I am an interdisciplinary researcher in the impacts of global climate change on local cultural traditions. I have done considerable research on prehistoric and historic cultures around the Bermuda-Azores subtropical high in the Maya lowlands, southeastern United States of America, and southwestern Europe. I generally try to achieve a unity of perspective in global-local relations through factor and multiple regression analyses.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2009
Resumen: Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Ca... more Resumen: Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Calakmul adentro del Petén Campechano, ubicado unos 25 kms. al norte del centro regional de Calakmul. El Grupo Principal de Oxpemul está organizado sobre una meseta de 45.50 m de altura que forma su corte real con un patrón de asentamiento parecido a Calakmul y El Mirador. La Meseta Suroeste y otras más pequeñas están distribuidas alrededor del Bajo Central. Oxpemul incluye un total de 21 estelas con 18 altares, muchas de las estelas están de pie y muestran figuras humanas y textos jeroglíficos en buen estado de conservación. Varios de los altares también incluyen textos y uno muestra la figura de una deidad. Oxpemul está relacionado con 11 ejemplos de su glifo emblema en la forma de un "Trono de Piedra", uno fechado alrededor del Siglo Quinto. Se ha realizado un plano de 9 km 2 incluyendo su Grupo Principal y 1 400 estructuras que incluye varios grupos mayores y menores, además de aguadas, canales, albarradas, canteras y sascaberas.
Multiple approaches were used to investigate agricultural and forestry practices of the Preclassi... more Multiple approaches were used to investigate agricultural and forestry practices of the Preclassic Maya in the Petén Campechano, southwestern Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Palaeoenvironmental inferences were based on pollen and geochemical data from sediment cores collected in lakes Silvituc and Uxul, and the Oxpemul Reservoir. These water bodies are near three archaeological sites that supported agricultural activity between ca. 900 bc and ad 750. After ca. ad 500 the area was under the control of the Kaan Dynasty. These sites show patterns similar to those in sediments from Lake Petén Itzá, northern Guatemala, but they are different from records from the northeastern part of the Peninsula at Lake Chichancanab. Changes in the patterns of abundance, increase and decrease of maize pollen, relative to that of other crops (Cucurbitaceae and Chenopodiaceae) reflect changes with respect to their cultivation and importance. High clay and gypsum content in the sediments may be related to deforestation, agriculture, and intervals of greater rainfall. Changes in sediment elemental concentrations were associated with droughts and human activities during the Classic Period after ad 250. The Classic droughts were more severe and prolonged than those of the Preclassic and thus had a greater impact for inhabitants of the Petén Campechano. This led to a cultural collapse by the seventh century, whereas settlements farther north on the Yucatan Peninsula persisted until the tenth century. Gradually increasing precipitation during the Postclassic (ad 1350-1850), contemporary with the Little Ice Age (LIA), is consistent with the paleoclimate history of the Guatemalan Petén. The response of ecosystems to droughts revealed the water vulnerability of the region and its influence on the sustainability of Maya settlements.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2021
Información #9) superpuesto en un cuchillo de obsidiana hecho por Joel D. Gunn, PhD. durante la e... more Información #9) superpuesto en un cuchillo de obsidiana hecho por Joel D. Gunn, PhD. durante la escuela de campo Don Crabtree Lithics 1972 patrocinada por NSF: Glas Butes Oregón obsidiana basal con muesca, atado con cuero crudo, mango de abedul negro.
IHOPE-Maya se inició en 2009 en el Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Santa Fe y formó una red d... more IHOPE-Maya se inició en 2009 en el Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Santa Fe y formó una red de investigación laxa volviendo a convocar de manera irregular para talleres y reuniones. Tras la reunión de Santa Fe, se procedió a recoger un conjunto uniforme de datos para su evaluación por el Análisis de Componentes Principales (PCA) (Gunn y IHOPE-Maya-Members 2010, Gunn et al 2016) y se compiló una simulación de recursos básicos y procesos sociales (Heckbert 2013, Heckbert et al. 2016). En 2014 Miller y Morissette (2014) publicaron un artículo en Ecología y Sociedad que sugiere que el desarrollo de la ciencia de inteligencia procesable para el beneficio de los tomadores de decisiones frente a los desafíos globales, requiere el análisis de datos, simulación y construcción de escenarios que involucre a las partes interesadas. Este ha sido el objetivo de largo plazo de la organización IHOPE a nivel mundial, por lo que decidimos tomar algún tiempo para evaluar nuestros esfuerzos en relación con sus sugerencias y utilizar los resultados para futuros planes.
