Anthropological Fieldwork: The Undergraduate Experience in Southern Mexico

Abstract

My fieldwork in Cobá, Quintana Roo, Mexico began in 1976, when I was hired to serve as a member of a larger research team involved in the detailed mapping of the Classic Maya metropolis (Folan, Kintz, and Fletcher 1983). The archaeological site of Cobá is immense, measuring 63 square km. It exhibits unique characteristics, including the remains of house foundations, vaulted buildings, stone walls enclosing properties, the remains of storage rooms, the sites of house lot gardens, small water pools, altars, metates (limestone grinding stones), columns, platforms, ceramic sherds, and fragments of obsidian, among other structures and features. The plan of the suburban zone of the ancient city was mimicked by village settlement patterns on the south side of Lake Cobá. While this early phase of research focused on the archaeological ruins of Cobá, data were complied on the village and resources pertaining to family structure, housing, making milpa (tending cornfields), and important and useful resources found in the tropical rainforest. With Cobá, operating as a small farming community, the impact of archaeologists on traditional practices and economic life was minimal. However, the outsiders did introduce wage labor.