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Current and future research involve exploring the role of temples in Classic Maya society; this issue has not been explored other than temples having served as royal ceremonial stages. Dr. Lucero is attempting to address why the Maya built several temples within centers—were they for different gods? Were they built by different groups or factions? Were there priesthoods? And if different groups built different temples, did people have a choice, and thus a voice, at which temple to support?
To assess these questions, Dr. Lucero's field goals for the next few years include the collection of temple data from major center of Yalbac as part of the Valley of Peace Archaeology (VOPA) project in central Belize.
Recent research involved exploring how emerging leaders in ancient societies replicated and expanded traditional/domestic rituals to suit a political agenda. Specifically, Dr. Lucero assessed the degree to which nascent Maya rulers replicated domestic rituals in increasingly larger settings (houses to shrines to temples) using similar means (e.g., propitiation to ancestors) to incorporate ever larger numbers of people. A unifying strategy was necessary since ancient Maya farmers lived dispersed throughout the lowlands mirroring the distribution of fertile land. In addition, earlier research she conducted, which focused on revealing how Maya hinterland settlements were integrated into the broader social, economic, and political system, demonstrates that ancient Maya communities were largely self-sufficient. Consequently, to acquire political power (an ability to acquire surplus from others), elites had to contend with integrating dispersed and independent farmers. She ties in ritual withwater, both of whichplay a role in the demise of political systems when water supplies decreased in the face of climate change.