Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Human Ecology, Agricultural Intensification and Landscape Transformation at the Ancient Maya Polity of Uxbenka, Southern Belize

在道格拉斯·J·肯内特博士的监督下，布伦丹·卡利顿将在古玛雅遗址乌克斯本卡进行土地集约利用战略以及社会和环境变化的考古研究。Uxbenká出现作为第一个城市中心在南部伯利兹约。公元250年，并通过调解区域贸易路线而变得突出，直到被遗弃。公元850年。在玛雅世界的许多地方，像乌克斯本卡这样的城邦的出现增加了当地生态系统对粮食生产和水资源的压力，因为人口密度更大，精英贡品需求以及短期到长期的气候波动。该项目将通过实地调查和挖掘水土保持特征、家庭群体和计算机模拟人类生态相互作用，调查乌克斯本卡密集砍伐森林、作物生产和定居点扩张的社会和环境后果，将砍伐森林和土壤侵蚀视为古典玛雅时期环境退化的症状，设置阶段的终端经典“玛雅崩溃”在手中的“megadroughs”。虽然玛雅的特大干旱和人类对生态的影响引起了公众的想象，但整个玛雅地区采用了各种水土管理战略，以防止生态退化，促进长期社会稳定。由于玛雅人占据了不同的生态区，并制定了解决当地问题的地方战略，因此需要对景观改变（森林砍伐，耕作，梯田，灌溉）进行特定地点的研究，以了解社会如何在不断变化的人类生态系统中出现，持续和解体。在气候更加湿润、土壤更加肥沃的伯利兹南部，尤卡坦和佩滕的干旱是否也造成了类似的灾难性后果？或者，人类与环境的相互作用更复杂，乌克斯本卡的消亡是一个更有活力的故事？为了揭示这些复杂性，该项目将对以前确定的家庭群体进行战略性挖掘和放射性碳年代测定，并对Uxbenká和相关家庭群体的水和土壤管理特征进行地质考古和微量元素分析。景观改变和定居点扩张的记录将与区域气候记录相结合，以探索新兴玛雅政治中心资源集约化的相互关联的原因和后果。对定居和农业决策的并行计算机模拟将通过检查数千年来各种社会和生态情景的结果来补充考古工作。公众对社会命运的日益关注对考古学家和考古记录提出了很大的要求，超越了对“崩溃”的描述，以解释复杂社会合并和解体的过程，并在日益相互依存的全球社会中为我们自己的未来前景提供见解。这需要考古学家努力处理各种社会，生态和气候数据，该项目将培训合作PI和许多本科生助理，他们将在实验室和现场提供协助。在乌克斯本卡附近的圣克鲁斯当地玛雅社区继续开展社区外联活动，将提高公众对科学和管理遗产资源的重要性的认识。研究结果将通过同行评审的出版物、参加国家和国际会议以及公开讲座向科学界传播。

Under the supervision of Dr. Douglas J. Kennett, Brendan Culleton will conduct archaeological research on intensive land use strategies, and social and environmental change at the ancient Maya site of Uxbenká. Uxbenká emerged as the first urban center in southern Belize ca. AD 250, and grew in prominence by mediating regional trade routes until abandonment ca. AD 850. In many parts of the Maya world the emergence of city-states like Uxbenká increased pressure on local ecosystems for food production and water resources due to greater population density, elite tribute demands, and short- to long-term climate fluctuations. This project will investigate the social and environmental consequences of intensive forest clearing, crop production and settlement expansion at Uxbenká through field survey and excavation of soil and water conservation features, household groups, and computer simulations of human ecological interactions.Deforestation and soil erosion are taken as symptoms of the environmental degradation of the Classic Maya period, setting the stage for the Terminal Classic "Maya Collapse" at the hands of "megadroughts". Though the Maya megadroughts and human ecological impacts have captured the public imagination, various soil and water management strategies were employed throughout the Maya region to counter ecological degradation and promote social stability for extended periods. Because the Maya occupied diverse ecological zones and developed local strategies to solve local problems, site-specific studies of landscape alteration (forest clearing, cultivation, terracing, irrigation) are needed to understand how societies emerge, persist and disintegrate in a changing human ecosystem. In the wetter climate and richer soils of southern Belize, did the droughts that struck the Yucatán and the Petén have similar catastrophic effects? Or, were human-environment interactions more complex, and the demise of Uxbenká a more dynamic story? To bring these complexities to light, this project will employ strategic excavations and radiocarbon dating of previously identified household groups, and geoarchaeological and trace element analysis of water- and soil-management features at Uxbenká and associated household groups. This record of landscape alteration and settlement expansion will be articulated with regional climate records to explore the interconnected causes and consequences of resource intensification in an emerging Maya political center. A parallel computer simulation of settlement and farming decision-making will complement the archaeological work by examining outcomes various social and ecological scenarios over several millennia.The growing public concern over the fates of societies places great demands on archaeologists and the archaeological record to go beyond descriptions of "collapses" to explain the processes by which complex societies coalesce and disintegrate, and to provide insights into our own future prospects in an increasingly interdependent global society. This requires archaeologists to grapple with diverse bodies of social, ecological and climatic data, and this project will train the co-PI and numerous undergraduate assistants who will assist in the lab and the field. Continuing community outreach in the local Maya community of Santa Cruz adjacent to Uxbenká will enhance the public understanding science and the importance of managing heritage resources. Research findings will be disseminated to the scientific community through peer-reviewed publications, participation in national and international conferences, and public lectures.