Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Maya State Formation

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A central archaeological goal is to understand the mechanisms which permit societies to integrate large number of individuals into functioning social group. Archaeology can provide a unique insight into this process because it can trace - sometimes over millennia - this developmental across time. This project examines the emergence of such social complexity at a prehistoric Mayan site with a particular focus on how uneven distribution of valuable resources serves to establish and maintain the hierarchical structure necessary for large scale social organization. Animals served as objects of value both for the sustenance they provided and for the symbolic functions they served. Animal bones are an excellent source of data because they are well preserved in many archaeological sites.This study addresses the role of animal resources in the formation of the earliest Maya states. Ashley Sharpe, working under the guidance of Dr. Kitty Emery, will analyze animal bones and shells from four Preclassic period (c. 2000 B.C - A.D. 250) Maya sites in Guatemala and Belize. She will address such questions as how and when animals and their products (e.g. meat, fur, feathers, bones, and shells) began to be differentially used among community members for food, crafting, ceremonial rituals, and as markers of status and political authority. This study will also combine traditional zooarchaeological methods with novel stable isotopic techniques to identify past animal management practices and long-distance exchange.The central focus of the investigation is the site of Ceibal, Guatemala, which boasts one of the earliest and longest occupational sequences in the Maya area (c. 1000 B.C. - A.D. 1000). Ceibal became a politically-dominant civic center much earlier than many other Preclassic sites, in part due to its residents' ability to acquire and manage resources, including those of animals. Sharpe will identify animal remains recovered at Ceibal, comparing proportions, diversity, and uses of animals in the site core and periphery to track the development of social complexity. Carbon and nitrogen isotopic signatures of mammal and avian bones will identify whether wild animals, particularly deer, peccary, and turkey, were raised in captivity. Strontium, oxygen, and lead isotopes will identify non-local animals at Ceibal that were acquired through long-distance exchange networks established as the site rose to political dominance. To obtain a broader regional understanding of early animal resource use, Ceibal's zooarchaeological data will also be compared with assemblages previously examined by Sharpe for this dissertation project from the neighboring Preclassic sites of San Bartolo, Cival, and Cerros. This is the first large-scale study of animal resource use in the Preclassic period of Maya history. It is also the first study to incorporate lead isotopic analysis of Mesoamerican animal remains, and will establish baseline data for future investigations sourcing archaeological material.The faunal identification and analysis portion of the project will be carried out in the Environmental Archaeology laboratory of the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, and the Ceibal Archaeological Project laboratory in Guatemala City. These analyses will incorporate the training of US and Guatemalan undergraduate researchers. Isotopic studies conducted at the University of Florida Anthropology Bone Chemistry Laboratory will include undergraduate and graduate researcher training in the fields of anthropology and biology, who will be using these same techniques to address research questions in other disciplines. Results will be published and presented in both English and Spanish in Guatemalan and US venues, including publication in open access journals and presentations to local community members to release information to both scientific and public audiences.