This dissertation is a palynological examination of the Mayan archaeological site at Blue Creek, northwestern Belize. This study uncovers more than 4,500 years of environmental and agricultural history of the region, which can be related to human incursion, habitation and plant use, abandonment, and reoccupation of the region. After an historical and ecological overview of the study site, there follows an explanation of procedures for collecting, sampling, processing, identifying, and counting the fossil pollen from the area. Evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and physical anthropology is used to construct a model for the first entry of humans into the Maya area. Examinations are made of Archaic Period paleoecology and the cultural developments that set the stage for the advancement of Maya culture. Next, the physical environment of Blue Creek is explored, and its stability is assessed. This information leads to an assessment of the possibility of drought or soil degradation during the height of Mayan civilization, and contributes to the current understanding of the Maya Collapse at Blue Creek. Mayan agricultural methodologies are explained, and the changes to traditional production systems that resulted from European colonization are described. A model of agricultural development is proposed. The plant taxa identified in the Laguna Verde pollen core are listed and described. Finally, the Laguna Verde pollen core is interpreted in terms of the vegetation associations and environmental conditions represented by each stratum. This dissertation is a palynological examination of the Mayan archaeological site at Blue Creek, northwestern Belize. This study uncovers more than 4,500 years of environmental and agricultural history of the region, which can be related to human incursion, habitation and plant use, abandonment, and reoccupation of the region. After an historical and ecological overview of the study site, there follows an explanation of procedures for collecting, sampling, processing, identifying, and counting the fossil pollen from the area. Evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and physical anthropology is used to construct a model for the first entry of humans into the Maya area. Examinations are made of Archaic Period paleoecology and the cultural developments that set the stage for the advancement of Maya culture. Next, the physical environment of Blue Creek is explored, and its stability is assessed. This information leads to an assessment of the possibility of drought or soil degradation during the height of Mayan civilization, and contributes to the current understanding of the Maya Collapse at Blue Creek. Mayan agricultural methodologies are explained, and the changes to traditional production systems that resulted from European colonization are described. A model of agricultural development is proposed. The plant taxa identified in the Laguna Verde pollen core are listed and described. Finally, the Laguna Verde pollen core is interpreted in terms of the vegetation associations and environmental conditions represented by each stratum.

The archaeological remains at Hacienda Tabi provide an opportunity to study the effects of large-scale societal changes on the lives of the Maya who worked on the hacienda. The households, represented by the ruins of the worker’s village surrounding the main hacienda grounds, were at the core of late colonial/independence era Maya life. These households were subject to the forces of acculturation that accompanied the rise and supremacy of the hacienda system during the late eighteenth century. Archaeological excavations at Hacienda Tabi have revealed a re-orientation of social organization during this period. Prior to the formation of the hacienda system, domestic and social organization focused on kinship and extended family subsistence organization. Social status, wealth, and power in pre-hacienda communities were predicated on issues of age, sex, and familial rank within both the extended family and community. The hacienda system brought about fundamental changes in the organization and relations of production. These changes, e.g. the separation of producer from the means of production and commodity based production versus subsistence based production, changed the basis and therefore the form of Yucatecan social organization. Under the new system, the nuclear family rather than the extended family or community became the prime unit of social organization. In the hacienda community status was based on occupation and one’s place within the newly established labor hierarchy. The changing realities of social organization found under the hacienda system are reflected in the settlement patterns and material remains of the workers’ village at Hacienda Tabi. The material culture and types of housing excavated and recorded at Tabi underscore the inequalities engendered within the hacienda system of production. The research conducted at Hacienda Tabi has illuminated the changes associated with Yucatan’s articulation into the greater world system.

One shall not ignore the health, public sanitation and social problems due to excessive drinking. This is particularly serious in aboriginal people; the seriousness has caught attention of governments around the world. In Taiwan, we have policies asking aboriginal people to control drinking. However, the results are not satisfactory. The research focuses on the drinking control policy with good results in Namaxia Township in Kaohsiung County. The research evaluates the policy, Love of Maya, through quantified and qualitative studies in light of social psychology and public policies to understand the effective execution mechanism of Love of Maya¡XDrinking Control Program, in Namaxia Township in Kaohsiung County and meaning of public policy. To effectively correct and solve excessive drinking problem among aboriginal people has become an urgent issue now.

Th.--Paris 1. / Bibliogr. p. 253-268.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-225). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (B.S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2009. / Also available online. Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-36).

This thesis analyzes the process of abandonment of the El Diablo group located in the site of El Zotz in Petén, Guatemala. I use the study of the process of abandonment applied often by anthropologists and archaeologists as a model to understand how societies abandon cities, towns and small villages. In this thesis, I begin by trying to understand the history of the group. Based on data collected during three seasons of the El Zotz Archaeological Project, I established that the El Diablo group was a Civic-Ceremonial compound, which was started during the beginning of the Early Classic period (250 to 450 AD). After two hundred years of success the civic and ceremonial compound of El Diablo was abandoned. In my research, I conclude that abandonment of the group occurred approximately at the end of the Early Classic period (400 to 450 AD) and that this process was a planned decision made by the elite of El Zotz. / text

Outward Appearance, Inward Perceptions: Preservation of Identity among K’ichee’ Women offers a look into the changing patterns of identity and regional Maya clothing among the female members of a rural K’ichee’ Maya municipality located in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. It provides a brief framework of the history and importance of Maya clothing in Guatemala as well as in the context of the rural Maya community. Building upon a loose theoretical framework based on works by Irma Otzoy (1992, 1996a, 1996b), Clifford Geertz (1997), and Paul Connerton (1989), the current study was aimed at examining the connections that exist between one municipality’s female regional style of clothing and the redefining of sacred spaces for cultural and identity preservation and an analysis of historical memory related to material culture. This descriptive study was conducted among a sample of K’ichee’ Maya women (N=18) over a two month period in 2010. Qualitative data were collected using an open-ended semi-structured interview guide. Major themes that emerged from the data were the vital roles that female community members play in the preservation of local culture and the changing and adaptive nature of material culture. The findings suggest that local identities and culture change alongside the changes occurring in municipal traje use, and pride and respect for local origins is preserved through performative ritual / text

No description available.

The Classic Maya site of Piedras Negras is a located at the western edge of El Peten, Guatemala. Beginning in about A.D. 650 the ceramics of Piedras began to undergo a period of rapid and profound changes that culminated in the development of a distinct regional polychrome style distinguished by the use of an elaborate resist and resist-reserve technique with few analogs elsewhere in the Maya Lowlands.At most Classic Maya sites, the development of a regional ceramic style involved the elaboration of known and widely practiced decorative techniques, such as positive painting. At Piedras Negras, Guatemala, however, this development was manifested by the creation of a distinct tradition emphasizing the use of an elaborate true resist technique. Because the development of this style was the result of new technological practices, rather than the elaboration of extant styles, we are allowed a unique perspective on material culture change. Rather than invoking rational, deterministic explanations to account for the transformations visible in the Piedras Negras ceramics, change is framed primarily as a social phenomena whose study requires a uniquely historical, social, and cultural point of view.