Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Resilience Theory as a Context For Understanding Long Term Social Change

Dawn Crawford是南卫理公会大学的博士候选人，他将与霍尔顿考古项目（HAP）团队一起在危地马拉霍尔顿的古玛雅遗址内工作，重建其居民在极端政治和经济压力时期的日常生活，这一时期通常被称为古典末期（公元800-900年）的玛雅崩溃。先前对玛雅崩溃的研究主要集中在主要城市和中心被遗弃的原因上。克劳福德和HAP将通过试图理解人们如何积极地改变他们的经济策略以减轻政治失败的影响来检验人类的内在弹性。此外，本研究将调查不同社会阶层对政治崩溃的不同反应，因为某些社会群体在面对社会变革时可能更具弹性。考古学非常适合通过深入的时间来研究一个社会的大规模和小规模变化，并可以为人类（古代和现代）应对政治和经济危机并在危机中生存下来的能力提供新的视角。HAP团队还与当地社区合作保护文化遗产，并为美国和危地马拉的学生提供考古和STEM应用方面的教育和培训。通过将弹性理论应用于经济模式，这是一个特别适合考古研究和物质文化研究的重点，本研究开辟了新的应用和机会，以了解不同背景和社会经济排名的人类如何适应激烈的政治和经济变化，无论是在今天还是在过去。克劳福德运用了弹性理论，这是一种最初在生态研究中发展起来的理论观点，用来研究环境如何从破坏中恢复过来。通过将这种适应力的概念应用于人类而不仅仅是环境，我们有可能看到古代社会中人类行为的更大模式。克劳福德专门研究了经济活动和决策（而不仅仅是生态变化），以检验人类的适应能力。从考古学的角度来看，经济弹性尤其明显，人们制造了什么，进口了什么，以及如何使用这些商品。具体来说，霍尔顿玛雅遗址的居民可能已经改变了他们从哪里获得粘土来制作陶瓷，他们的罐子有多少是进口的，有多少是本地制造的，以及他们为了应对区域间贸易的崩溃和市场的萎缩而制造的罐子类型。为了应对进口黑曜石火山玻璃（用于日常切割和仪式活动）的短缺，他们可能会重新使用和重新打磨现有的刀片，或者专注于使用当地可用的材料，如燧石（燧石）。对霍尔顿不同社会阶层房屋的挖掘，结合对陶器的中子活化分析和陶瓷岩石学实验室分析，以及对黑曜石的便携式x射线荧光分析，将为崩溃时期不同社会群体改变贸易路线和利用资源提供线索。

Dawn Crawford, a PhD Candidate at Southern Methodist University, along with the Holtun Archaeological Project (HAP) team working within the ancient Maya site of Holtun, Guatemala will reconstruct the daily lives of its inhabitants during a period of extreme political and economic stress, often referred to as the Maya collapse during the Terminal Classic period (AD 800-900). Previous research on the Maya collapse has focused on the causes of the abandonment of major cities and centers. Crawford and HAP will examine the inherent resilience of humanity by trying to understand how people actively changed their economic strategies in order to mitigate the impact of political failure. Additionally, this research will investigate the variable responses of different social classes to political collapse, as certain social groups may be more resilient in the face of social change. Archaeology is well suited to examine both large and small-scale changes across a society through deep time and can provide new perspectives on the ability of humans (ancient and modern) to respond to political and economic crises and survive them. The HAP team also works with local communities on the preservation of cultural heritage and provides education and training in archaeology and STEM applications for both US and Guatemalan students. Through applying resilience theory to economic patterns, a focus particularly suited to archaeological research and material culture studies, this study opens up new applications and opportunities to understand how humans of varying backgrounds and socio-economic rankings adjust to drastic political and economic change, relevant today, as in the past.Crawford utilizes resilience theory, a theoretical perspective initially developed within ecological research to look at how environments bounce back from disruptions. Through applying this idea of resilience to humans rather than just environments it is possible look at larger patterns of human behavior in ancient societies. Crawford specifically investigates economic activities and decision making (as opposed to only ecological changes) to examine human resilience. Economic resilience is especially visible archaeologically through what people made, what they imported, and how they used these goods. Specifically, residents at the Maya site of Holtun may have changed where they got their clay to make ceramics, how many of their pots were imported vs. locally made, and what types of pots they made in response to the breakdown of interregional trade and dwindling markets. They may have also responded to shortages of imported obsidian volcanic glass (used for everyday cutting and ritual activities) by reusing and re-sharpening existing blades and/or focusing on locally available material like chert (flint). Excavations of houses of various societal ranks within Holtun combined with Neutron Activation Analysis and Ceramic Petrography laboratory analyses for pottery and portable X-Ray Fluorescence for obsidian will provide clues to changing trade routes and resources utilized by different social groups during the period of collapse.