A Preliminary Settlement Pattern Study of a Prehistoric Cultural Corridor: The Comayagua Valley, Honduras

Dixon, Boyd

doi:10.1179/jfa.1989.16.3.257

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The 1995 archaeological survey of the Rio Talgua drainage was designed to assess the nature of cultural remains within two microenvironmental settings that have been found to correlate strongly with both pre-Hispanic agricultural societies and protohistoric settlement elsewhere in highland Honduras (Dixon 1989;Dixon et al 1994;Hasemann 1987;Hirth 1989): (1) alluvial floodplains that were the focus of seasonal cultivation, and (2) the adjacent terraces which generally contained the permanent residences. Along the Rio Talgua (Figure 4), the survey focused on an area measuring no wider than 1 km, or approximately 100 m beyond the highest terrace.…”

Section: Survey Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In looking at the site dimensional data from Table 1, one is immediately struck by the primacy of Talgua, with 109 mounds, compared to all other sites with mounds that have fewer than 13 structures per locale. Such a "primate" settlement pattern in the Comayagua Valley of central Honduras was interpreted as evidence for a centralized polity within the region during the Late Formative and Early Postclassic Periods (Dixon 1989(Dixon ,1992Dixon et al 1994), as was a similar pattern in the Sulaco Valley during the Late Classic period (Hasemann and Lara Pinto 1993). While the Talgua Valley as it was defined in this present study is much smaller in size than these two valleys, it is still well within the scale of many prehistoric chiefdoms (Spencer 1987:375), being approximately one half day's walk from its geographical center to the next inhabited valley.…”

Section: Ethnicity or Enigmamentioning

confidence: 97%

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Multiethnicity or Multiple Enigma

et al. 1998

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During the summer of 1995, an intensive archaeological survey of the Río Talgua drainage in eastern Honduras was conducted after the discovery of the Talgua Cave in the Department of Olancho. One important goal of this survey was the identification of the indigenous population responsible for depositing the ninth-century b.c. human burials found upstream in Talgua Cave. In addition to this survey, four other caves were found and/or explored during this season, and limited excavations were also conducted at the mounded site of Talgua downstream and at the ceramic-production site of Chichicaste in the mountains to the west. Preliminary analysis of the architecture and ceramics from 39 newly identified archaeological sites in the Talgua Valley suggests that all appear to date to the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–900), leaving the location of the Middle Formative period population unresolved. A review of the survey, cave, and ceramic data, however, does reveal possible information about the multiethnic nature of the regional political system and local social structure that existed in this previously unstudied area of Central America.

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Section: Survey Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ethnicity or Enigmamentioning

confidence: 97%

Multiethnicity or Multiple Enigma

et al. 1998

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“…The Middle Preclassic spans the centuries when hierarchically structured political formations emerged throughout much of Southeast Mesoamerica, a region consisting of the adjoining portions of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (Figure ; Baudez and Becquelin ; Canby , ; Dixon , ; Dixon et al ; Joesink‐Mandeville ; Joyce ; Joyce and Henderson ; Sharer ). As such, this interval offers an opportunity to investigate connections among processes of territoriality, power centralization, and hierarchy‐building as these took shape early in the area's political history.…”

Section: The Middle Preclassic In Southeast Mesoamericamentioning

confidence: 99%

6 Monumentality, Territoriality, and Networks during the Middle Preclassic in Northwest Honduras

Urbán

Schortman

2012

Archaeological Papers of the American

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We propose that relations among hierarchy, political centralization, monumentality, and territoriality are mediated through the actions of people organized in social networks. The ways in which conceptual and tangible assets are continually mobilized within these overlapping webs shape and challenge political formations operating on multiple spatial scales. This network approach to the study of political form and change is used to disentangle the complex relations among power and place that characterized political relations in two adjoining portions of northwest Honduras during the Middle Preclassic (1200-200 B.C.E.). Attention is particularly directed to the variable success enjoyed by would-be magnates as they sought to mobilize local assets in the form of arable land, perennial water sources, labor, and material styles to fashion hierarchically structured webs focused on specific monumental centers. The implications of this study for understanding ancient political geography are reviewed.[social networks, power contests, Mesoamerica, Middle Preclassic, monumental architecture] W e address here a central question raised by Van-Valkenburgh and Osborne in the volume's introductory chapter: "Under what circumstances does the exercise of power over others result in the creation of territorially bounded polities?" The premise underlying this discussion is that power in all its forms is achieved, defended, and challenged through the manipulation of conceptual and physical resources by people operating within social networks of varying memberships and spatial scales. Physically delimited political units, when they exist, are the contingent and variably stable outcomes of how these assets are used in exerting power over others and resisting such pretensions. As VanValkenburgh and Osborne (this volume) note, not all political contests end in the creation of clearly bounded polities. Distinguishing territorial from nonterritorial forms of power structures in the archaeological record can be challenging. We use the results of our investigations into Middle Preclassic (1200-200 B.C.E.) political contests in the adjoining Naco and Middle Chamelecon-Cacaulapa (MC-C) drainages of northwest Honduras to illustrate how the network approach advanced here might be used to describe ancient struggles for preeminence; why some of these competitions resulted in the creation of spatially delimited realms; and how those bounded entities might be recognized archaeologically. At the chapter's conclusion we consider the possible utility of a network approach for understanding relations among power, resources, monumental architecture, and territoriality.

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“…The climate of the region is seasonally wet and dry, with the bulk of the precipitation falling between May and December. The yearly average temperature in the Comayagua Valley is 25°C, and the average annual precipitation is 1.016 mm (Dixon 1989). The area immediately surrounding the site of Yarumela is subject to the effects of a partial rain shadow caused by the Comayagua Mountains, which exceed elevations of 1,000 m (Dixon et al 1994).…”

Section: Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formative-Period Subsistence and Forest-Product Extraction at the Yarumela Site, Honduras

1997

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Analysis of paleoethnobotanical remains from the Yaramela site in central Honduras has provided insights into subsistence activities, resource-extraction preferences from surrounding ecological zones, and the transfer of plant materials through interregional exchange networks during the Formative and Late Classic periods. Remains of maize (Zea mays) and squash (Cucurbitasp.) were found as well as the wood of a number of tree species, for example, pine (Pinussp.), oak (Quercussp.), fig (Ficussp.), timber sweet (Licariasp.), andguanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). These woods were obtained from the upland pine-oak savanna, the tropical deciduous forest of the Comayagua Valley, and the circum-riverine community along the Humuya River. In an unusual discovery, the wood of cashew (Anacardiumcf.occidentale) was found in Middle Formative contexts. This, most likely an introduced domesticate from South America, appears to be the earliest record ofAnacardiumfor Honduras. Paleoethnobotanical data along with root-processing artifacts indicate a diversified subsistence pattern based on domesticates of Mesoamerican and South American origin.

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A Preliminary Settlement Pattern Study of a Prehistoric Cultural Corridor: The Comayagua Valley, Honduras

Cited by 15 publications

References 5 publications

Multiethnicity or Multiple Enigma

Multiethnicity or Multiple Enigma

6 Monumentality, Territoriality, and Networks during the Middle Preclassic in Northwest Honduras

Formative-Period Subsistence and Forest-Product Extraction at the Yarumela Site, Honduras

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