Doctoral Dissertation: The Structure and Organization of Rural Settlement: The Rio Amarillo Region of Copan, Honduras throughout the Classic Period

在Robert Sharer博士的指导下，Marcello-Anrea Canuto先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。在他自己和其他人过去在洪都拉斯科潘地区的工作的基础上，他将继续对史前玛雅遗址进行调查。他还将进行有限的挖掘，并分析收集到的陶瓷，石器和其他材料。他希望了解这个大型玛雅遗址的社会组织。考古学家对科潘给予了极大的关注，在那里进行的研究在塑造玛雅史前史的解释方面发挥了重要作用。该遗址非常大，包括一个主要的仪式中心以及较小的二级纪念中心和外围地区。它存在于几乎整个玛雅史前时期，并记录了文化的兴起和衰落。多年来进行的大规模研究提供了一个极其庞大的数据库，并对定居模式有了大量的了解。Canuto先生作为一个更大的研究小组的成员，在构成科潘系统一部分的边远“农村”地区进行了几年的调查，这项工作的结果与以前更大的项目的结果有很大的不同。人类学家不仅希望了解玛雅政体的兴起和随后的崩溃，但也许更重要的是了解如何，用一个简单的技术，这样一个大规模的复杂的社会能够在一个低地热带环境中运作和维持自己。他们希望了解将大量的人结合在一起成为一个有效合作单位的机制。科潘先前的研究表明，世系--一个广泛的亲属群体，它沿着清晰的谱系追溯血统--构成了基本的社会单位。据认为，这类公司集团表现出很大程度的自主性，内部社会差别相对较小。据推测，这些是玛雅社会的基本组成部分。然而，Canuto先生和他的同事最近的工作提出了一个更复杂的情况。他们认为，宗族内部存在着显著的内部差异，一系列其他类型的社会和经济联系跨越了宗族界限。这种推测是基于在家庭和社区之间观察到的巨大的家庭和物质文化差异。然而，在科潘次区域的调查工作尚未完成，在NSF的支持下，Canuto先生将填补空间空白并挖掘一系列与房屋相关的矿床。有了这些数据，就有可能更精确地确定潜在的变异。这项研究不仅将为玛雅史前史提供新的见解，而且还有助于培养有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Robert Sharer, Mr. Marcello-Anrea Canuto will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. Building on his own and others' past work in the Copan region of Honduras, he will continue a survey of prehistoric Mayan sites. He will also conduct limited excavations and analyze the ceramics, stone implements and other materials collected. He wishes to understand the social organization of this large Mayan site. Archaeologists have focussed significant attention on Copan and research conducted there has played a major role in shaping interpretations of Mayan prehistory. The site is extremely large and includes a major ceremonial center as well as smaller secondary monumental centers and outlying regions. It existed during almost the entire span of Mayan prehistory and documents the cultures rise and decline. Large scale research conducted for many years has provided an extremely large data base and a great deal is known about settlement pattern. Mr. Canuto, as part of a larger research group, has conducted survey for several years in an outlying "rural" region which constituted part of the Copan system and the results of this work are significantly different from those of the larger previous project. For this reason the work is of great interest and potentially can refine generally accepted models.Anthropologists wish to understand not only the rise and subsequent collapse of the Mayan polity but perhaps more importantly gain insight into how, with a simple technology such a large scale complex society was able to function and maintain itself in a lowland tropical environment. They wish to understand the mechanisms which bound large numbers of people together into an effectively cooperating unit. Prior work at Copan suggested that lineages - extensive kinship groups which traced descent down clearly defined genealogical lines - constituted the basic social units. It was believed that such corporate groups exhibited a large degree of autonomy and displayed relatively little internal social differentiation. These, it was postulated, were the basic building blocks of Mayan society. More recent work by Mr. Canuto and his colleagues however suggest a more complicated picture. They believe that significant internal differential within lineages existed and that a series of other types of social and economic ties cut across lineage boundaries. Such speculation is based on the substantial household and material culture differences observed between households and communities. The survey work in this Copan subregion however is incomplete and with NSF support, Mr. Canuto will both fill in spatial blanks and excavate a series of house related deposits. With these data it should be possible to define potential variation more precisely. This research will not only provide new insight into Mayan prehistory but also assist in training a promising young scientist.