With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Keith Prufer and his team of colleagues will conduct three field seasons of archaeological research in southern Belize. The team brings together specialists in archaeology and epigraphy to examine geopolitical relationships between large and small Maya cities that flourished between 200 and 900 AD. The project will combine the analysis of the hieroglyphic texts with intensive archaeological survey and excavations at Uxbenka, a small Maya capital founded sometime before 500 AD. Uxbenka is the earliest known site in southern Belize, an agriculturally rich region and situated near to coastal and inland trade routes. It is also located between several larger political centers. Texts from the Uxbenka suggest that it maintained close political ties to the large urban center Tikal, though the exact nature of their relationship remains unclear.
Understanding how large and small centers interacted will contribute to knowledge of Maya political and economic organization. Competing models posit that large Maya polities functioned as central places and capitals, with coherent boundaries, holding sway over smaller centers or, alternately, that large and small Maya centers were, though economically integrated, politically autonomous rivals. More recent studies suggest that understanding geopolitical links and barriers also requires accommodating historical realities of rivalry and shifting relationships, and that single function models oversimplify prehistoric political landscapes. The project addresses several related sets of research questions. When first settled, what links did Uxbenka have with other regions? Did Uxbenka develop under the sway of Tikal, or did they merely emulate or memorialize historical figures or dynasties mentioned in native texts? Did the suspected relationship with Tikal continue to manifest itself as Uxbenka grew and interacted with other polities? Data from mapping, excavations, the analysis of ceramics and other artifacts, and architectural variation, combined with the study of hieroglyphic texts from the site, will illustrate Uxbenka's history and regional and long-distance economic and political ties over time.
This research addresses theoretical debates regarding culture contact and the difficulty of distinguishing between types of interregional interactions. The intellectual merit of this project is in its approach, which integrates archaeological and historical data to improve our understanding Maya settlement and interaction over time, and in its theoretical perspective, which recognizes that political and economic organization is often based on uneven and asymmetrical networks between competing groups, subject to change over time. The resulting data will have implications for understanding similar developments across the Maya area and for understanding the development, behavior, and functioning of early complex polities in general.
The broader impacts of this project are in education and community development. The results of this project will be disseminated widely to both scholars and the general public. The project will provide teaching, training, and learning opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Because Uxbenka is located in a modern Mayan community, the project will work closely with indigenous groups and the Belize government to insure that archaeological research and preservation activities benefit plans for co-managed sustainable development of the archaeological site.
