Earthwatch Award Recipient Summary
Awardee: Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D
Affiliation: University of New Mexico and Museum of New Mexico
Project: Guatemala's Ancient Maya
Award: 2004 Young Scientist Award
Project Synopsis
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan and colleagues in Guatemala are excavating what they have discovered to be the great, lost Maya city of Chocolá. With the cooperation and support of local villagers, many of them the modern descendents of the Maya civilization, Earthwatch teams are helping Dr. Kaplan survey and unearth an immense complex of mounds dating back to the Preclassic Maya period. Preliminary finds indicate that Chocolá was a significant focus for the social and cultural developments leading to the rise of the Classic Maya, characterized by exquisite ceramics, hieroglyphic literacy, and the most advanced mathematics and astronomy in the New World.
Award Outcomes
The Young Scientist Award allowed Dr. Kaplan to:
· Purchase a computer for cataloging finds and lab database
· Contract with a leading palaeobotanist to lead archaeological study of cacao
· Return to Guatemala off-season to locate a new co-director for the project
Dr. Kaplan has used his award money to enhance the collection and collation of data at Chocolá, by purchasing a new Dell laptop for use in the field and laboratory. Federico Paredes, one of Dr. Kaplan's principal assistants, will use the laptop in the field for cataloging sculptures unearthed at the site, and in the lab for generating a database of ceramics and other artifacts.
In addition, the award money was used to help launch a new aspect of the project, to explore the cultivation and use of cacao (or cocoa) in ancient Maya society. Dr. Kaplan communicated and contracted with one of the pot palaeobotanists and experts in the archaeological study of cacao, Dr. Kirsten Tripplet at University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Tripplet will help analyze their findings to document the cacao culture that earned Chocolá its name.
From the inception of the project, Dr. Kaplan has been collaborating with the eminent Guatemalan archaeologist Dr. Juan Antonio Valdes. But Dr. Valdes is leaving the project, due to an illness, and some of Dr. Kaplan's award money was used to make an unplanned visit to Guatemala in the off-season to find another co-director. A Guatemalan co-director is required on archaeological projects by national law. With Dr. Valdes' eminent assistance, a new co-director was found and the Guatemalan government was reassured enough to allow the project to go forward.
Publications and Papers
Pending
Quotes
"Receiving the award was a tremendously moving validation for my research, especially so because of my great regard for Earthwatch. It came completely unexpectedly and truly 'made my year!' In addition to giving me a personal boost because of the recognition of my work, the award is extremely helpful in making our field analyses more possible in very concrete ways."
"With the new laptop and with Kirsten's involvement, both our field lab and our field studies of cacao as one of the principal material bases, if not the main wellspring for Chocolá's early complex developments in the Maya civilizational trajectory, will be significantly enhanced."