Pathways of Power and the Colonial Process in Petén, Guatemala

在国家科学基金会的资助下，Timothy Pugh博士和一个国际学者团队将调查最后一个独立的玛雅王国Itza在与西班牙和随后的殖民主义最初接触期间的政治权力和有价值商品的流动。 这项研究将涉及两个季节的考古发掘和实验室分析在佩滕，危地马拉。 团队成员将包括来自美国和危地马拉的教授和学生。该项目将阐明在文化接触的情况下，对物品的作用和反应，以及随着时间的推移，这些作用/反应如何与社会价值和权力相关。 佩滕是研究这些问题的一个特别好的地方，因为它的玛雅居民能够成功地阻止西班牙入侵，同时采用一些欧洲物质文化远远长于其他玛雅群体。 殖民地国家生产的物品，被交易到不习惯它们的群体中，最初往往被接受者作为政治和宗教权力的高价值物品。 随着时间的推移，入侵者和土著居民之间的关系变得更加密切和相互交织，被侵占的物品的作用也发生了变化。该项目将调查权力关系中的这些复杂变化，因为它们表现在物质文化中，利用危地马拉Tayasal和Nixtun-Ch'ich'的低地Itza Maya遗址的西班牙-玛雅接触作为案例研究。 该项目将探讨从接触时期（公元1525-1697年）到早期西班牙殖民时期（公元1697-1750年），欧洲物质文化在伊察社会政治体系中的角色转变，以及西班牙征服和随后的殖民主义对玛雅社会组织和政治权力的影响。通过对欧洲物品的限制和再分配实践的考察，本书将阐明这些物品的价值。 研究玛雅精英对铁、玻璃和其他欧洲物品的使用和再分配的限制，将揭示殖民物品如何在接触过程中被战略性地占用和拒绝。 对社会限制的考察将不可避免地告诉我们一些关于殖民进程中的性别关系的情况，因为我们知道西班牙人把许多这些物品送给了妇女。 该项目将揭示权力的等级及其在接触和征服过程中的转变。该研究将产生一些更广泛的影响，包括对美国和危地马拉学生的培训。 Pugh博士与Centro Universitario del Petén（CUDEP）有着长期的合作关系，并将支持CUDEP学生努力完成各级研究实习和论文。 这种特殊的影响是至关重要的，因为从佩滕学生没有资源进行和完成他们的研究没有外部合作。 来自纽约城市大学研究生中心、南伊利诺伊大学卡本代尔分校和其他大学的研究生也将得到支持，并将进行研究，以获得研究生学位。

With National Science Foundation funding, Dr. Timothy Pugh and a team of international scholars will investigate the creation of political power and the flow of valued goods among the Itza, the last independent Maya kingdom, during initial contact with the Spanish and subsequent colonialism. This research will involve two seasons of archaeological excavation and laboratory analysis in Petén, Guatemala. Team members will include professors and students from the United States and Guatemala.This project will illuminate the roles of, and reactions to objects appropriated in situations of cultural contact and how, over time, these roles/reactions relate to social value and power. The Petén is a particularly good place to study these issues since its Maya inhabitants were able to successfully deter Spanish incursion, while adopting some European material culture far longer than other Maya groups. Items produced by Colonial powers and traded into groups unaccustomed to them are frequently appropriated initially as highly valued objects of political and religious power for the receivers. As time passes and the relations between the intruders and the indigenous populations become closer and intermeshed, the roles of appropriated objects likewise change. The project will investigate these complex changes in power relations as they are manifest in material culture using Spanish-Maya contact at the lowland Itza Maya sites of Tayasal and Nixtun-Ch'ich', Guatemala, as a case studies. The project will explore the shifting role of European material culture in the Itza socio-political system from the Contact period (A.D. 1525-1697) through the early Spanish Colonial period (A.D. 1697-1750), and the effect of Spanish conquest and subsequent colonialism upon Maya social organization and political power. Through the examination of the practices of restriction and redistribution of European items, the work will illuminate something of the value of these objects. The study of restrictions of use and redistribution by Maya elite of iron, glass, and other European objects will reveal how colonial objects can be strategically appropriated and rejected in the course of contact. The examination of social restrictions will inevitably tell us something about gender relations in the stream of colonial process, as we know that the Spaniards gave many of these items to women. The project will reveal the hierarchies of power and their transformations over the course of contact and conquest.The research will make a number of broader impacts including the training of both U.S. and Guatemalan students. Dr. Pugh has a longstanding relationship with Centro Universitario del Petén (CUDEP) and will support CUDEP students' efforts to complete research practicums and theses at various levels. This particular impact is critical as students from Petén do not have the resources to undertake and complete their research without external collaborations. Graduate students from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and other universities will also be supported and will conduct research leading to graduate degrees.