Research Reports, which record research conducted at IIASA, are independently reviewed before pub... more Research Reports, which record research conducted at IIASA, are independently reviewed before publication. Views or opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Institute, its National Member Organizations, or other organizations supporting the work. Copyright c 2000 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. Cover design by Anka James. Printed by Remaprint, Vienna.
The critical importance of water is undeniable. It is particularly vital in semitropical regions ... more The critical importance of water is undeniable. It is particularly vital in semitropical regions with noticeable wet and dry seasons, such as the southern Maya lowlands. Not enough rain results in decreasing water supply and quality, failed crops, and famine. Too much water results in flooding, destruction, poor water quality, and famine. We show not only how Classic Maya (ca. A.D. 250-950) society dealt with the annual seasonal extremes, but also how kings and farmers responded differently in the face of a series of droughts in the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 800-950). Maya farmers are still around today; kings, however, disappeared over 1,000 years ago. There is a lesson here on how people and water managers responded to long-term climate change, something our own society faces at present. The basis for royal power rested in what kings provided their subjects materially-that is, water during annual drought via massive artificial reservoirs, and spiritually-that is, public ceremonies, games, festivals, feasts, and other integrative activities. In the face of rulers losing their powers due to drought, people left. Without their labor, support and services, the foundation of royal power crumbled; it was too inflexible and little suited to adapting to change.
The world is urbanizing most rapidly in tropical to sub-temperate areas and in coastal zones. Cli... more The world is urbanizing most rapidly in tropical to sub-temperate areas and in coastal zones. Climate change along with other global change forcings will diminish the opportunities for sustainability of cities, especially in coastal areas in low-income countries. Climate forcings include global temperature and heatwave increases that are expanding the equatorial tropical belt, sea-level rise, an increase in the frequency of the most intense tropical cyclones, both increases and decreases in freshwater inputs to coastal zones, and increasingly severe extreme precipitation events, droughts, freshwater shortages, heat waves, and wildfires. Current climate impacts are already strongly influencing natural and human systems. Because of proximity to several key warming variables such as sea-level rise and increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, coastal cities are a leading indicator of what may occur worldwide. Climate change alone will diminish the sustainability and resilience o...
Understanding how exchange networks vary through time can provide important insights into the nat... more Understanding how exchange networks vary through time can provide important insights into the nature and extent of political control. In the Maya Lowlands, the political and economic spheres of ancient polities tend to overlap because elites sought to administer the movement of goods within their territories. We use data on the distribution of obsidian, jade, ceramics, and other commodities to reconstruct patterns of long-distance trade in the Elevated Interior Region. We suggest possible routes based on least-cost path analysis and integrate them into our analysis of the political economy. Finally, we discuss the relevance of data on long-distance exchange for studying the shifting political organization of the region.
The integration of feedbacks between Holocene planetary history and human development benefits fr... more The integration of feedbacks between Holocene planetary history and human development benefits from a change in perspective that focusses on socio-historical periods of stability separated by global-scale events, which we call foundational transitions or bottlenecks. Transitions are caused by social and/or astronomical and biogeophysical events such as volcanoes, changes in solar emissions, climate change such as sea-level/ice volume conditions, biogeochemical and ecological changes, and major social and technical innovations. We present a global-scale cultural chronology that accounts for major changes generated by such events in the late Pleistocene and Holocene. These changes are governed by transitions that make energy more or less available to human groups. The chronology is followed by methodologies to incorporate the innate, Malthusian-Darwinian human tendency to grow systems over time into a helical-feedback equation that provides for testing the hypothesis. A proof of concept test of these ideas using information system-based data from the Maya lowlands in conjunction with other civilizations suggests a troubled transition for the current worldwide economic system because of potentially catastrophic climate impacts and resource constraints on biogeophysicalsocial resilience in the face of obvious needs of the system to change to a more sustainable mode of acquiring energy. The Maya case implies that change is more likely to transpire because of planetary-scale disturbances/constraints in the Earth (human and planetary) system and will likely lead to strong social disruptions. There may be as many as 200 such case studies to test this idea worldwide. Our analysis suggests that a transition toward sustainability for the current energy dense globalized industrial society will be very difficult.
Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State, 1982
No. 5 (1977) Hop Hill: Culture and Climatic Change in Central Texas. By Joel Gunn and Royce Mahul... more No. 5 (1977) Hop Hill: Culture and Climatic Change in Central Texas. By Joel Gunn and Royce Mahula. Photocopy reprints available. $18.00 + .99 tax for Texas residents. No. 6 (1978) Volume l; Background to the Archaeology of Chaparrosa Ranch, Southern Texas. Studies in the Archaeology of Chaparrosa Ranch. By Thomas R. Hester. $4.00 + .22 tax for Texas residents. No. 7 No. 8 (1979) No. 9 (1980) No. 10 (1 980) No. 11 (1 980) Volume 2; The Mariposa Site: A Late Prehistoric Site on the Rio Grande Plain of Texas. Studies in the Archaeology of Chaparrosa Ranch. By John Montgomery. $8.00 + .44 tax for Texas residents. The Study of Biosilica: Reconstructing the Paleoenvironment of the Central Coastal Plain of Texas. By Ralph L. Robinson. Not available.
We report a study of central Maya lowland dynastic information networks, i.e., six cities' extern... more We report a study of central Maya lowland dynastic information networks, i.e., six cities' external elite ceramic influences, and how they reflect the decision-making practices of Maya elites over 3000 years. Forest cover, i.e., Moraceae family pollen, was added to the network analysis to provide ecological boundary conditions, thus ecologically moderated information networks. Principal components analysis revealed three dominant patterns. First, the networking of interior cities into powerful polities in the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (400 BCE-800 CE). In a second pattern, coastal cities emerged as key entrepôts based on marine navigation (Terminal and Postclassic periods, 800-1500 CE). Climate dynamics and sustainability considerations facilitated the transition. Forest cover, a measure of ecosystem health, shows interior forests diminished as interior cities networked but rebounded as their networks declined. By contrast, coastal forests flourished with networks implying that the marine-based economy was sustainable. Third, in the Classic, the network-dominant coast, west or east, changed with interior polities' political struggles, the critical transition occurring after 695 CE as Tikal gained dominance over the Calakmul-Caracol alliance. Beginning with the Late Preclassic about 2000 years ago, it is possible to assign names to the decision makers by referencing the growing literature on written Maya records. Although the detectable decision sequence evident in this analysis is very basic, we believe it does open possible avenues to much deeper understanding as the study proceeds into the future. The Integrated History and Future of People on Earth-Maya working group that sponsored the analysis anticipates that it will provide actionable social science intelligence for future decision making at the global scale.
