, paleohydrography, remote sensing, paleodiet, and human osteology to address issues of ancient Maya landscape succession from 1000 B.C.E. to 1500 C.E. Landscape succession refers to the ways in which cultural perceptions of the landscape affect human decision making, particularly with respect to settlement, and how these perceptions and decisions change through time depending on historical circumstances. The research area for this project focuses on three sites located within the San Miguel de la Palotada Biotope in the central Peten district. From the Late Preclassic Period onwards (c. 250 BCE), the sites of El Palmar, Bejucal, and El Zotz appear to have succeeded each other in regional prominence. This will be the first project in the central Maya lowlands to investigate systematically the succession of multiple landscapes over the course of Maya civilization. The research focuses on how decisions related to subsistence strategies and settlement location hinged on what the Maya perceived to be the most influential factors in the surrounding landscape. The concept of landscape succession will prove useful to archaeologists working with complex societies throughout the world. The proposed research will situate the Maya within discussions of landscape dynamics in regions such as Mesopotamia, India, China, and South America.The two major research hypotheses put forth are: (1) in the Late Preclassic (400 BC-AD 300), when large-scale communities coalesced in the region, settlements exploited and their location was conditioned by a resource-rich natural landscape; and (2) these settlements were succeeded by Classic Period (AD 300-900) settlements that were strategically established to play a role in the emergent, increasingly complex geopolitical landscape. To address these proposals, the team will reconstruct the ancient natural, political, economic, urban, and rural landscapes through a combination of survey, excavation, paleoenvironmental studies, and epigraphy. These reconstructions will be used to formulate, test, and refine a model of landscape succession for the ancient Maya.The broader impacts of the proposed project are varied. The research converges on an endangered region of the Maya biosphere that is in strong need of archaeological research before further looting and environmental loss destroys significant evidence of the ancient Maya. An understanding of successful adaptations to the ancient environment will help craft responses to current problems of population expansion in the lowland biosphere and contribute to a growing literature on environmental history and human responses to, and instigation of, such change. The project will maintain an updatable wiki website to disseminate general findings to the public and scholarly community. The interdisciplinary nature of the research allows project members to contribute intellectually to debates in archaeology, environmental science, geography, remote sensing, and geographic information science.