Proyecto Maya-Colonial: Postclassic Political Geography of Central Peten, Guatemala

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Don Rice博士和他的同事将在危地马拉的Peten地区进行三个实地考古研究季节。这项研究建立在以前NSF支持的项目上。这项工作的目标是了解在“古典玛雅”崩溃后玛雅文化发生了什么。考古证据清楚地表明，在玛雅发展的高峰时期，社会的复杂程度已经达到了一定程度。祭司皇帝统治着中美洲低地的大片地区。一个书写系统被设计出来，纪念性建筑的重要性被保存到现在的寺庙土丘所证明。考古学和文字资料都表明，大量的人被整合成单一的政治单位，传统的农业技术有助于在困难的低地热带环境中提供充足的食物。然而，大约在公元世纪，这个经典的玛雅社会“崩溃”了，其原因鲜为人知。 赖斯博士和他的同事们把重点放在公元9世纪到17世纪之间的时间间隔上，当时欧洲人征服了这一地区。他们从早期的西班牙文本中工作，这些文本描述并定位了主要的玛雅城镇。通过实地调查，他们找到了其中许多，并进行了试挖掘。这一信息为目前的主要挖掘项目提供了框架，该项目将使玛雅人的“衰落”得以追溯。800年的间隔。赖斯博士和他的同事们将挖掘41个结构的一部分，以获得关于特定公民仪式结构类型的遗址历史和功能的比较数据。 这个项目之所以重要，有几个原因。它将提供一个鲜为人知的史前时期的信息。它产生的数据将引起许多考古学家的兴趣，它将增加我们对复杂社会如何产生和衰落的理解。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Don Rice and his colleagues will conduct three field seasons of archaeological research in the Peten region of Guatemala. This research builds on a previously NSF supported project. The goal of the work is to understand what happened to Mayan cultures after the collapse of the `Classical Maya.` Archaeological evidence clearly demonstrates the degree of social complexity which was achieved at the height of Mayan development. Priest emperors ruled over large areas of lowland Middle America. A writing system was devised and the importance of monumental architecture is demonstrated by temple mounds which survive to present times. Both archaeological and textual data indicate that large numbers of people were integrated into single political units and that traditional agricultural techniques served to provide adequate food in a difficult lowland tropical environment. In approximately the 9th century AD however this classic Mayan society `collapsed` and the reasons for this are poorly known. DR Rice and his colleagues have focused on the time interval between the 9th and 17th centuries AD, when Europeans conquered this area. They have worked from early Spanish texts which described, and located - in a general way - major Mayan towns. Through on the ground survey they have located many of these and conducted trial excavations. This information has provided the framework for the current major excavation project which will allow the Mayan `decline` to be traced over a ca. 800 year interval. Drs. Rice, Rice and colleagues will excavate portions of 41 structures to obtain comparative data on site histories and functions of specific civic-ceremonial structure types. This project is important for several reasons. It will provide information on a little understood period of prehistory. The data it produces will be of interest to many archeologists and it will increase our understanding of how complex societies arise, and also decline.