Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Societal Collapse and Migration

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Jose Raul Ortiz, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arizona, will investigate how Maya highland communities were affected by potential immigration after the abandonment of lowland centers during the 9-10th centuries. Recent research on the Terminal Classic in the Maya area shows that Maya communities were differentially affected by collapse processes and their responses were variable, including cases of disruption and abandonment, short flourishment, and resilience and transformation. Ortiz's research will focus on the detection of migration from a potential receiving end, a theme that has been addressed in other worldwide ancient migration cases but that has been minimally tracked in other Maya sub-regions. Questions about the effects of the Maya collapse, including the impact of lowland population movements, have been less frequently addressed for the highlands. The results of this research will contribute to the growing discussion on how social identity, specifically of the ancient Maya, intersects with technology, and how migrants can be detected in the archaeological record. Ortiz's work seeks to make a positive impact on the indigenous Qeqchi Maya living near the site by providing important culture-historical information from their own cultural past and promoting collaborative participation, re-ownership, and safekeeping of local cultural heritage. The results of the project seek to publicly discuss the myriad ways that Maya communities experienced the Maya collapse by contesting popular and catastrophic beliefs of this social process.Under the direction of Dr. Takeshi Inomata, Mr. Ortiz will conduct archaeological research at Kixpek, Guatemala. This ancient settlement is located at the northern edge of the highlands immediately south of the lowlands region. Funerary pottery found at the site indicates a Late Classic to Early Postclassic occupation (AD 600-1200), showing that the community lived through the Classic Maya collapse. The site of Kixpek on the Chixoy drainage presents an opportunity to examine how a highland community experienced social processes that happened during and after the Terminal Classic. Did migrants relocate among their neighbors at the northern highlands and what evidence of this migration is available at this region? Did highland ceramic technologies persist or change with the potential introduction of new social groups after the Maya collapse? Ortiz will conduct excavations in Group B and presumed habitation areas surrounding the main plaza in order to obtain pottery samples from pre- and post-Maya collapse periods of occupation. Laboratory analysis will include detailed ceramic analysis by stylistic and technological attributes through macroscopic and microscopic techniques for pottery classification. Ortiz will evaluate the continuities and changes in technological systems, specifically in pottery, obsidian, and burial practices at Kixpek, amidst the potential relocation of people after the Terminal Classic period.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.