With National Science Foundation funding, Dr. Timothy W. Pugh and a team of international scholars will investigate how European trade goods that flowed into the Maya world transformed indigenous political systems before the Spanish conquest by weakening central authority and increasing factionization. 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.
Contact and colonialism are often imagined as indigenous vs. settler/colonist relationships, but cultural entanglements are rarely, if ever, so straightforward. Both native and interloper groups can include factions whose varied intentions play critical roles in the power relations that emerge during situations of contact. During such entanglements, factional struggles transcend boundaries, as factions compete with one another while possibly allied with outsiders. Competing factions have varied perspectives and goals in the aftermath of conquest. It is through such divergent objectives that one might gain a glimpse of the agency involved in the colonial process. This project will investigate these complex negotiations of power, as they are manifest in material culture at two sites in Petén, Guatemala: Nixtun-Ch'ich' and Muralla de Leon. The project will pay particular attention to 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 project will reveal how contact and conquest transforms internal social relations leading to factionization, the creation of new alliances, and transformation of power networks.
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 advanced research leading to graduate degrees. Qualified undergraduates from Queens College will also have the opportunity to participate in the project and learn about archaeological methods and research design.
