earthwatch institute field report - chocolaproject.org · the southern maya area saw the earliest...

FINAL FIELD REPORT & Cover 12.17.03.fr.DOC 1

EARTHWATCH INSTITUTE FIELD REPORT Project Title: Guatemala�s Ancient Maya Principal Investigator (s): Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Position/Affiliations: Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico; Research Associate, Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico Research Site: Chocolá, Suchitepéquez, Guatemala; Latitude 14.62, Longitude 91.43 Local Management Status of the Research Site: Based on information provided by the project, the archaeological site will be declared a �protected area� (Figure 1), i.e., formally part of the cultural patrimony of Guatemala, and thus protected from destructive activities or developments. This anticipates creation of a national archaeological park at Chocolá.

Fig. 1. Map provided by the project to the government of Guatemala showing the area of and around Chocolá to be declared protected. Mound groups are shown in red.


Key Research Objectives (5-8 brief bullet points):

• The little known culture history of the Southern Maya area • The material substrate and cultural process underpinnings of the rise to complex society

and high culture in the trajectory towards Classic Maya civilization in the seminal Southern Maya Zone

• Ancient hydraulics, intensive monocrop cultivation of cacao and exploitation of cacao trade

• Core-periphery relations early in the Maya trajectory • Ethnic interaction and the construction of a Maya identity precedent to the rise of Classic

Maya civilization • Early urbanism and the development of core Maya ideology and Maya hieroglyphic

writing

Date this report was completed: 7 October 2005 SECTION 1: RESEARCH Data Collection and Results Data recovered from mapping, excavation of ancient structures and other features, and laboratory analysis indicate the spatial extent, age, and duration of the ancient remains and provide information about the cultural developments and the social, political, and economic organization of a very large ancient city located in the heart of the ironically little-investigated seminal Southern Maya Zone. With newly discovered edifices and associated monuments, in 2005 reconnaissance extended the area of the ancient remains of Chocolá through ca. 6 by 4 k. Grid excavation and mapping by total station was undertaken of three cobble-built Preclassic constructions: 1) a large apparent elite residence or palace with piers and stairways, 2) another large building, also with apparent piers and a stairway, 3) a very extensive subterranean canal system. Several new stone monuments as well as tens of thousands of artifacts were recovered, including whole and fragmented ceramic vessels and figurines, obsidian, and groundstones, the great majority dating to the Middle through Late Preclassic Periods, or ca. 900 BC-AD 200. Ritual caches documented the aesthetic tastes, ideological proclivities, corporate decision-making, and social hierarchy of the ancient community. Structure 7-1. Together with Structures 15-1 and 5-1, excavated in 2004, and Structure 6-1, also excavated in 2005, Structure 7-1 offers fundamentally new information about early urban architecture in the seminal Southern Maya Zone. Structure 7-1 is located towards the southern limit of the northern precincts of the ancient city, the latter an area of many massive low platform mounds and which, from information from excavations in 2003 and 2004, contains residential structures and extensive and sophisticated hydraulic systems; because of the mixed function of residence and administrative edifice, one might situate the structure within the presumed central administrative core of the ancient city. Oriented almost exactly to the cardinal directions � as are all of the thus-far discovered structures � the apparent palace (Figure 2a, b) measures 24 m on its eastern façade which was the major part of the structure excavated. Built of large cobbles, variously oblique and unreshaped, river-smoothed, and artificially reshaped, with sections horizontally and vertically packed with smaller stones, the body is stepped, talud style, and possesses a stairway and at least two piers. Beneath the northeast corner of Structure 7-1 thirteen whole vessels were found, probably part of a larger dedicatory offering (Figure 3).


