Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Role Of Spatial Clustering In Group Organization

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Daniela Triadan, Melissa Burham will investigate the social and spatial organization of ancient Maya cities through time. Many scholars have focused on evidence from the center of Maya cities, households and settlement patterns to understand social and political organization. However, in complex, urbanized societies, social groups such as neighborhoods, districts and local communities, develop at levels between the household, the city, and the state. These were important spheres of social reproduction and negotiation both in the past and present, and help to unify different groups of people into cohesive social, economic and political systems. Archaeology is well placed to study how diverse groups formed in the past, and how they articulated with the larger society through time. Burham's project contributes to a growing body of research on intermediate-level groups by focusing on the interactions that fostered local identities, which may have included ritual practices, co-residence, and the management of communal resources, like water. By looking at developments over a time span of almost 2000 years, this project investigates the nature of early urbanization and explores how early complexity shaped later society. Furthermore, by studying the role of water management in social integration, this project carries implications for understanding sustainability and resource management in urban landscapes, both past and present. Burham's work provides methodological and theoretical approaches for studying different levels of community organization, and hence offers new insights into the development of urbanism and social complexity in ancient societies. Burham's research is part of the Ceibal-Petexbatun Archaeological Project, which consists of an international team of collaborators directed by Dr. Takeshi Inomata and Dr. Daniela Triadan. Ceibal, located in Guatemala, had an extensive occupation from the Middle Preclassic through the Terminal Classic periods (ca. 1000 BC-AD 900), and appears to have had a well-structured city plan. It is therefore an ideal case to study the spatial and social organization of people living in outlying areas through time. Burham's project focuses on minor temple groups, which are located at regular intervals in outlying residential areas. Many researchers have suggested minor temples were important integrative hubs in lowland Maya settlements. Building on these perspectives, this project investigates minor ceremonial groups, how the people living near them related to the temples and to each other, and how the practices and social relations undertaken at the temples influenced the larger sociopolitical order. Minor temples were likely the physical and ideological centers of local communities at Ceibal. Although they may have been discrete social units, the formation of these groups was crucial to shaping and sustaining the larger society, especially as populations increased and social hierarchies became more pronounced. Focusing on evidence from five minor temple complexes and the residential structures surrounding them, this project assesses the degree and nature of social integration of local communities by examining whether they were: 1) arranged into spatially-distinct zones and organized in association with at least one temple; 2) had a source of water within each zone that supported the local community population; and 3) had a distinct pattern of material culture within each zone, resulting from similar access to or preferences for certain goods. An examination of multiple lines of evidence over a large time span provides a basis to better understand the formation of intermediate social groups, and for exploring how community organization may have changed throughout Ceibal's history.