Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Communal Feasting and the Social Order at Late Classic El Coyote, Northwestern Honduras

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Ben Nelson, Mr. Christian Wells will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will continue ongoing archaeological research at the prehispanic site of El Coyote, located in the Cacaulapa Valley of northwestern Honduras. This research will investigate the relationship between community feasting and the political organization of the polity that formed and collapsed between the seventh and tenth centuries AD. Archaeologists wish to understand the processes that integrate and differentiate individuals in ancient communities, with the greater goal of reconstructing past systems of government and their effects on the growth and change of societies. Mr. Wells' previous excavations in the main civic-ceremonial plaza at the site have revealed abundant evidence for food production and consumption on a large scale, suggesting that communal feasts were a central practice in the rulership of El Coyote. Such events would have served as a mechanism for polity integration, as well as a context in which exotic items were publicly displayed to enhance the social prestige and political authority of local leaders. With NSF support, Mr. Wells' doctoral dissertation research will examine the organization of feasting in the plaza, including what material culture was employed, where food consumption took place in relation to the temples that delimit the plaza, and which social segments of the polity participated. His research will incorporate archaeological excavation of the plaza and adjacent buildings, as well as trash middens that accumulated on the margins of the plaza. In addition, he will chemically characterize soil samples from the plaza to study the distribution of phosphorous and heavy metals, which will indicate the locations of activity areas. His research will also examine the composition of ceramic vessel remains from the trash areas in order to illuminate the different social groups that participated in plaza-oriented activities. Archaeologists are interested in the practice of feasting and the social relations that are reproduced during feasts. The examination of material culture and soil chemistry at El Coyote is a direct method for the study of this phenomenon, and will yield new information on the organization of feasting in ancient complex societies and the degree to which this practice was involved in the political and economic administration of El Coyote. In addition, the research will enhance our knowledge of the material signatures of feasting in the archaeological record and will assist in training a promising young scientist.