The East Plaza, Mound 15. Test-pitting in the plaza east of Structure 7-1 found a sequence of seven Preclassic floors, very clearly distinguishable, each superimposed by approximately 5 cm of fill. Other test-pits revealed an area of probable reoccupation in Classic times, as evidenced by two shallow basureros, floors with Classic Period artifacts, including mold-made figurines, and a moved, reused, and discarded large monument, probably Preclassic in date, with two deep cavities or cupules, one perforated, and a frog carved on one lip and along the sides of the stone. As at T�akalik Ab�aj, Chocolá�s great near neighbor, sculpture was placed at intervals around the periphery of structures. In 2004, a cupule monument was found just outside the northeast corner of Structure 5-1, a platform situated in the southern precincts, measuring 40 by 45 m, partially excavated in 2004; in 2005, in addition to the Preclassic frog altar apparently moved to the East Plaza of Structure 7-1 for reuse in Classic times, two monuments were found just south of the south central axis of Structure 6-1 (see below). Hydraulics in Structure 7-1. Extending to the south of the southeast corner of Structure 7-1, yet another example of sophisticated sub floor canals was unearthed, adding to the evidence found in the 2003 and 2004 seasons of early, significant, and highly sophisticated hydraulics at Chocolá; remaining somewhat mysterious is the coordination of this canal with the structure, lying as the latter does apparently beneath the eastern facade and apparently running through part of the body of the structure. The canal may have drawn water from large conduits outside of the palace and delivering water to an inner well or cistern, a function determined in 2004 by the discovery of a small conduit extending from within Structure 15-1, a smaller edifice to the north, to a massive cobble conduit just outside of the structure and continuing at least 34 m south. This discovery, along with the finding during salvage operations of more subterranean conduits located 1.5 k south of Mound 15 in the ancient administrative precincts of the city, demonstrated that the ancient water system not only was complex in design and purpose � diverting water to avoid erosive effects to their structures and directing it to pass through residences for domestic uses � but that the scale of the hydraulics through space was considerable. The necessity for a northern intake point for the water, farther north than Mound 15, indicates that the water system must have extended many kilometers even further north of the ancient urban area as well as to the south. Structure 6-1. Fifty meters north of Structure 7-1 lies Mound 6 where Structure 6-1 was found (Figure 4). This somewhat smaller edifice was built similarly of a variety of cobbles as were Structures 5-1, 7-1 and 15-1. Due to constraints of time, again excavation was selective, focusing on the south facade, which was revealed to have, like the east wall of Structure 7-1, a probable stairway and piers. Notably, found immediately south of the south wall, a beautifully carved stone monument was found belonging to the barrigón style (Figure 5a, b, c, d), a type distributed throughout the Southern Maya area, from K�aminaljuyu in the central highlands, through coastal sites such as La Democracia (Monte Alto), and into the piedmont, at T�akalik� Ab�aj, as well as at sites in El Salvador such as Santa Leticia. This sculpture, denominated Monument 30 in the Chocolá sculptural corpus, displays a somewhat clearer Olmecoid character than others in the barrigón style. Another monument, a large stone shaft with a cupule, was found in association with Monument 30 (Figure 6). In addition to Monument 30 and this sculpture, another stone monument, with a perfectly symmetrical cupule, was found just south of the road leading into the modern cemetery, some 20 m south of Structure 6-1. Structure 15-1. In 2005 excavation continued from 2004 at and around Structure 15-1, a small elite residence or, possibly, considering the elaborate lacing of water conduits around as well as within it, a spring-house. Explorations north and east of Structure 15-1 found what probably represents another chamber in the structure, lying as it does immediately adjacent to the northeast corner of 15-1. Several large whole comales were found as part of an apparent ritual deposit of cooking ware (Figure 7).


Hydraulics on Mound 15. Investigation continued of the hydraulic system on Mound 15. Several new conduits were found, including one that passed above another, overpass-underpass fashion (Figure 8). In addition, a conduit found in 2004 to extend into the south wall of Structure 15-1 was determined to extend due south, apparently joining the interlaced network of conduits. Further evidence of a substantial hydraulic network on and around this mound was found in the modern road, where cobbles lying in the roadbed traced clearly both straight sections and bifurcations, with branches extending west into and through the road cut and, seemingly, much further.

Fig. 2a. Structure 7-1, early in the excavations, PACH 2005.

Fig. 2b. Structure 7-1, partial plan view, east wall, PACH 2005.

0 m 15


Fig. 3. Structure 7-1, northeast corner, whole vessels in situ as part of probable dedicatory offering, PACH 2005.


