Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Tool Production And Exchange In A Traditional Society

社会科学家继续探索原材料和精心制作的物品在复杂的政治经济交换网络中移动的过程。交换网络的发展突显了了解人们如何通过消费构建自己的身份的必要性。因此，在考古学中，人们越来越有兴趣探索古代国家中存在的前资本主义市场交换，并质疑这些机构如何构建物质价值、消费者社区、城市和国家。在这一更广泛的背景下，该项目将调查中美洲伯利兹前哥伦布时代城市景观中的地区贸易、国家交换和家庭身份如何随着市场的出现而变化的过程。通过对黑铁矿(火山玻璃)文物--一种耐用的、经济上至关重要的石材--的分析，这项研究将(1)重建和追踪它们从遥远的原材料来源进入主要城市中心的交换网络；(2)确定黑铁矿是如何通过受管制或不受管制的政治控制分配给人口的；以及(3)探索黑铁矿的制作和交换如何帮助构建和具体化一个持续了几个世纪的共同的地方身份认同。随着精心制作的材料流通，它们暴露了为消费者提供服务的政治/经济/社会机制(例如，市场和/或礼物交换)。考古学具有独特的历史化视角，研究不同文化群体中某些物品和材料在遥远的距离交换时的文化和社会经济价值。产生的数据将使对材料的研究揭示不同的社会动态的全面图景出现。这项研究还鼓励加强合作，使作为材料分析员的考古学家可以通过公开分享研究方法和数据来扩大技术学生的培训。在史蒂文·勃兰特博士(佛罗里达大学)、黛安·蔡斯博士和阿伦·蔡斯博士(佛罗里达大学中部)的指导下，卢卡斯·马丁代尔·约翰逊将调查古代玛雅人在伯利兹卡拉科尔古玛雅遗址的地区黑铁矿交流、手工艺生产、仪式和日常活动，以及实施这些行动的社区。在这个古老的玛雅城邦进行的研究提供了一个理想的背景，来展示对黑铁矿的研究如何探索与现代墨西哥、危地马拉和洪都拉斯高地上远方的黑岩丰富地区的联系，以及普通人口赖以生存的经济机制。通过从化学上独特的地质位置采购黑铁矿，该项目将发现材料在到达工艺品生产地点之前经过的距离以及不同的社会和物理路径。通过使用便携式X射线荧光机进行来源分析，确定元素组成，该项目将确定贸易路线和区域联系。后来，在卡拉科尔市，当地家庭消费者获得了黑铁矿手工艺品，用作休闲工具和/或仪式化材料。卡拉科尔的工艺和内部交换机制将通过绘制分布在近170平方公里(65平方英里)的200多个古代玛雅家庭的文物分布图来研究。通过绘制文物分布图，这项研究将探索手工艺和手工艺交换如何可能或可能没有被政治和经济权势所控制，以及调查身份是如何通过生产和使用黑铁矿文物而产生的。

Social scientists continue to explore the processes by which raw materials and crafted objects move about in complex webs of political economic exchange. The evolution of exchange networks underscores the need to know how people construct their identity through consumption. Therefore, there is an increasing interest within archaeology to explore the presence of pre-capitalist market exchange in ancient states, and to question how these institutions structured material value, consumer communities, cities, and states. Situated within this broader context, the project will investigate the processes of how regional trade, state exchange, and household identity changed with the advent of marketplaces within a pre-Columbian urban cityscape in Belize, Central America. Through analyses of obsidian (volcanic glass) artifacts - a durable and economically vital stone material - this research will (1) reconstruct and trace their movement from distant raw material sources into the exchange network of a major urban center; (2) determine how obsidian was distributed to the population through regulated or unregulated political controls; and (3) explore how the crafting and exchange of obsidian helped to construct and concretize a shared local identity that endured for centuries. As crafted materials circulate, they expose political/economic/social mechanisms that provision consumers (e.g., market and/or gift exchange). Archaeology has a unique historicized perspective to study the cultural and socioeconomic value of certain objects and materials within different cultural groups as they were exchanged over vast distances. The data generated will enable the emergence of a comprehensive picture in which a study of materials exposes different societal dynamics. The research also encourages an increased collaboration whereby archaeologists as material analysts can expand technical student training through the open sharing of research methods and data. Under the guidance of Dr. Steven Brandt (University of Florida), Dr. Diane Chase, and Dr. Arlen Chase (University of Central Florida), Lucas Martindale Johnson will investigate ancient Maya regional obsidian exchange, craft production, ritual and daily events, and the communities that carried out such actions at the ancient Maya site of Caracol, Belize. Research at this ancient Maya city-state provides an ideal setting to demonstrate how a study of obsidian explores regional connections to distant obsidian-rich locations in the highlands of modern day Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras and the economic mechanisms by which the general population were provisioned. By sourcing obsidian to chemically unique geological locations, the project will discover the distance and the different social and physical pathways materials traveled before arriving at a craft production site. By conducting a sourcing analysis in which elemental composition is ascertained through the use of a portable X-ray fluorescence machine, this project will determine trade routes and regional connections. At a later date within the city of Caracol, local household consumers obtained obsidian crafts to for use as casual tools and/or ritualized materials. Caracol's crafting and internal exchange mechanisms will be studied by mapping artifact distributions at more than 200 ancient Maya households spread over nearly 170 square kilometers (65 square miles). Through mapping artifact distributions, this research will explore how crafting and craft exchange may or may not have been controlled by the politically and economically powerful, as well as investigate how identities are produced through the production and use of obsidian artifacts.