Preliminary analysis of the large and somewhat atypical Pueblo III basketry assemblage from Antel... more Preliminary analysis of the large and somewhat atypical Pueblo III basketry assemblage from Antelope House suggests the possibility of isolating individual basketmakers and groups of basketmakers within the Antelope House population. Observations are offered on the methodology of distinguishing individual basket- ,-makers at this site. The assemblage as a unit is compared to other Pueblo III basketry collections. Article: Some 469 specimens of basketry were recovered during the excavations of Antelope House. In the present context, the term basketry encompasses several distinct kinds of items, including rigid and semi-rigid containers or baskets proper, matting, bags, and a variety of miscellaneous fiber constructions, including figure-eight braiding, three and four strand braiding, etc. Matting includes items which essentially are two dimensional or flat, while baskets are three dimensional. Bags may be viewed as intermediate forms because they are two dimensional when empty and three dimensional when filled. As Driver (1961:159) points out, these artifacts may be treated as a unit because the overall technique of manufacture is the same in all instances. Specifically, all forms of basketry are woven manually, without any frame or loom. Since all basketry is woven, it technically is a class or variety of textile, though that term sometimes is restricted to cloth fabrics. The basketry recovered at Antelope House includes representatives of the three major subclasses of basketry weaves; coiling (Figure 1), twining, and plaiting (Figure 2) (Adovasio 1974). Plaiting is by far the most abundant subclass of basketry (301 specimens) present, followed by coiling (60 specimens) and twining (19 specimens). The remaining basketry items (89 specimens) are assigned to the "miscellaneous" category. Since the Antelope House coiled basketry as a subclass appears to possess a greater number of highly standardized, culturally determined, technical attributes than any other subclass, the remainder of this article will treat the coiling industry at that site. THE COILING INDUSTRY Coiling denotes a subclass of basket weaves manufactured by sewing stationary horizontal elements with moving vertical elements. The Antelope House coiled basketry assemblage includes 60 specimens allocated to 10 major structural types, some with minor subtypes based on the kind of basket wall or foundation technique utilized and the type of stitch employed. Further, all specimens were analyzed, where feasible, for type of rim finish, acting decorative patterns and mechanics, form wear patterns, possible function and type of splice. Dimensional measurements were taken on all complete specimens and four sets of motor skill measurements were taken on all complete specimens and structurally intact fragments. The motor skill measurements include width of stitch, width of coil, stitches per centimeter, and coils per centimeter.
Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Calakmul ad... more Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Calakmul adentro del Petén Campechano, ubicado unos 25 kms. al norte del centro regional de Calakmul. El grupo Principal de Oxpemul está organizado sobre una meseta de 45.50 m de altura que forma su corte real con un patrón de asentamiento parecido a Calakmul y El Mirador. La Meseta Suroeste y otras más pequeñas están distribuidas alrededor del Bajo central. Oxpemul incluye un total de 21 estelas con 18 altares, muchas d elas estelas están de pie y muestran figuras humanas y textos jeroglíficos en buen estado de conservación. Varios de los altares también incluyen textos y uno muestra la figura de una deidad. Oxpemul está relacionado con 11 ejemplos de su glifo emblema en la forma de un "Trono de Piedra", uno fechado alrededor del Siglo Quinto. Se ha realizado un plano de 9 km2 incluyendo su Grupo Principal y 1400 estructuras que incluye varios grupos mayores y menores, además de aguadas,...
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2009
Resumen: Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Ca... more Resumen: Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Calakmul adentro del Petén Campechano, ubicado unos 25 kms. al norte del centro regional de Calakmul. El Grupo Principal de Oxpemul está organizado sobre una meseta de 45.50 m de altura que forma su corte real con un patrón de asentamiento parecido a Calakmul y El Mirador. La Meseta Suroeste y otras más pequeñas están distribuidas alrededor del Bajo Central. Oxpemul incluye un total de 21 estelas con 18 altares, muchas de las estelas están de pie y muestran figuras humanas y textos jeroglíficos en buen estado de conservación. Varios de los altares también incluyen textos y uno muestra la figura de una deidad. Oxpemul está relacionado con 11 ejemplos de su glifo emblema en la forma de un "Trono de Piedra", uno fechado alrededor del Siglo Quinto. Se ha realizado un plano de 9 km 2 incluyendo su Grupo Principal y 1 400 estructuras que incluye varios grupos mayores y menores, además de aguadas, canales, albarradas, canteras y sascaberas.