Fig. 4. Excavation of Structure 6-1, PACH 2005.


Fig. 5a. Monument 30 in situ, PACH 2005.


Fig. 5b. Monument 30, removed to the lab, PACH 2005.


Fig. 5c. Drawing of Monument 30, PACH 2005.


Fig. 5d. Drawing of Monument 30, PACH 2005.


Fig. 6. Plan view drawing showing location of Monuments 29 and 30 at the base of the south wall of Structure 6-1, PACH 2005.


Figure 7. Large whole comal and smaller vessel found as part of an apparent ritual deposit of cooking ware, Structure 15-1, PACH 2005.


Fig. 8. Hydraulic network, Mound 15, PACH 2005. Progress Our objectives, long-term, continue to be to shed light on the catalyzing processes of complex social development in the very obscure but long-considered seminal Southern Maya Zone (SMZ), through study of a very large, early-arising, and long-lived site located in the heart of the SMZ (Figure 7). The Southern Maya area saw the earliest Maya writing, urban entities, and core Maya ideology, including the ruler-stela cult of kingship and Popol Vuh mythology. In the dialectic in archaeology between the material and the ideal, the former has been emphasized in our investigations because of the profound importance of hydraulics at the ancient city, a focus from the very beginning of our work because of the great superabundance of water at and around the site. In a cultural ecological and political economic sense, the other great material foundation for the city we believe to have been cacao, natural to the region, over time of enormous demand throughout Mesoamerica, ethnohistorically attested to have provided enormous quantities to recipients as distant as the Aztecs, and thus likely in our view very anciently to have been grown intensively for surplus and exploitation through long-distance trade. Another catalyzing factor, we hypothesize, was ethnic interaction which, according to ethnicity theory, combines the material and the ideal, or the �objective� with the �subjective,� in a constant dialectic that underlies, for example, the construction of cultural and agent identity; testing these theories must await substantial analysis and, undoubtedly, carefully defined data. This said it is difficult to gauge our progress in a comparative sense since so little work hitherto has been done in the region; even the culture history continues to be little understood and our research remains, at present, more descriptive than analytic. Accordingly, any new information as raw data would have to be considered very valuable. We can say that, given our broad objectives of adding substantially to knowledge of an area hitherto so little known, yet, ironically, long


believed to have been vitally important, in a relatively short time (three seasons of 3-4 months each, from 2003-2005), we have been able to construct a rough picture of the span of occupation and social organization of this very large regional center. Four large and sophisticated edifices found in each of the first four intensive grid excavations, and a highly sophisticated and extensive system of water control, are providing insights into early complex social organization as well as of the economic and bureaucratic character of early Maya society. Ceramics, notably, are indicating somewhat stronger relationships with the Guatemalan highlands than with the coast. Further adding to our knowledge of early Mesoamerican social and cultural complexity, a picture is emerging of the ideology of this Preclassic site in a hitherto almost completely uninvestigated but universally considered important time and place in the trajectory of Maya civilization. Continued recovery of beautiful artifacts reveals a highly developed Preclassic aesthetics. One of the major research goals, study of intensive monocropping of cacao (Figure 9) for export and, presumably, control of trade in this prestige commodity with pan-Mesoamerican demand has advanced, but more slowly. Soils were collected for macrobotanical and microbotanical analysis, but results must await more analysis and further excavation and systematic sampling.

Fig. 9. Cacao tree (�criollo� variety), cultivated today in Chocolá, PACH 2005. Summary of Results In the second season of grid excavation (following an initial season of reconnaissance and test-pitting), we have determined much more of an elaborate, very extensive and highly sophisticated system of water management early in the Maya trajectory. Implications are of a concomitant division of labor with administrators or governors overseeing a bureaucracy in turn overseeing workers. Further insights about a social hierarchy in place early in developments at Chocolá were gained with the discovery of two more major ancient edifices, an apparent royal palace (Structure 7-1), and another very large elite residence or administrative building (Structure 6-1);


associated monuments clarify and confirm the nature and importance of Early Maya social hierarchy and its ideological system. The great majority of provenienced artifacts from the site continue to date to the Middle and Late Preclassic, or from ca. 900 BC-AD 200, temporally placing Chocolá and its achievements in a span including the earliest Maya hieroglyphic writing, kingship, Popol Vuh and other core Maya ideology, urbanism, and great trade networks, from long-known but disparate evidence all of which developed earliest in the region in which Chocolá is situated so centrally. Significance/Benefits of Research

