Doctoral Dissertation: Maya Mountains Ritual Caves

在唐·赖斯博士的指导下，基思·普鲁弗先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。普鲁弗将继续他的研究，作为在伯利兹南部玛雅山脉地区进行发掘的考古团队的一员。到目前为止的工作已经发现了大量的玛雅遗址，具有房丘、墓地、神殿和其他特征。然而，这一地区之所以特别令人感兴趣，并构成普鲁弗先生研究的核心，是因为存在许多洞穴，这些洞穴位于悬崖表面，非常难以到达。普鲁弗之前的研究表明，其中一些是用于仪式目的的，里面有香炉、故意打碎的陶瓷器皿、人类骨骼材料和其他宗教物品。民族史学和民族志数据都表明，玛雅人将洞穴视为超自然场所，宗教仪式仍然在这些背景下进行。初步考古数据表明古代和现代的考古实践有相似之处。在国家科学基金会的支持下，普鲁弗先生将进行一次调查，以确定更多遗址的位置并进行挖掘。他将在已知的人种学和历史相似的背景下，分析由此发现的材料，特别是具有仪式意义的植物遗骸。他将确定洞穴组合之间的差异程度，因为不同的地点可能用于不同的目的。在非洞穴挖掘过程中，小组成员确定了遗址内可能用于宗教目的的区域。因为在这种情况下，许多不同活动的遗骸往往会混杂在一起，普鲁弗计划比较洞穴和非洞穴的仪式集会，以确定如何最好地识别后者，并了解仪式如何与空间环境相关。发现玛雅仪式洞穴是非常不寻常的，普鲁弗先生收集的数据将会引起许多考古学家的兴趣。对于许多遗址的玛雅考古学家来说，更好地详细说明什么是“仪式集会”将是有用的。该奖项还将有助于培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Don Rice, Mr. Keith Prufer will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. Mr. Prufer will continue his research as part of an archaeological team conducting excavations in the southern Maya Mountains region of Belize. Work to date has revealed a large number of Mayan sites with house mounds, burials, shrines and other features. What makes this region of particular interest however and forms the core of Mr. Prufer's research is the presence of many caves which are located on cliff faces and are very difficult to reach. Previous work by Mr. Prufer has shown that some served ritual purposes and contain censers, deliberately broken ceramic vessels, human skeletal material and other religious items. Both ethnohistoric and ethnographic data show that Mayan peoples regard caves as supernatural sites and religious ceremonies are still conducted in these contexts. Preliminary archaeological data indicate similarities between ancient and modern practices.With National Science Foundation support Mr. Prufer will conduct a survey to locate additional sites and excavate them. He will analyze the materials thus recovered, particularly botanical remains which have ceremonial significance, within the context of known ethnographic and historic parallels. He will determine the extent of variation among cave assemblages since it is possible that different sites were used for different purposes. During the course of non-cave excavation team members have identified areas within sites which likely served religious purposes. Because remains from many different activities are often intermingled in such situations, Mr. Prufer plans to compare cave and non-cave ritual assemblages both to determine how the latter may best be identified and to learn how ritual relates to spatial context. It is extremely unusual to find Mayan ritual caves and the data Mr. Prufer collects will be of interest to many archaeologists. Better specification of what constitutes a "ritual assemblage" will be useful to Mayanist archaeologists at many sites. This award will also assist in training a promising young scientist.