Multiple approaches were used to investigate agricultural and forestry practices of the Preclassi... more Multiple approaches were used to investigate agricultural and forestry practices of the Preclassic Maya in the Petén Campechano, southwestern Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Palaeoenvironmental inferences were based on pollen and geochemical data from sediment cores collected in lakes Silvituc and Uxul, and the Oxpemul Reservoir. These water bodies are near three archaeological sites that supported agricultural activity between ca. 900 bc and ad 750. After ca. ad 500 the area was under the control of the Kaan Dynasty. These sites show patterns similar to those in sediments from Lake Petén Itzá, northern Guatemala, but they are different from records from the northeastern part of the Peninsula at Lake Chichancanab. Changes in the patterns of abundance, increase and decrease of maize pollen, relative to that of other crops (Cucurbitaceae and Chenopodiaceae) reflect changes with respect to their cultivation and importance. High clay and gypsum content in the sediments may be related to deforestation, agriculture, and intervals of greater rainfall. Changes in sediment elemental concentrations were associated with droughts and human activities during the Classic Period after ad 250. The Classic droughts were more severe and prolonged than those of the Preclassic and thus had a greater impact for inhabitants of the Petén Campechano. This led to a cultural collapse by the seventh century, whereas settlements farther north on the Yucatan Peninsula persisted until the tenth century. Gradually increasing precipitation during the Postclassic (ad 1350-1850), contemporary with the Little Ice Age (LIA), is consistent with the paleoclimate history of the Guatemalan Petén. The response of ecosystems to droughts revealed the water vulnerability of the region and its influence on the sustainability of Maya settlements.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2021
Información #9) superpuesto en un cuchillo de obsidiana hecho por Joel D. Gunn, PhD. durante la e... more Información #9) superpuesto en un cuchillo de obsidiana hecho por Joel D. Gunn, PhD. durante la escuela de campo Don Crabtree Lithics 1972 patrocinada por NSF: Glas Butes Oregón obsidiana basal con muesca, atado con cuero crudo, mango de abedul negro.
IHOPE-Maya se inició en 2009 en el Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Santa Fe y formó una red d... more IHOPE-Maya se inició en 2009 en el Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Santa Fe y formó una red de investigación laxa volviendo a convocar de manera irregular para talleres y reuniones. Tras la reunión de Santa Fe, se procedió a recoger un conjunto uniforme de datos para su evaluación por el Análisis de Componentes Principales (PCA) (Gunn y IHOPE-Maya-Members 2010, Gunn et al 2016) y se compiló una simulación de recursos básicos y procesos sociales (Heckbert 2013, Heckbert et al. 2016). En 2014 Miller y Morissette (2014) publicaron un artículo en Ecología y Sociedad que sugiere que el desarrollo de la ciencia de inteligencia procesable para el beneficio de los tomadores de decisiones frente a los desafíos globales, requiere el análisis de datos, simulación y construcción de escenarios que involucre a las partes interesadas. Este ha sido el objetivo de largo plazo de la organización IHOPE a nivel mundial, por lo que decidimos tomar algún tiempo para evaluar nuestros esfuerzos en relación con sus sugerencias y utilizar los resultados para futuros planes.
Research Reports, which record research conducted at IIASA, are independently reviewed before pub... more Research Reports, which record research conducted at IIASA, are independently reviewed before publication. Views or opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Institute, its National Member Organizations, or other organizations supporting the work. Copyright c 2000 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. Cover design by Anka James. Printed by Remaprint, Vienna.
The critical importance of water is undeniable. It is particularly vital in semitropical regions ... more The critical importance of water is undeniable. It is particularly vital in semitropical regions with noticeable wet and dry seasons, such as the southern Maya lowlands. Not enough rain results in decreasing water supply and quality, failed crops, and famine. Too much water results in flooding, destruction, poor water quality, and famine. We show not only how Classic Maya (ca. A.D. 250-950) society dealt with the annual seasonal extremes, but also how kings and farmers responded differently in the face of a series of droughts in the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 800-950). Maya farmers are still around today; kings, however, disappeared over 1,000 years ago. There is a lesson here on how people and water managers responded to long-term climate change, something our own society faces at present. The basis for royal power rested in what kings provided their subjects materially-that is, water during annual drought via massive artificial reservoirs, and spiritually-that is, public ceremonies, games, festivals, feasts, and other integrative activities. In the face of rulers losing their powers due to drought, people left. Without their labor, support and services, the foundation of royal power crumbled; it was too inflexible and little suited to adapting to change.
The world is urbanizing most rapidly in tropical to sub-temperate areas and in coastal zones. Cli... more The world is urbanizing most rapidly in tropical to sub-temperate areas and in coastal zones. Climate change along with other global change forcings will diminish the opportunities for sustainability of cities, especially in coastal areas in low-income countries. Climate forcings include global temperature and heatwave increases that are expanding the equatorial tropical belt, sea-level rise, an increase in the frequency of the most intense tropical cyclones, both increases and decreases in freshwater inputs to coastal zones, and increasingly severe extreme precipitation events, droughts, freshwater shortages, heat waves, and wildfires. Current climate impacts are already strongly influencing natural and human systems. Because of proximity to several key warming variables such as sea-level rise and increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, coastal cities are a leading indicator of what may occur worldwide. Climate change alone will diminish the sustainability and resilience o...
