Mapping Ancient Maya Wooden Architecture On the Seafloor

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，希瑟·麦基洛普博士和路易斯安那州立大学的一组研究生将在蓬塔·伊卡科斯泻湖开展一项为期三年的水下考古项目。蓬塔·伊卡科斯泻湖是中美洲伯利兹南部的一个沿海泻湖。研究人员将绘制已知的第一批古玛雅木制建筑的地图，这些建筑保存在海底泥炭沼泽的特殊条件下。这一点很重要，因为大多数现代玛雅建筑，包括房屋和其他建筑，都是木制的，我们从古代建筑的石头或泥土地基得知，木结构在古代很普遍。然而，我们目前对古代玛雅建筑的了解是基于公共和精英建筑的石头和土坯建筑和地基，以及普通玛雅建筑的更简陋的石头和土地基。在玛雅地区的热带环境中，木材通常会腐烂，木制结构的遗迹以前没有被发现。这项研究的另一个知识价值是，蓬塔伊卡科斯泻湖的建筑被用于生产、储存和分发盐，这些盐是通过在火上沸腾的锅中煮沸海水产生的，这一点从盐锅的碎片遗骸中可以看出。在尤卡坦半岛的内陆地区，盐是稀缺的，在公元300年到900年之间，古典时期的文明发展起来，所以这种远离内陆城市的大规模生产表明，作为古玛雅和其他工业化前的古代文明的一部分，这里存在着大规模的、非国家控制的生产。研究小组将乘船前往偏远的沿海泻湖，以便在水下地点定位，标记和绘制木桩，其他建筑木材和相关文物，并继续对泻湖进行全面的水下搜索，以寻找其他地点。测绘工作将使用全站仪进行，该仪器以数字方式记录地点，然后将其传送到笔记本电脑上的地理信息系统。生成的地图将显示场地的分布以及建筑物、室内房间和人工制品的大小和形状的变化。GIS软件将允许对空间数据进行分析和显示，以解释从建筑物内部的微观尺度到包括整个泻湖在内的宏观尺度。研究人员将通过放射性碳测定木桩的年代来确定木制建筑和遗址的年代，并使用玛雅陶瓷分类的类型-品种系统来研究陶器碎片。该系统根据年代敏感的风格变化对陶器进行分类，并允许与其他玛雅遗址进行比较。该研究将评估未来挖掘选定木结构和保存淹水木材的策略。就研究的更广泛的社会影响而言，该项目将为伯利兹的生态旅游提供有用的信息，因为木制建筑为该国的考古学提供了一个新的维度。这项研究将提供古代与现代玛雅人的相似之处，将其与当前景观的木结构联系起来。该项目将为研究生提供培训。这项研究的结果将在伯利兹、在国际会议和出版物上以及通过其他途径向科学界和感兴趣的公众介绍。总的来说，这项研究将提高我们对全球低洼沿海地区考古遗址文化价值的认识，这些地区受到海平面上升和全球气候变化的淹没。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Heather McKillop and a team of graduate students from Louisiana State University will carry out a three-year underwater archaeology project in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, a coastal lagoon in southern Belize, Central America. The researchers will map the first known ancient Maya wooden buildings, preserved under extraordinary conditions in a peat bog below the sea floor. This is significant, since most modern Maya buildings, both houses and other structures, are wood, and we know from the stone or earthen foundations of ancient buildings, that wooden structures were widespread in antiquity. However, our current knowledge of ancient Maya buildings is based on the stone and adobe buildings and foundations of public and elite architecture and the more humble stone and earth foundations of the common Maya. Wood normally decays in the tropical setting of the Maya area and wooden structural remains have not previously been discovered. A further intellectual merit of the research is that the Punta Ycacos Lagoon buildings were used in the production, storage, and distribution of salt produced by boiling seawater in pots over fires, as indicated by the recovery of the fragmentary remains of the salt pots. Salt was scarce in the interior of the Yucatan where the Classic period civilization developed between A.D. 300 and 900, so this extensive production distant from interior cities suggests there was extensive, non-state controlled production as part of the ancient Maya and other pre-Industrial ancient civilizations. The research team will travel by boat to the remote coastal lagoon in order to locate, flag, and map the wooden posts, other construction wood, and associated artifacts at the underwater sites and continue the comprehensive underwater search of the lagoon for additional sites. The mapping will be carried out using a total station survey instrument that digitally records locations for transfer to a GIS (geographic information system) on a laptop computer. The resulting maps will show the distribution of sites and variability in the size and shape of buildings, interior rooms, and artifacts. The GIS software will allow the spatial data to be analyzed and displayed to interpret from a micro-scale within buildings to a macro-scale including the entire lagoon. The researchers will date the wooden architecture and sites by radiocarbon dating wooden posts, as well as study of the pottery sherds using the type-variety system of Maya ceramic classification. This system classifies pottery on the basis of chronologically sensitive stylistic changes and allows comparison with other Maya sites. The research will evaluate strategies to excavate selected wooden structures and conserve the waterlogged wood in the future. In terms of the broader social implications of the research, the project will provide information useful for incorporating into ecotourism in Belize since the wooden architecture provides a new dimension to archaeology in the country. The research will provide ancient analogs with the modern Maya to connect with the wooden structures of the present landscape. The project will provide training of graduate students. The results of the research will be presented in Belize, at international conferences and in publications, and other avenues to inform the scientific community and the interested public. In general, the research will enhance our knowledge of the cultural value of archaeological sites in low-lying coastal areas worldwide that are subject to inundation by sea-level rise and global climate change.