• Local: Community development constitutes fully half of the project�s focus both in terms of time and money expended. Impact on the local community continues to be very positive. In concrete economic terms, the project continues to be the single largest employer in the community, employing in 2005 upwards of 100 local persons, including excavators and laborers, watchmen, housekeepers, and kitchen staff, providing members of the community and their families with ready cash, a commodity in very short supply in a town with great unemployment and little or no recourse in emergencies. Not only those employed directly by the project but the wider town population as a whole benefited through public talks and other exposure to the work of the research by learning about the ancient history beneath their town and their fields and about how scientific research is undertaken. The townspeople are being educated about the value of the great archaeological resource under and around their town, and of future jobs and income from eco- and archaeotourism as sustainable alternatives to the current failing dependence on small-plot coffee. The project is cooperating with local politicians and with the officials of the town to make these sustainable forms of development a reality. In addition to the direct and indirect benefits of the archaeological research to the town, the project, through the efforts of the PI, continues to seek commitments from the business world to invest in Chocolá. The PI has initiated discussions with chocolate companies, exploring the very real possibilities of a return to a great prehispanic cacao industry, so fundamental throughout Mesoamerica. The intention is to profit from Chocolá�s natural and human resources while simultaneously contributing to the preservation of local biological and cultural diversity, essential to a sustainable world environment that is conducive to human health and values. Notably, at the invitation of the PI, the ambassador to Guatemala from the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Claude Ellner, and the Minister of Culture of Guatemala, Lic. Eduardo Salazar Tetzaguit, visited Chocolá for a day of tours and discussions about both the research and the community development needs of the town. A formal proposal for funding was submitted to the German government to 1) restore five High Victorian edifices constructed during the period of German ownership and management of the giant farm, providing long-term employment at good wages to local persons, 2) fund the archaeological research, 3) improve the water and waste management of the town, and 4) create a museum of post-colonial life in Guatemala. Finally, at the instigation and with the help and encouragement of the project, an independent but associated entity has been created, the �Amigos de Chocolá,� whose guiding motivation is to assist the town with respect to health, education, and sustainable development enterprises.

• National: For the sake of Chocolenses, for Guatemala as a whole, and for world cultural heritage, the project has sought and obtained a declaration by the Guatemalan cultural authorities setting aside the ancient remains of Chocolá as part of the national patrimony and thus protected from destructive developments. This sets the stage for creation of a national archaeological park at the site, similar to those at Tikal and T�akalik� Ab�aj, which will contribute in very concrete ways not only to the preservation of Guatemala�s enormously valuable ancient cultural heritage but also, through the project�s efforts to


train townspeople in archaeology and anthropology, to the preservation of its contemporary Maya communities as honored custodians of living Maya culture. Furthermore, touristic opportunities will continue to engender a peaceful solution to centuries of cultural and economic conflict in Guatemala, so recently manifested in a genocidal civil war, providing an escape from centuries of economic and cultural oppression for the desperately poor and marginalized rural modern Maya by enabling them to prosper drawing on their own ancient roots. The initiatives by the PI to bring to Chocolá�s small-plot farmers investment and expertise from First World businesses such as chocolate companies provides another emphasis on peaceful and sustainable economic developments in Guatemala.

• International: Maya, Mesoamerican-wide, and worldwide comparative anthropological and archaeological scholarship have been served. An understanding of Early Maya culture history and processes of cultural evolution is emerging through the research, although much more work needs to be done to confirm project hypotheses and to verify specific articulations of this history and these processes. The material substrates hypothesized by the project also have begun to be documented. These include, principally, hydraulics and intensive monocropping of the prestige commodity, cacao, and control of cacao trade. The PI continues to believe these were highly significant to the development of Mesoamerican and specifically Maya civilization, and their formal elucidation undoubtedly will add to comparative understanding worldwide of human history and cultural and social achievements.

