Dear Prospective Volunteers and Students, Greetings! This web page will introduce you to the Belize Postclassic project and will provide you with some background information about our research history and interests. The 2002 Belize Postclassic Project will continue our investigations of the transformations of Maya society during and after the collapse of southern Maya city states during the 9th and 10th century A.D. The research will take place on the shores of Progresso Lagoon, an inland waterway located 12km from the Caribbean Sea in northern Belize. This summer we will work on house mound and ritual structures from the Terminal Classic and Colonial Periods. These domestic residences are spread throughout cane fields and resort shore-side properties along the 4km western shore of Progresso Lagoon. We will also perform archaeological survey to locate, record, and test the boundaries of the previously identified communities, and foci of the 2002 field research, the Terminal Classic site of Strathbogue, and the Colonial settlement of Chanlacan. The long term goal of this project is to reconstruct processes of social change and adaptation at the community level following episodic cultural upheaval and redefinition which coincided and followed the so-called "collapse" of Classic Maya civilization, when city state kingdoms dominated the political and economic landscape of northern Be3lize. Our research has demonstrated that while kingly centers indeed collapsed during the 9th century, northern Belize was a zone of thriving entrepreneural communities of craft specialists and merchants who capitalized on the fall of tyrannical regimes to create a new, mercantile society that was politically more decentralized. Additionally, this new society provided greater social and economic opportunities to all members of society through direct engagement in far-flung networks. This project began with the investigations of Laguna de On Island in 1991, 1996, and 1997. Laguna is a small, agrarian island village located on Honey Camp lagoon. Work at this site during 1996 and 1997, with the assistance of field school students and volunteers, revealed ways in which one village adapted to rapidly transforming Postclassic regional economic and political conditions. This research was performed to assess the transformations of society that followed the 9th and 10th century collapse of the Classic period kings, and the resiliency and survival of Postclassic farming populations is exemplified by the results obtained at Laguna de On, which grew prosperous during the five Postclassic centuries that it was occupied. The culture history and process of Postclassic Maya social change embraces fundamental issues of demography and ethnicity. Evidence for both continuity and change expressed at Laguna de On and other Postclassic sites evokes the issue of whether or not population replacement occurred. Investigations at individual sites, often located quite near one another, have resulted in conflicting interpretations. Foreign invasion and occupation has been interpreted for the sites of Nohmul (Chase and Chase 1982) and Colha (Hester 1985). The peaceful presence of foreign leaders tolerated by indigenous Maya groups is suggested by some sites in the Peten region of Guatemala (Rice 1986). Continuities in Classic-to-Postclassic occupations are implied at other sites such as Lamanai (Pendergast 1981, 1986), Santa Rita (Chase 1982, Chase and Chase 1988), Becan (Ball 1985), Cerros (Walker 1990), and Laguna de On (Masson 1993). These variable interpretations suggest that the effects of Classic-to-Postclassic changes are best evaluated from a representative sample of contemporary communities within a region. It is critical that this evaluation is performed by a single research project that will ensure the collection and analysis of data from each site in a consistent and comparable way. As the community emerged as a focal point for survival during the Colonial period (Farriss 1976) and remains so to the present day (Redfield 1941, 1962, Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934, Wolf 1959, Vogt 1976), it was probably also the most important social unit for Postclassic Maya society. The key to understanding post-collapse Maya strategies of survival thus lies in the careful documentation of variability and integration in community patterning. Accomplishing this comparative community analysis is the primary goal of the Belize Postclassic Project. In 1997 the project switched its emphasis from the analysis of a single community and time period (Laguna de On, Postclassic period) to the analysis of a set of communities (Laguna de On, Caye Coco Progresso Lagoon, and the Last Resort site [Laguna Seca], Strathbogue). While investigations came to focus on the Postclassic island community of Caye Coco, testing of contemporary shore occupations, and occupations dating the preceding and succeeding time periods, and even to the Archaic period were undertaken. It was not until the 1999 field season that more extensive testing of such occupations was initiated on the Shore. During the 2002 field season, the Belize Postclassic Project will focus all of its attention on the shore of Progresso Lagoon, at the Terminal Classic site Strathbogue site, and the Colonial period site of Chanlacan. Through the participation of volunteers and field school students, this research is created in the productive interchange and infusion of energy of individuals from diverse geographic and professional backgrounds. Interacting with such assistants who are eager to learn causes me to continually reflect about the significance and practical meaning of the archaeological research conducted by the Belize Postclassic Project. Past volunteers and students have helped us to enhance and refine our goals and the analysis and interpretations of this work. Our previous teams have provided the project with a global "network" and we stay in touch via ongoing e-mails, get-togethers, and the like. For 2002 we are putting together a project composed of staff archaeologists with various specialties, undergraduate students and volunteers, and we look forward to having you as part of the team. Together we will make singularly significant contributions to understanding the survival, adaptations, and cultural transformations and continuities of Terminal Classic and Colonial period Maya society. Best Regards, Marilyn Masson Principle Investigator/Assisstant Professor |