Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: An Investigation of Long Term Culture Contact and Accommodation

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The goal of this research is to understand how communities adapt to exposure to a new religious influence, how this is incorporated into a traditional extant world view and the material manifestations of this process. This issue is of central importance in the world today as lack of successful integration lies at the heart of conflicts in many regions of the world. Through the examination of the colonial process in which pre-hispanic New World cultures were exposed to Christianity through Spanish colonization it is possible to examine multi-religion interaction over extended periods of time.Under the direction of Dr. Takeshi Inomata, Mr. Victor Castillo will conduct archaeological investigations at Chiantla Viejo, a small highland Maya settlement that transitioned to Spanish colonial rule during the 16th century. In order to address the mechanism of community survival in colonial settings, Castillo's research will study how the continued use of the plaza by the local community for public concentrations and massive rituals left room for negotiation between external innovations and traditional ritual practices. Combining the analysis of site layout, targeted excavations, and laboratory analyses, this project will provide a substantive dataset to evaluate the dimension of culture change as a political outcome during a critical transitional period for small local communities. Castillo´s work will provide new grounds for addressing religious change beyond traditional models of acculturation and syncretism by studying a more complex and localized scenario of cultural interactions within the framework of colonialism. The investigations at Chiantla Viejo also integrates a constructive dialogue with the modern community surrounding the site since the place is treasured as the ancestral location of the modern town of Chiantla, thus raising awareness about the protection and preservation of the local archaeological patrimony. Ultimately, this work will present a more proximate and locally situated account of the ways in which native Maya groups responded to the colonial impact and how pre-Hispanic communities managed to transition successfully to colonial life and even outlasted the Spanish domination up to modern times.