Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Classic Maya Human-Animal Interactions

在David Freidel博士的指导下，Diana Fridberg将分析自2003年以来在危地马拉El perú-Waka和La Corona两个古典时期(约公元200-750年)遗址出土的动物遗骸和描绘。厄尔秘鲁和拉科罗纳位于危地马拉佩廷西北部的老虎拉古纳湖国家公园，这是一块受保护的丛林飞地。虽然这些古城在玛雅古典时期(约公元200-750年)具有重要的政治意义，但研究尚未解决居民如何利用周围环境的问题。弗里德伯格女士的研究将探讨人类在日常生活和礼仪活动中与热带森林动物互动和利用的方式。这项研究在结合来自多个来源的数据方面具有创新性，因为实际的动物遗骸以及图像将被结合在一个单一的分析框架内。这将为世界多个时期和多个地区的遗址提供类似方法的模式。人与动物的关系支撑着食物消费、手工艺品生产以及文化和宗教习俗发展的许多方面。据了解，它们在时间和空间上是不同的，但人们对广阔的玛雅地区的这种变化知之甚少。了解人类如何管理和利用自然环境，包括动物，对于理解这些战略的成败至关重要。这项研究将利用从El Perú和La Corona挖掘的材料，但以前没有对这些材料进行专门分析。将对动物遗骸进行骨骼分析，以确定所代表的动物的分类身份。在宫殿、寺庙、陵墓和居民区等仪式和世俗环境中所代表的动物的丰富性和多样性将被用来评估动物用途的性质。艺术和建筑中对动物的描绘也将被分析。考虑到人们使用物理动物和艺术表现自然世界的方式，对于解开世界其他地方的古代人口如何思考和与环境互动来说，取得了丰硕的成果。该项目涉及美国和危地马拉考古学家和大学之间的合作。这项研究的结果将在美国和危地马拉的会议和同行评议期刊上发表。这项研究的标本收集部分将帮助危地马拉山谷大学和圣卡洛斯大学的生物系扩大用于教学和研究的稀有动物标本收集。此外，公共宣传工作将包括制作无障碍和向公众开放的媒体，以帮助传播有关古代文化和现代野生动物的知识。这将包括在互联网上公布数据集，并制作关于虎湖动物的古代用途和现代保护状况的英文和西班牙语小册子。虽然公园是保护区，但它及其濒危栖息地受到定居点侵占的威胁。正在进行的研究营地的存在，例如El Perú和La Corona考古项目的营地，减缓了侵占，同时收集了关于受威胁的自然和文化资源的数据。

Under the direction of Dr. David Freidel, Diana Fridberg will analyze remains and depictions of animals excavated since 2003 at the Classic Period (ca. 200-750 CE) sites of El Perú-Waka and La Corona, Guatemala. The sites of El Peru and La Corona are located in Laguna del Tigre National Park, a protected jungle enclave in northwestern Petén, Guatemala. Although these ancient cities were politically important during the Maya Classic Period (ca. 200-750 CE), research has not yet addressed how inhabitants utilized the surrounding environment. Ms. Fridberg's research will address the ways in which humans interacted with and made use of tropical forest fauna in activities related to both daily living and ceremonial pursuits. The research is innovative in combining data from multiple sources since both actual faunal remains as well as iconographic images will be combined within a single analytic framework. This will provide a model for similar approaches to sites from multiple time periods and multiple regions of the world.Human-animal relations underpin many aspects of food consumption, craft production, and the development of cultural and religious practices. They are understood to vary in time and space, but little is known about this variation in the vast Maya region. Knowledge of the ways in which human populations have managed and utilized the natural environment, including animals, is essential for understanding the success or failure of these strategies. This study will utilize material that has been excavated from El Perú and La Corona but for which specialized analysis has not previously been available. Skeletal analysis of animal remains will be performed to determine taxonomic identity of represented fauna. The abundance and diversity of animals represented in ceremonial and mundane contexts such as palaces, temples, tombs, and residential areas will be used to assess the nature of animal use. Depictions of animals in art and architecture will also be analyzed. Considering the ways in which people both used physical animals and represented the natural world artistically has been fruitful for untangling how ancient populations elsewhere in the world thought about and interacted with their environments. This project involves collaboration with between American and Guatemalan archaeologists and universities. The results of this research will be presented in conferences and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Guatemala. The specimen collection portion of this research will aid the biology departments at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala in augmenting sparse faunal collections used for teaching and research. In addition, public outreach efforts will involve the production of accessible and publically available media to aid in the dissemination of knowledge about both ancient culture and modern wildlife. This will include Internet publication of datasets and the creation of English and Spanish language brochures on ancient uses and modern conservation status of animals in Laguna del Tigre. Although a protected zone, the Park and its endangered habitats are threatened by the encroachment of settlement. The presence of ongoing research camps, such as those of the El Perú and La Corona archaeological projects, slows encroachment while gathering data on threatened natural and cultural resources.