Early Cultures and Human Ecology in South Coastal Guatemala

Abstract

Our colleagues and friends in Guatemala again provided the same generous aid which they had shown to the senior author during his previous field season of 1958. Our profound thanks go once more to Sr. Don Carlos Samayoa Chinchilla, director of the Instituto de Antropologia e Historia, and to Sr. Don Antonio Tejeda Fonseca, director of the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Etnologia. Dr. Francis Gall, of the Direction de Cartografia, furnished us with maps and excellent advice drawn from his extensive knowledge of Guatemalan geography and history. Our stay in the village of Ocos was made pleasant by the willing cooperation of the mayor, Sr. Don Juan Reyes. We feel deeply grateful to Sr. Don Vicente Cuadros and his family, who are the present occupants of the Salinas La Blanca site; many of the insights which we have had into human ecology in the Ocos area were gained from conversations with our friend Don "Chente." This report would have been an impossibility without the identifications so kindly furnished us by colleagues in the natural sciences.

The social impact of anthropogenic landscape modification in the Río Verde drainage basin, Oaxaca, Mexico

“…The small number of early sites in the lower Rio Verde Valley is surprising in that the Pacific coast of southern Mexico and Guatemala was a focus of population during the EarlylMiddle Formative (Brush, 1969;Clark, 1991;Coe and Flannery, 1967;Lowe, 1975;Zeitlin, 1979). Indeed, the lower Rio Verde Valley was originally chosen for investigation because of its current ecological similarity to the environments of early village settlements in Mesoamerica (Grove, 1985).…”

“…Indeed, the lower Rio Verde Valley was originally chosen for investigation because of its current ecological similarity to the environments of early village settlements in Mesoamerica (Grove, 1985). A diverse ecology characterized by the presence of a river with a fertile floodplain and an extensive estuary system is shared by the earliest villages on the Soconusco Coast (Ceja, 1985;Clark, 1991;Coe and Flannery, 1967;Lowe, 1975), the coastal lowlands of Veracruz and Tabasco (Coe and Diehl, 1980;Rust and Sharer, 19881, and Laguna Zope in the southern isthmus (Zeitlin, 1979). Voorhies (1976) has also located several Late Preceramic sites associated with large estuaries on the Chiapas Coast.…”

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns from Cuauhtémoc, Soconusco, Mexico

“…4.5, 2009). Ceramic and figurine styles from across the Soconusco changed in tandem, which indicates that the land between the two large swamp systems continued to function as an integrated culture area (Coe and Flannery 1967;Rosenswig 2005Rosenswig , 2008.…”

“…During the second half of the Early Formative period, white-rimmed, black ware vessels were used and figurine styles changed across the region (Blake et al 1995;Clark and Cheetham 2005;Clark and Pye 2000;Coe and Flannery 1967;Lesure 2000Lesure , 2004Rosenswig 2008). At Paso de la Amada, platform mounds occupied by the traditional elite were abandoned at the end of the Ocós phase and new mounds were built (Blake et al 2006;Lesure 1997).…”

Materialism, Mode of Production, and a Millennium of Change in Southern Mexico

“…A number of smaller streams originate on the coastal plain and form a series of mangrove-swamp systems parallel to the ocean where water flow is insufficient to break through the barrier beaches. These rivers create a dynamic and resource-rich set of micro-environments (Coe and Flannery 1967;Lowe et al 1982).…”