Contributions to Sustainability The problems. The problems in the way of finding sustainable development solutions at Chocolá are very difficult. Since eviction of the modern residents of Chocolá is not a viable prospect morally or practically, gaining the cooperation of the impoverished townspeople is essential if the archaeological treasure of ancient Chocolá is to be preserved. Accordingly, the research inevitably must try to preserve the viability of the lives and meaningful culture of the present-day Chocolenses. Belief in the inextricable links between scientific research and community development will continue to guide our work in every way. Our research is undertaken in the context of an extremely poor, rural, peasant farm community that has been impacted enormously by colonialism, post-colonialism, and globalism, specifically through the continuation of legacies of coffee cultivation for export, devastating for small plot farmers. Without even recourse to sell their small plots for enough to pay high coyote fees to take them illegally to the United States, many Chocolenses simply resort for survival, for example, to cutting wood illegally and to selling archaeological artifacts for a few dollars to huecheros, middlemen profiting by selling the same artifacts for much greater amounts to international collectors. The unreliability of any survival stratagem in Chocolá is evident from the number of homeless men and children in the streets of the village, cast off because they cannot contribute to the family�s survival. Forced to remain in Chocolá, many build little houses or casitas of crude plank and lamina construction, unfortunately often destroying archaeological edifices and context in the process. At the same, consumerism is encroaching upon the immediate region around Chocolá. New constructions, heedless of the priceless vestiges of the past all around the area, are destroying ancient settlements quite similar to ancient Chocolá. Globalism, as it now operates, works to squeeze small producers with cultural or traditional perspectives and knowledge into a grid of highly manipulated globally framed and homogenizing supply and demand. At the local level, the result is that any freedom to adapt via capital fluidity is impossible. Falling off the grid means cultural annihilation and a worsening of already severe physical travails; almost literally, the worth of an individual cash-poor, land-rich coffee farmer in Chocolá can be counted by the grains of coffee he can hold in his hand, weighed against vast, remote agency-mediated, economic forces and processes, in which, for example, coffee prices worldwide have been falling for at least the past


decade. More generally, indeed globally, in order for Western values of civil societies and freedoms to be preserved, a decentering must take place of an unsustainably overconsuming human species for the sake of a holistic regard for the planetary web of life. When the cost-gain benefits of growth economy-fueled consumption become overly weighted to the cost, in order to preserve the natural, social, and cultural values of the Enlightenment West, the notion of the Local must be elevated to the level of a principle behind all governmental and commercial enterprises. The notion of capital � of what is valued � must be adjusted to include what might be called human or cultural capital. Progress towards solutions. Twin pressures threaten Chocolá: globalism, which extinguishes the life and culture of Chocolenses, and fetishistic consumerism as part of �growth solution economies� (see Daly 2005 �Economics in a Full World,� Scientific American 293(3):100-107) which casts off in an imbalanced trade anything that cannot be marketed for quick consumption � ironically the products of which derive from globalist producers such as maquiladoras and their corporate owners exploiting Third World labor. Making Chocolá a sustainable cultural and physical entity, with an extraordinary ancient history, will be very difficult. Much more must be done to make this possibility a reality. The project has worked very hard to integrate the impoverished local residents of the modern town of Chocolá into the project as paid workers but also through dissemination of information through various means and venues, including general town meetings and talks at primary and secondary schools, about the value of the ancient heritage below ground. Corollary to education about Chocolá�s Precolumbian history is education about modern day necessities for health and sanitation, if the archaeological remains are to be protected, only a viable town can help protect it; the project has helped the town develop a trash pick-up service and has paid for large-scale garbage removal from within the town and its standing ancient mounds. Given their desperate straits, Chocolenses have been remarkably accepting of the project�s stated motives and intentions, as evidenced not only by the official cooperation extended to us by the junta directiva of the cooperative, but also by the many donations that have come into the project of figurines, worked stones, and other precious artifacts; one must keep in mind that it is difficult to distinguish between desperate need for employment on the project and uncoerced friendliness. The argument that progress and prosperity can come to Chocolá in the form of long-term eco- and archaeotourism has met with interest not only among the local politicians but also among many town residents. Significantly, as well, in 2005 the project arranged for a visit by the ambassador to Guatemala from the Federal Republic of Germany, the Guatemalan minister of culture, and other dignitaries to the town for tours of the site and discussions about support. The pressure to relieve the suffering is great, however, and only with substantial support from First World sources can both the archaeology and the people of Chocolá, the one needing the other be saved. Beyond the distress of the local population � distress that can be linked directly to historical events and processes, in turn, of conquest, colonialism, post-colonialism and, now, globalism � is the distress of the planet as a single, interwoven web of cause and effect between forces hitherto in balance that, now, are dangerously out of balance because of the impact of human life and enterprise. If Locality is the principle that somehow must be adopted within the globalism now only spirited by monetary profit, Chocolá stands as a both an ideal example � a type site � of locality both functionally in the present day and diachronically or through time, and a reality disempowered of all but suffering. The project is seeking ways to facilitate a new human enterprise at Chocolá, drawing substantially on old � prehispanic � Maya lifeways to accomplish this. The sustainable development goals of the project currently center on a return to the ancient Maya cacao industry, attested in ethnohistory to have been a key surplus cultigen in the area around Chocolá. The PI has initiated discussions with chocolate companies in the United States about working with Chocolá�s farmers to develop small-plot, niche-marketed, high quality chocolate, with profits accruing to the farmers. Investment in another renewable resource, Chocolá�s ancient and post-colonial history for archaeotourism, is sought from the


