Costly Signaling, Cost Masking, and the Classic-Postclassic Transition: Slipped Ceramics and other Media in the Context of the Petén Lakes Region, Guatemala.

Costly signaling theory indicates that highly visible acts of public generosity and display, which exact costs not easily recouped, however, can provide social benefits to those engaged in such acts. Such signaling is associated with the strength or fitness of the provider. Analyzing slipped and fineware ceramics in display contexts, and obsidian use and architecture, this presentation explores how Maya elites and rural sub-elites engaged in costly signaling and modified their actions by cost shifting and cost masking, which significantly transformed their signaling behavior. The presentation focuses on the Petén Lakes region of Guatemala from the Late Classic to Postclassic transition (AD 600-AD 1250). Costly signaling has been implicated by archaeologists in the rise of complex societies. However, costly signaling theory, with these modifications, might equally apply to theorizing political collapse and the regeneration of complex societies thereafter.

代价信号理论（Costly signaling theory）指出，尽管需付出难以挽回的代价，高度显眼的公共慷慨行为与展示活动仍能为实施此类行为者带来社会收益。此类信号与发出者的个体实力或演化适合度密切相关。本报告通过分析展示场景中的施釉细陶器（slipped and fineware ceramics）、黑曜石（obsidian）使用行为与建筑遗存，探讨玛雅精英与乡村次级精英如何开展代价信号行为，并通过成本转移与成本伪装调整其行动策略，进而显著重塑了自身的信号传递行为。本研究聚焦公元600年至1250年的古典期晚期至后古典期过渡阶段的危地马拉佩滕湖地区（Petén Lakes region）。考古学家曾将代价信号理论用于阐释复杂社会的兴起。然而，经上述修正后的代价信号理论，同样可应用于政治崩溃及此后复杂社会复兴的理论建构之中。