Understanding how exchange networks vary through time can provide important insights into the nat... more Understanding how exchange networks vary through time can provide important insights into the nature and extent of political control. In the Maya Lowlands, the political and economic spheres of ancient polities tend to overlap because elites sought to administer the movement of goods within their territories. We use data on the distribution of obsidian, jade, ceramics, and other commodities to reconstruct patterns of long-distance trade in the Elevated Interior Region. We suggest possible routes based on least-cost path analysis and integrate them into our analysis of the political economy. Finally, we discuss the relevance of data on long-distance exchange for studying the shifting political organization of the region.
The integration of feedbacks between Holocene planetary history and human development benefits fr... more The integration of feedbacks between Holocene planetary history and human development benefits from a change in perspective that focusses on socio-historical periods of stability separated by global-scale events, which we call foundational transitions or bottlenecks. Transitions are caused by social and/or astronomical and biogeophysical events such as volcanoes, changes in solar emissions, climate change such as sea-level/ice volume conditions, biogeochemical and ecological changes, and major social and technical innovations. We present a global-scale cultural chronology that accounts for major changes generated by such events in the late Pleistocene and Holocene. These changes are governed by transitions that make energy more or less available to human groups. The chronology is followed by methodologies to incorporate the innate, Malthusian-Darwinian human tendency to grow systems over time into a helical-feedback equation that provides for testing the hypothesis. A proof of concept test of these ideas using information system-based data from the Maya lowlands in conjunction with other civilizations suggests a troubled transition for the current worldwide economic system because of potentially catastrophic climate impacts and resource constraints on biogeophysicalsocial resilience in the face of obvious needs of the system to change to a more sustainable mode of acquiring energy. The Maya case implies that change is more likely to transpire because of planetary-scale disturbances/constraints in the Earth (human and planetary) system and will likely lead to strong social disruptions. There may be as many as 200 such case studies to test this idea worldwide. Our analysis suggests that a transition toward sustainability for the current energy dense globalized industrial society will be very difficult.
Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State, 1982
No. 5 (1977) Hop Hill: Culture and Climatic Change in Central Texas. By Joel Gunn and Royce Mahul... more No. 5 (1977) Hop Hill: Culture and Climatic Change in Central Texas. By Joel Gunn and Royce Mahula. Photocopy reprints available. $18.00 + .99 tax for Texas residents. No. 6 (1978) Volume l; Background to the Archaeology of Chaparrosa Ranch, Southern Texas. Studies in the Archaeology of Chaparrosa Ranch. By Thomas R. Hester. $4.00 + .22 tax for Texas residents. No. 7 No. 8 (1979) No. 9 (1980) No. 10 (1 980) No. 11 (1 980) Volume 2; The Mariposa Site: A Late Prehistoric Site on the Rio Grande Plain of Texas. Studies in the Archaeology of Chaparrosa Ranch. By John Montgomery. $8.00 + .44 tax for Texas residents. The Study of Biosilica: Reconstructing the Paleoenvironment of the Central Coastal Plain of Texas. By Ralph L. Robinson. Not available.
We report a study of central Maya lowland dynastic information networks, i.e., six cities' extern... more We report a study of central Maya lowland dynastic information networks, i.e., six cities' external elite ceramic influences, and how they reflect the decision-making practices of Maya elites over 3000 years. Forest cover, i.e., Moraceae family pollen, was added to the network analysis to provide ecological boundary conditions, thus ecologically moderated information networks. Principal components analysis revealed three dominant patterns. First, the networking of interior cities into powerful polities in the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (400 BCE-800 CE). In a second pattern, coastal cities emerged as key entrepôts based on marine navigation (Terminal and Postclassic periods, 800-1500 CE). Climate dynamics and sustainability considerations facilitated the transition. Forest cover, a measure of ecosystem health, shows interior forests diminished as interior cities networked but rebounded as their networks declined. By contrast, coastal forests flourished with networks implying that the marine-based economy was sustainable. Third, in the Classic, the network-dominant coast, west or east, changed with interior polities' political struggles, the critical transition occurring after 695 CE as Tikal gained dominance over the Calakmul-Caracol alliance. Beginning with the Late Preclassic about 2000 years ago, it is possible to assign names to the decision makers by referencing the growing literature on written Maya records. Although the detectable decision sequence evident in this analysis is very basic, we believe it does open possible avenues to much deeper understanding as the study proceeds into the future. The Integrated History and Future of People on Earth-Maya working group that sponsored the analysis anticipates that it will provide actionable social science intelligence for future decision making at the global scale.