German government through a proposal to fund restoration of edifices, including five High Victorian structures and which include a �living museum,� the still-employed old coffee processing factory known as the beneficio de café. In addition to these initiatives, the project continues to work with local, departmental, and national politicians to develop a national archaeological park at the site, improve the water and introduce a �green� waste management system at the town, and provide educational opportunities, including scholarships to Chocolá youth to attend high school and university. The goal, ultimately, is to establish an ecological and cultural niche in which the complex interweaving and humans and the environment are sustained in a balance, acknowledging that the rest of the world must follow suit in sustainable development practices in order for this local balance to be maintained. Until this ideal state, Chocolá could point the way. Dissemination of Results

• Scientific papers Kaplan, Jonathan and Juan Antonio Valdés 2004 Chocolá, an Apparent Regional Capital in the Southern Maya Preclassic: Findings from the 2003 Season of the Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá (PACH); Mexicon XXVI (4):77-86

• Management plans and reports Informe Preliminar No. 1: Primera Temporada 2004, Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá. Report submitted to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, 2003 Informe Final No. 1: Primera Temporada 2003, Proyecto Arquelógico Chocolá. Report submitted to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, 2003 Informe Preliminar No. 2: Segunda Temporada 2004, Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá. Report submitted to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, 2004 Informe Final No. 2: Segunda Temporada 2004, Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá. Report submitted to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, 2004 Informe Preliminar No. 3: Tercera Temporada 2005, Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá. Report submitted to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, 2005 Informe Final No. 3: Tercera Segunda Temporada 2005, Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá. Report submitted to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, in progress

• Presentations Organized Sessions 2006 Organizer and Chair of a session to be presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting, Puerto Rico: Recent Research in the Seminal Southern Maya Zone: Preclassic Developments at Chocolá, a Major Regional Center 2004 Chair of a session presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Atlanta: Building Mesoamerica: The Origins of Monumental Architecture 2004 Co-organizer and Chair of a session presented at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Montreal: Recent Research in Pacific Chiapas and Guatemala Presentations Kaplan, Jonathan 2006 Recent Research at Chocolá, a Major Regional Center in the Southern Maya Zone. Paper to be presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting, Puerto Rico Belches-Luin, Diana and Jonathan Kaplan 2006 Structure 15-1, a Small Rectangular Cobble Edifice in the Northern Elite Precincts of Chocolá, and Its Contexts of Analysis. Paper to be presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting, Puerto Rico Ugarte, Rene, Henrique Urizar, Lionel Urizar and Jonathan Kaplan 2006 Structure 7-1: A Royal Palace at Chocolá? Paper to be presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting, Puerto Rico Monsees, David and Jonathan Kaplan


