An anthropologist who used excavation, geographic information systems, archived documents, and statistics to shed light on a little-known precolonial Maya group in Guatemala has won SIUC's Outstanding Dissertation award for 2002.

Timothy Pugh was honored in May for work showing the relationship between architecture, ritual, and ethnic identity in the culture of the Kowoj Maya, who lived in the area between A.D. 1400 and 1700. 

Pugh's research focused on the central lakes region of Petén in Guatemala, home to the Kowoj and their enemies, the Itzá Maya. Both peoples had moved to Guatemala's lowlands after leaving their native Yucatán in Mexico. They were the last Maya populations to succumb to Spanish conquerors.

In what Maya expert Pru Rice of SIUC described as "meticulous fieldwork," Pugh conducted large-scale excavations of temple complexes and homes at a site called Zacpetén.

"He developed a singular methodology for clearing and excavating the ritual and domestic structures that allowed him to carefully register the location of each artifact," wrote Rice in recommending Pugh's work for the award. "When these data were entered into a computer database, he was able to map out the distributions of ritually important objects—incense burners, crystals used in divination, figurines, and so on—thus allowing him to understand where particular kinds of activities had taken place on the floors of the temple platforms and rooms.

"This level of analysis has never before been done on any Postclassic site in the Maya lowlands, and so he was able to arrive at an incomparable level of insight into the nature of ritual activity."

By careful study of Spanish and Maya documents and analysis of architecture and artifacts, Pugh also showed that the Kowoj, not the Itzá, lived in Zacpetén. In addition, he demonstrated that modern Maya living in lowland forests in Chiapas, Mexico, are descended from Kowoj refugees who fled from the Spanish near the start of the 18th century.

Pugh is now an assistant professor at Queens College of the City University of New York.
 

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