Dr. Lisa LeCount

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Dr. Lisa LeCount, assistant professor of anthropology at The University of Alabama, recently won the Gordon R. Willey Award for work she published in the American Anthropologist.

The award is named in honor of Dr. Willey who served as president of the American Anthropological Association and taught anthropology at Harvard University for more than 36 years. The award is given for the best archaeology paper published in the American Anthropologist over a period of three years.

LeCount is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University, where she completed her undergraduate degree, and UCLA, where she received her doctoral degree. LeCount is the first UA professor to win the Gordon R. Willey Award.

LeCount said she was honored to win this award because Willey was an incredible pioneer in the field of American archaeology. “What makes winning this award special to me is that I have worked in some of the same places he did -- Peru and Belize,” LeCount said.

The award-winning paper, “Like Water for Chocolate: Feasting and Political Ritual among the Late Classic Maya of Xunantunich, Belize,” is about ancient Maya and how they used food and drinks to establish diplomacy during certain political events, LeCount explained.

The Maya who lived in Central America around 600-800 A.D. served special meals of tamales and chocolate drinks. Tamales were served on large painted pottery platters, and chocolate drinks (that were made with finely-ground corn meal, chilies, honey, and chocolate mixed with water) were drunk from tall cylindrical vases. Many times the vases for the chocolate drinks were inscribed with Maya hieroglyphs with the owner’s name spelled out.

“It is likely that during annual holidays and special events, feasting was a basic part of ancient Maya ceremonies,” LeCount said. “Vases were not as common as other serving platters and were most often found in audencias (official meeting rooms) along the front of El Castillo, the largest and most centrally located pyramid at the site.”

Unlike today where alcoholic drinks are more commonly used to celebrate special events, the ancient Maya regarded chocolate as being more appropriate for special occasions. LeCount concluded that, “among the Classic Maya, drinking chocolate served as a symbolic cue to establish the political significance of events, such as the accession of kings, the dedication of hieroglyphic monuments, or during meetings where leaders negotiated deals.”

LeCount is working on a new project at the site of Actuncan, near Xunantunich. There she will investigate how kings rose to power during the Early Classic period. LeCount will study the distribution of wealth items, special foods, craft goods and ritual paraphernalia to see if leaders monopolized the production and circulation of these items in order to become king.

For the 2003-2004 academic year at UA, LeCount will be teaching classes on “Great Discoveries in Archaeology” and ancient American civilization courses, such as “Aztec, Maya and Inca,” “The Ancient Maya” and “Ancient Mesoamerica.”