Under the direction of Dr. E. Wyllys Andrews, Mr Clifford T. Brown will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will conduct excavation and survey at the Post Classic Mayan site of Mayapan which is located in Yucatan, Mexico. His project builds on previous work at the site which resulted in extensive mapping and excavation. This has shown that Mayapan was a very large and very densely settled community surrounded by a massive wall over 9 km long. Outside the ceremonial center of the site, several thousand structures, the majority of them apparently residential in function, have been located. These appear to be subdivided into geographicaly distinct groups. Mr. Brown will excavate in carefully selected areas of the site in an attempt to understand spatial patterning in artifact type. He will dig in 2 meter squares and collect what are likely to be large samples of ceramics, stone tools and faunal remains. Because of their plastic nature, ceramics are often reveal fine levels of stylistic variation. Mayapan is particularly important because early Spanish settlers described the site and Yucatec-language documents are also available. These sources will aid significantly in the interpretation of the archaeological data. Mr. Brown wishes to understand how large Mayan sites such as Mayapan functioned. How were large numbers of people subdivided into smaller groups, what patterns of interaction were observed and how were people governed? While much work has been conducted on the impressive ceremonial centers at Mayan sites very little is known about how communities functioned. On the basis of historic documents Mr. Brown has formulated a series of hypotheses and the archaeological materials to be collected will provide the data to test them. This research is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to a large number of archaeologists. It will shed new light on the emergence of complex societies and will assist in the training of a promising young scientist.
