With National Science Foundation funding, Dr. Timothy Pugh and a team of international scholars will investigate the creation of political power and the flow of valued goods among the Itza, the last independent Maya kingdom, during initial contact with the Spanish and subsequent colonialism. This research will involve two seasons of archaeological excavation and laboratory analysis in Petén, Guatemala. Team members will include professors and students from the United States and Guatemala.
This project will illuminate the roles of, and reactions to objects appropriated in situations of cultural contact and how, over time, these roles/reactions relate to social value and power. The Petén is a particularly good place to study these issues since its Maya inhabitants were able to successfully deter Spanish incursion, while adopting some European material culture far longer than other Maya groups. Items produced by Colonial powers and traded into groups unaccustomed to them are frequently appropriated initially as highly valued objects of political and religious power for the receivers. As time passes and the relations between the intruders and the indigenous populations become closer and intermeshed, the roles of appropriated objects likewise change. The project will investigate these complex changes in power relations as they are manifest in material culture using Spanish-Maya contact at the lowland Itza Maya sites of Tayasal and Nixtun-Ch'ich', Guatemala, as a case studies. The project will explore the shifting role of European material culture in the Itza socio-political system from the Contact period (A.D. 1525-1697) through the early Spanish Colonial period (A.D. 1697-1750), and the effect of Spanish conquest and subsequent colonialism upon Maya social organization and political power.
Through the examination of the practices of restriction and redistribution of European items, the work will illuminate something of the value of these objects. The study of restrictions of use and redistribution by Maya elite of iron, glass, and other European objects will reveal how colonial objects can be strategically appropriated and rejected in the course of contact. The examination of social restrictions will inevitably tell us something about gender relations in the stream of colonial process, as we know that the Spaniards gave many of these items to women. The project will reveal the hierarchies of power and their transformations over the course of contact and conquest.
The research will make a number of broader impacts including the training of both U.S. and Guatemalan students. Dr. Pugh has a longstanding relationship with Centro Universitario del Petén (CUDEP) and will support CUDEP students' efforts to complete research practicums and theses at various levels. This particular impact is critical as students from Petén do not have the resources to undertake and complete their research without external collaborations. Graduate students from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and other universities will also be supported and will conduct research leading to graduate degrees.
Pathways of Power and the Colonial Process in Petén, Guatemala (NSF Grant BCS 0917918) directed by Timothy Pugh of Queens College investigated the transformations in value that occur when distinct cultures come into contact with special interest in colonial interactions. In this context, "value" refers to both economic value and the value of political and religious objects. Cross-cultural examination of cultural contact suggests some general patterns in the appropriation and redistribution of exotic goods by social elites. Foreign goods are frequently restricted and initially incorporated into ritual practices as sacred items and they may be spread through ritualized gift exchange. Restriction and sacredness vary through time due to saturation as well as local events such as rebellion and revitalization. When foreign items are appropriated as power objects, they often displace existing systems of value. The research supported by the National Science Foundation examined such transformations in meaning and value using the Itza Maya of 15th-19th century Guatemala (Figure 1) as a case study. The project investigated this issue through historical research and archaeological excavations at the site of Tayasal in Petén, Guatemala. Tayasal is located on a peninsula across a narrow channel from modern Flores, Guatemala, the departmental capital of Petén (Figure 2). Flores stands on the ruins of the Itza capital, Nojpeten. Hence, Tayasal rested in the core of the Itza kingdom adjacent to the capital—both before and after the Spanish conquest. It is an ideal location to investigate the Itza, as much of Tayasal has been spared from modern construction. Our excavations at Tayasal revealed that the site contained substantial settlement dated to between the 15th and 19th centuries. In particular, the work reveal two towns, one dated to the pre-conquest period (Group 23) and the other (San Bernabé) was established as a mission community after the conquest of the Itza in AD 1697. Contact period (AD 1525-1697) Group 23 contained a ceremonial group with various religious and political buildings. This area included a number of ceremonial artifacts such as ceramic incense burners. In addition, excavations revealed that the inhabitant had reset an earlier Terminal Classic period (A.D. 800-900) stela into one of the ceremonial buildings. Incense burners found adjacent to the stela indicate that it marked an important ceremonial space. A musket ball buried as an offering in a building near the stela indicated that Spanish objects played roles in central socio-religious rites. The ceremonial area was surrounded by Itza residences that were investigated by Yuko Shiratori, a CUNY graduate student partially funded by this NSF grant and an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant (NSF Grant BCS 1037927). This aspect of the larger project is investigating the domestic life of the Itza including diet, social organization, economic activities, and domestic ritual practices. With regard to the issue of interaction with the Spaniards, our preliminary analyses have revealed the presence of horse bones among the faunal remains and a kaolin pipe stem in Group 23. At San Bernabé, our excavations discovered a mission church and surrounding residences. The Spaniards established San Bernabé at the beginning of the 18th century in order to control Itza populations. Part of the church was destroyed by the construction of a modern road, but about half of the building remained at the time of the excavations. While it was not visible on the surface, we encountered some of its walls and 32 burials that had been interred in sepultures beneath the building’s floor. Almost all of the burials followed a 17th century Catholic pattern with the remains lying supine oriented east/west with the head to the west and the arms on the chest or abdomen (Figure 3). Besides the strict Christian ordering of the burials, we also encountered evidence of Maya rituals within the church including a Maya burial in a seated position and a number of Itza-style offerings. In the residential area of San Bernabé, excavations encountered evidence that most daily life continued as it had prior to the conquest; however; no burials were found in residences as was typical prior to the conquest. The recovery of Spanish coins revealed that the community was at least partially involved in a monetary economy (Figure 4). Evidence of "colonoware"—ceramics composed with indigenous paste, but in European forms—was also encountered. Ceramics provide a window into another "broker" between the Spaniards and the Itza: women. While elite males are frequently hailed as the mediums of interaction and appropriation of material culture, Itza women produced food for the Spaniards and some married Spaniards. Such women would have been gateways of interaction and the exchange of ideas. Spanish-style ceramics were also recovered (Figure 5). Besides furthering the understanding of the materiality of cultural contact, NSF Grant BCS 0917918 supported fieldwork opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and other universities in the United States and Guatemala.
