Under the supervision of Wyllys Andrews V, Aline Magnoni will analyze archaeological data collected at the ancient Maya site of Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico. Chunchucmil reached its maximum extent from A.D. 400-700, when a dense settlement of monumental architecture, residential groups enclosed by boundary walls, and streets facilitating traffic in the crowded urban environment extended over an area of ca. 25 km2. This urban center became one of the largest cities in the Maya region and functioned as a commercial and redistribution center for a few centuries. During the 8th century, probably because of changes in trade routes, depopulation began at Chunchucmil and in the following two centuries occupation was extremely limited and resulted in a drastic modification of the settlement patterns at the site.
This research takes as the unit of analysis the houselot-the space where household members participated in activities related to reproduction, production, distribution and transmission. Despite the fact that households vary in size, form and function in the ethnographic record, their ubiquitousness in past and present societies across the world renders them a powerful analytical tool for the cross-cultural elucidation of economic and social processes. Since households are the result of adaptive domestic strategies to meet the needs of its members, they are measurable socioeconomic units of the larger community. At Chunchucmil domestic groups were incorporated in considerably different urban contexts through time and this diachronic study will characterize the evolution of Chunchucmil's domestic life during the Classic period (A.D. 300-1000), by using several complimentary lines of evidence, namely the architectural, artifactual and soil chemical spatial patterning in houselots as well as the integration of the houselots in their contemporaneous settlement and built environment. Since domestic units are the basic units of society, this study attempts to evaluate changes occurring at the household as well as site level through time, as major modifications in the architectural arrangement and the use of space at the domestic level, and transformations of the settlement size, density, and configuration took place during the Classic period.
Finally, knowledge obtained from these investigations has been and will continue to be shared with the local Yucatec Maya communities that live around the archaeological site. Tours of the site and specifically of the excavated residential groups have been provided to adults and school children over the years and will continue to be offered. Posters and reports featuring this research will be made and distributed among the surrounding communities. Some posters, reports and a video, presenting earlier portions of this research, have already been given to the villages' authorities and schools. The results of this investigation will also be shared with the scientific community through presentations at annual archaeological and anthropological meetings and publication in academic journals. The creation of a website featuring the results of this research as well as investigations conducted by other researchers at Chunchucmil is currently underway. Moreover, undergraduate students from a variety of universities (US, Europe, and Mexico) have been trained over several field seasons at Chunchucmil in archaeological field methods and research.
