Exploratory Research into Arctic Climate Change and Ancient Maya Response: Paleoclimate Reconstruction and Archaeological Investigation at the Puuc Region of Yucatan, Mexico

这是探索性研究的早期概念补助金，旨在提供资金，以利用2010年和2011年Xcoch考古项目期间出现的新发现，部分资金来自北极社会科学计划。该项目的广泛愿景是调查古代玛雅社会和政治结构如何应对中世纪气候最佳时期(公元800-900年)墨西哥尤卡坦普乌克山地区发生的气候变化。Xcoch考古项目正在调查在这一关键变化期间北极气候过程可能如何影响经历了严重干旱的墨西哥热带尤卡坦地区的天气。这些环境变化影响了一系列戏剧性的社会和物质适应，例如建造和维护大型灌溉系统、美洲豹(人工洞穴蓄水系统)和将水输送到美洲豹的巨大集水系统。2010-2011年度的实地考察集中在Xcoch市区的密集测量、地面采集和建筑特征测绘上。在这次密集的调查活动中，研究小组在Xcoch附近找到了一个洞穴系统，就收集与古气候分析有关的数据所需的水过滤类型而言，该系统似乎很活跃。新洞穴的发现为收集与Xcoch的自然和社会环境直接相关的近距离数据提供了新的机会。Xcoch项目是越来越多的研究中的一部分，这些研究调查了全球人类生态动力学的南北遥相关。Smyth的研究是全球人类生态动力学联盟(GHEA)的一部分，该联盟的既定目标是“激励”在全球范围内、在短、中和深时间尺度上扩展、整合和加强人类生态动力学研究。尽管这似乎不太适合北极社会科学计划，但Smyth参与了全球人类生态动力学联盟，并发现了北极气候变化与尤库坦地区气候变化之间潜在的遥相关，这使得ASSP对这个项目感兴趣。北极环境过程如何不仅影响北方的社会变化，而且可能影响较低纬度的社会变化，这一问题即使在今天也是一个重要的问题。这项研究不是关于直接的社会接触和相关的变化，而是人们如何在结构层面上对变化做出反应，是什么触发了对全球环境过程的某些决定。在我们能够理解社会变革和适应性决策的复杂性之前，有必要进行全球比较，而不仅仅是区域比较。

This is an EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) to provide funding to take advantage of new discoveries that occurred during the 2010 and 2011 season of the Xcoch Archaeological project, funded in part through the Arctic Social Science Program. The broad vision of the project is to investigate the ways in which ancient Mayan social and political structures responded to climate change that occurred during the Medieval Climatic Optimum (AD 800-900) in the Puuc Hill region of Yucatan, Mexico. The Xcoch Archaeological project is investigating how Arctic climate processes during this critical change period may have affected weather in tropical Yucatan, Mexico which experienced severe droughts. These environmental changes influenced a series of dramatic social and material adaptations, such as the construction and maintenance of large scale irrigation systems, aguadas (engineered cave systems for storing water) and huge catchment systems funneling water into the aguadas. The 2010-2011 field season was focused on intensive surveying, surface collecting, and mapping of architectural features in the Xcoch urban zone. During this intensive surveying activity the research team located a cave system near to Xcoch that appears to be active in terms of the type of water filtration needed for collecting data relevant to paleoclimate analyses. The discovery of the new cave offers a new opportunity to gather close proximity data that directly relates to the natural and social environment at Xcoch. The Xcoch project is part of a growing body of research investigating north-south teleconnections of global human ecodynamics. Smyth's research is part of the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance (GHEA) whose stated objective is to "incentivize" the expansion, integration, and augmentation of cutting human ecodynamics research globally and at short, medium and deep time scales. Although this seems like an odd fit for the Arctic Social Sciences Program, Smyth's participation in the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance and the discovery of potential teleconnections between Arctic climatic changes and those occurring in the Yucutan, make this project of interest to the ASSP. Questions of how Arctic environmental processes not only affected northern social change, but potentially affected social change at the lower latitudes are an important issue even today. This research is not about direct social contact and associated change, but rather how people respond to change at a structural level, what triggers certain decisions in response to global environmental processes. Before we can understand the complexities of social change and adaptive decisions it is necessary to have global comparisons not just regional ones.