Under the direction of Dr. Richard Leventhal Mr. Samuel Connell will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will continue a program of mapping and excavation at the archaeological site of Chaa Creek which is located in Belize near Xunantunich, a large and long-lived Mayan site. Extensive research at this latter indicates that it prospered until well after 900 AD, a significant fact because across much of lowland Middle America Mayan civilization began to collapse about 100 years before that. In his research Mr. Connell will focus on the relationship between Chaa Creek and Xunantunich to understand how interactions between the larger and smaller entity changed over this period and what light they may shed on Xunantunich's continuing viability. Chaa Creek forms a spatially bounded community with small house mounds as well as larger counterparts which contain stelae, large plazas and five meter high temple mounds. Mr. Connell will completely mapping surface features at the site to obtain an indication of overall size and density and to determine how these changed over time. He will also conduct extensive excavation on a sample of 30% of the Chaa Creek community sites. This will provide a strong representative sample and allow for excavations of multiple instances of each house type. Horizontal exposures will be large enough to trace the shape of individual units. Past work has indicated, the most commonly collected artifacts are pottery, lithics and spindle whorls and on the basis of these as well as house forms one can gain insight into the social and ideological organization of the community. It will also be possible to determine how these changed over time. Mr. Connell has utilized a sociological model which distinguishes between `mechanical` and `organic` forms of social organization. Because of the complementary nature of the constituent units, the latter form binds societies more tightly together and Mr. Connell argues that because of stresses imposed from the outside, the nature of ties between the larger and smaller sites changed from mechanical to organic during the Mayan collapse. This is a new and original way to view such archaeological data and the research is important not only because of the valuable information about Chaa Creek which will be provided but also because it will help to establish and evaluate a new and potentially useful analytical framework. It will also assist in training a promising young scientist.
