Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Development of Urban Structure and Government

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Adrian Chase, of Arizona State University, will undertake research to study the urban form created and used by the ancient Maya. Ancient Maya urbanism is characterized by large low-density cities covering up to two hundred square kilometers; some had populations of up to (and sometimes over) 100,000 people; all had a reliance on seasonal tropical rainfall for both agriculture and subsistence. While Maya rulers, mostly known from texts recorded on stone monument, reigned over Classic Period (550 CE - 900 CE) Maya cities and states, court officials and support staff likely handled day-to-day administrative tasks within these cities. The ancient Maya provide an excellent case study to review the role that both top-down (elite) and bottom-up (household) processes can impact the day-to-day governance of ancient cities. This research incorporates excavation at the Maya city of Caracol, Belize, one of the most well documented Maya cities, with data analyses to determine governance patterns. Maya cities, like Caracol, were designed to harvest rainfall for both sustenance and agriculture, but these aspects alone did not provide for the longevity of these ancient cities. Caracol itself also thrived for over one thousand years because of its social and political organization. Additional understanding of governance at Caracol will help elucidate how this city functioned, shed light on its longevity, and provide data appropriate for theoretical formulations and cross-cultural comparisons. Research at Caracol also involves cooperation between United States and Belizean citizens, as well as building and reinforcing positive international ties between both countries on a variety of levels that include hands-on undergraduate archaeological training. In this study, Adrian Chase assesses the degree to which aspects of the physical layout of a city (including the location of infrastructure, standardization of residential features, and neighborhood identity) provide practical proxies for identifying governance with Caracol, Belize as the test site location. Three datasets are used: 1) the distribution of urban service facility features around the city as a proxy for the degree of infrastructural power; 2) the degree of standardization of garden city features as a proxy for residential autonomy; and, 3) the patterning and distribution of ritual artifacts and their correlation with proposed neighborhoods as a proxy for the potential for collective action through neighborhood level identity. Through this research, concepts from more general urban theory in a variety of disciplines will be integrated with archaeological research through the operationalization of infrastructural power, household autonomy, and collective action at multiple scales of analysis: citywide, district, neighborhood, and plazuela household. Analysis of the built environment and archaeological material will augment the hieroglyphic narrative and provide a better understanding of the governance of a Late Classic Period Maya city. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.