Preliminary analysis of the large and somewhat atypical Pueblo III basketry assemblage from Antel... more Preliminary analysis of the large and somewhat atypical Pueblo III basketry assemblage from Antelope House suggests the possibility of isolating individual basketmakers and groups of basketmakers within the Antelope House population. Observations are offered on the methodology of distinguishing individual basket- ,-makers at this site. The assemblage as a unit is compared to other Pueblo III basketry collections. Article: Some 469 specimens of basketry were recovered during the excavations of Antelope House. In the present context, the term basketry encompasses several distinct kinds of items, including rigid and semi-rigid containers or baskets proper, matting, bags, and a variety of miscellaneous fiber constructions, including figure-eight braiding, three and four strand braiding, etc. Matting includes items which essentially are two dimensional or flat, while baskets are three dimensional. Bags may be viewed as intermediate forms because they are two dimensional when empty and three dimensional when filled. As Driver (1961:159) points out, these artifacts may be treated as a unit because the overall technique of manufacture is the same in all instances. Specifically, all forms of basketry are woven manually, without any frame or loom. Since all basketry is woven, it technically is a class or variety of textile, though that term sometimes is restricted to cloth fabrics. The basketry recovered at Antelope House includes representatives of the three major subclasses of basketry weaves; coiling (Figure 1), twining, and plaiting (Figure 2) (Adovasio 1974). Plaiting is by far the most abundant subclass of basketry (301 specimens) present, followed by coiling (60 specimens) and twining (19 specimens). The remaining basketry items (89 specimens) are assigned to the "miscellaneous" category. Since the Antelope House coiled basketry as a subclass appears to possess a greater number of highly standardized, culturally determined, technical attributes than any other subclass, the remainder of this article will treat the coiling industry at that site. THE COILING INDUSTRY Coiling denotes a subclass of basket weaves manufactured by sewing stationary horizontal elements with moving vertical elements. The Antelope House coiled basketry assemblage includes 60 specimens allocated to 10 major structural types, some with minor subtypes based on the kind of basket wall or foundation technique utilized and the type of stitch employed. Further, all specimens were analyzed, where feasible, for type of rim finish, acting decorative patterns and mechanics, form wear patterns, possible function and type of splice. Dimensional measurements were taken on all complete specimens and four sets of motor skill measurements were taken on all complete specimens and structurally intact fragments. The motor skill measurements include width of stitch, width of coil, stitches per centimeter, and coils per centimeter.
Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Calakmul ad... more Las ruinas de Oxpemul representan una corte real fortificada plasmada en la Cuenca de Calakmul adentro del Petén Campechano, ubicado unos 25 kms. al norte del centro regional de Calakmul. El grupo Principal de Oxpemul está organizado sobre una meseta de 45.50 m de altura que forma su corte real con un patrón de asentamiento parecido a Calakmul y El Mirador. La Meseta Suroeste y otras más pequeñas están distribuidas alrededor del Bajo central. Oxpemul incluye un total de 21 estelas con 18 altares, muchas d elas estelas están de pie y muestran figuras humanas y textos jeroglíficos en buen estado de conservación. Varios de los altares también incluyen textos y uno muestra la figura de una deidad. Oxpemul está relacionado con 11 ejemplos de su glifo emblema en la forma de un "Trono de Piedra", uno fechado alrededor del Siglo Quinto. Se ha realizado un plano de 9 km2 incluyendo su Grupo Principal y 1400 estructuras que incluye varios grupos mayores y menores, además de aguadas,...
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