This interdisciplinary research project will focus on the impact of linguistic variation and social change on the evolution of ancient writing systems. Writing is one of the most important inventions in human history. It not only enables communication at much larger social scales than speech or sign-language, but it also facilitates the spread of complex messages among individuals separated in space and time. Writing also expands human memory, allowing for the accumulation and transmission of large amounts of cultural knowledge across many generations. These capabilities make writing one of the few truly transformative innovations in human history. Despite the significance of this technology, the development of writing and its impact on broader societal affairs remains poorly understood. This project will be undertaken by an interdisciplinary team from linguistics, art history, archaeology, and evolutionary anthropology. They will examine the role of linguistic and social factors in the development of Classic Maya writing (from roughly 250 to 900 AD), one of the best examples of a deciphered ancient script. They will address a set of fundamental questions related to key dimensions of ancient scripts: (1) the relationships between language evolution and the development of written communication systems, (2) the technological production of texts and the organization of scribal communities, and (3) the social and historical contexts of ancient writing traditions. Within each of these topics, they will evaluate a set of competing hypotheses by applying new analytical techniques from the social sciences and evolutionary biology to the Maya Hieroglyphic Database, a unique and comprehensive record of Classic Maya writing.
The project will produce important new insights into the relationships between cultural and linguistic diversity, population dynamics, and the development of complex human communication networks. The findings of this project will significantly refine basic understanding of the evolution of Classic Maya writing in terms of how the production and dissemination of texts and images influenced societal change. The project also will demonstrate the value of a powerful set of analytical techniques for studying the evolution of cultural traditions. A significant outcome of this project is a comprehensive digital record of Maya hieroglyphic texts, which will be made widely accessible on the Internet. This digital archive will appeal to the general public and to a broader scientific community, including native Maya speakers and indigenous scholars. New international partnerships among universities and disciplines will promote teaching, training, and collaboration among social scientists. The project will engage undergraduate and graduate students from multiple disciplines in collaborative research and in the conduct of new analytical techniques. Project findings and the data produced by the project will enhance general capabilities to understand the impact of linguistic, cultural, and historical factors on the development of human communication systems, topic with considerable societal relevance. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.
