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手工制品在复杂的政治经济交换网络中流动的过程。交换网络的演变强调了了解人们如何通过消费构建身份的必要性。因此，考古学对探索古代国家中前资本主义市场交换的存在越来越感兴趣，并质疑这些制度如何构建物质价值，消费者社区，城市和国家。在这个更广泛的背景下，该项目将调查如何区域贸易，国家交换和家庭身份的变化与市场的出现在前哥伦布时期的城市景观在伯利兹，中美洲的过程。通过对黑曜石的分析（火山玻璃）文物-一种耐用和经济上至关重要的石材-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的运动;（2）确定黑曜石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）探索黑曜石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。随着精心制作的材料的流通，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/或礼品交换）。考古学具有独特的历史化视角，可以研究不同文化群体中的某些物品和材料在远距离交换时的文化和社会经济价值。所产生的数据将使一个全面的画面出现，其中材料的研究暴露了不同的社会动态。这项研究还鼓励加强合作，考古学家作为材料分析师可以通过开放共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（中央佛罗里达大学）的指导下，卢卡斯·马丁代尔约翰逊将调查古玛雅地区黑曜石交换、工艺品生产、仪式和日常活动，以及在伯利兹卡拉科尔古玛雅遗址开展此类活动的社区。在这个古代玛雅城邦的研究提供了一个理想的环境，以展示黑曜石的研究如何探索现代墨西哥，危地马拉和洪都拉斯高地遥远的黑曜石丰富地区的区域联系，以及一般人口的经济机制。通过将黑曜石采购到化学性质独特的地质位置，该项目将发现材料在到达工艺品生产现场之前所经过的距离以及不同的社会和物理路径。该项目将进行来源分析，利用便携式X射线荧光仪确定元素组成，从而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黑曜石工艺品，用作休闲工具和/或仪式材料。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多个古玛雅家庭的文物分布图来研究。通过绘制文物分布图，本研究将探索工艺和工艺交流如何可能或可能不被政治和经济强国控制，并调查如何通过生产和使用黑曜石文物来产生身份。

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.