Dissertation: Social Change in the Ulua Valley of Honduras: A Scientific Study of the Marble Vases and Sources

在Dr. John Henderson的指导下，MS Christina Luke将为她的博士论文收集数据。她的目标是了解导致中美洲复杂史前社会兴起和维持的过程，她将重点关注洪都拉斯乌卢阿山谷和邻近伯利兹的古典晚期人民。虽然玛雅人和阿兹特克人是这一地区最著名的文明，但同样复杂程度的文明是由多个其他群体实现的。乌卢阿山谷的社会在生产高度标准化的精心雕刻的大理石器皿方面是独一无二的，工匠们掌握了制作这种相对较软的岩石的技术。在文明的鼎盛时期，这些器皿只生产了几百年，只出现在精英阶层的语境中，卢克推测它们是用来加强相邻地区统治者之间的联系的。通过了解它们是如何产生的以及在哪里产生的，卢克女士相信，在这个交换网络中，重建站点之间的相互作用将是可能的。对标准化程度的检查还将揭示对其生产的集中控制程度以及全职工艺专家在场的程度。卢克女士将对许多博物馆出土的标本进行风格研究。她还将从乌鲁瓦山谷的多个地质露头处收集大理石样本，并确定它们的微量元素和同位素特征。这些与岩石学分析一起，有望使她能够将成品与地质来源相匹配。初步结果表明，源内的化学和岩相变化足够小，而源间的变化则非常大，可以成功地进行勘探。这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。它将首次提供中美洲大理石的化学表征，并提供具有巨大潜在价值的数据库。它将揭示中美洲文明的发展，以及精英物品的生产和分配在其创造和维持中所起的作用。它还将帮助培训一名有前途的年轻科学家。(9908680)

Under the direction of Dr. John Henderson, MS Christina Luke will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. Her goal is to understand the processes which led to the rise and maintenance of complex prehistoric societies in Middle America and she shall focus on Late Classic period peoples in the Ulua Valley of Honduras and adjacent Belize. Although the Mayans and Aztec are the best known civilizations in this general region, this same level of complexity was achieved by multiple other groups. Ulua Valley societies were unique in their production of highly standardized elaborately carved marble vessels and artisans mastered techniques of crafting this relatively soft rock. Produced for only several hundred years at the height of the civilization, these vessels appear in exclusively elite contexts and MS Luke hypothesizes that they served to reinforce ties between rulers in adjacent areas. By understanding how and where they were produced, MS Luke believes it will be possible to reconstruct interactions between sites within this exchange network. Examination of degree of standardization will also shed light on the degree of centralized control over their production and the extent to which full time craft specialists were present. MS Luke will conduct a stylistic study of excavated specimens housed in many museums. She will also collect marble samples from multiple geological outcrops in the Ulua Valley and determine their trace element and isotopic signatures. These together with petrographic analysis will, hopefully, permit her to match finished product to geological source. Preliminary results indicate that within source chemical and petrographic variation is small enough and between source variation significantly large to allow success. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide the first chemical characterization of Middle American marble and provide a data base of great potential value. It will shed new light on the development of civilization in Middle America and the role which the production and distribution of elite items played in its creation and maintenance. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.(9908680)