2006 Gradiometric Prospection and Its Results at Chocolá. Paper to be presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting, Puerto Rico Kaplan, Jonathan 2005 El sitio Chocolá y la importancia seminal de la poco entendida Área Maya del Sur. Paper presented at the Primer Congreso Centroamericano de Arqueología en El Salvador, Museo Nacional de Antropología, San Salvador Kaplan, Jonathan 2005 Investigaciones recientes en Chocolá: La bocacosta Guatemalteca. Desarrollo Hidráulico, Cacao y la génesis de los desarrollos seminales de la civilización Maya. Invited paper presented at a mesa redonda at the XIX Simposio de Arqueología Guatemalteca, Guatemala City Kaplan, Jonathan 2005 Cacao and the Origins of Maya Civilization. Invited talk at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco Kaplan, Jonathan 2005 The Hubris of Cacao: Some Speculations about the Rise of Social and Cultural Complexity in the Maya Trajectory in the Guatemalan Bocacosta at the Site of Chocolá. Invited talk at the 23rd Maya Weekend, University of Pennsylvania Kaplan, Jonathan 2004 Early Middle Preclassic Architecture at Chocolá, Guatemala. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Atlanta Kaplan, Jonathan 2004 Métodos, Teorías y Avances del Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá. Paper presented at the XVIII Simposio de Arqueología Guatemalteca, Guatemala City Herrera, Juan Pablo, Jonathan Kaplan, and Juan Antonio Valdés 2004 Estrategias y Metodologías de Mapeo en Chocolá: Especulaciones sobre el Diseño de la Ciudad. Paper presented at the XVIII Simposio de Arqueología Guatemalteca, Guatemala City Paredes Umaña, Federico, Jonathan Kaplan and Juan Antonio Valdés 2004 Agua, Drenajes y Cultivos en Chocolá. Paper presented at the XVIII Simposio de Arqueología Guatemalteca, Guatemala City Kaplan, Jonathan, Juan Antonio Valdés and Oscar Gutiérrez 2004 A New Chapter in Maya Archaeology: Results from the First Season at Chocolá, a Major New Site in the Heart of the Seminal Southern Maya Preclassic. Paper presented as part of a session, Recent Research in Pacific Chiapas and Guatemala, Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Montreal Herrera, Juan Pablo, Jonathan Kaplan and Juan Antonio Valdés 2004 Mapping Strategies and Methodologies at Chocolá, in Guatemala�s Boca Costa: Speculations about Ancient City Design in the Southern Maya Preclassic. Paper presented as part of a session, Recent Research in Pacific Chiapas and Guatemala, Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Montreal Paredes Umaña, Federico, Cristina Vidal, Diana Belches-Luín, Juan Antonio Valdés and Jonathan Kaplan 2004 Mound 15, Chocolá, Guatemala: Evidence of Water Management and Control at the Southern Guatemalan Piedmont site of Chocolá. Paper presented as part of a session, Recent Research in Pacific Chiapas and Guatemala, Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Montreal Valdés, Juan Antonio, Jonathan Kaplan, Oscar Gutiérrez, Juan Pablo Herrera and Federico Paredes Umaña 2003 Chocolá: un centro intermedio entre la bocacosta y el altiplano de Guatemala durante el Preclásico Tardío. Paper presented at the XVII Simposio de Arqueología Guatemalteca, Guatemala City


• Popular articles or films Bawaya, Michael 2005 Maya Archaeologists Turn to the Living to Help Save the Dead; Science 309:1317-1318 2005 �Chocolá.� El Periódico (Guatemala), 21 August. Front page and in Actualidid: Edición Dominical; byline, Mirja Valdés http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/look/portada.tpl?IdLanguage=13&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=409&NrSection=1&NrArticle=15081&search=search&SearchKeywords=Kaplan&SearchLevel=0 2005 �Descubren vestigios: expertos aseguran que es una ciudad maya de 20 kilómetros cuadrados� La Prensa Libre (Guatemala), 30 July. Byline, Nery Morales http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2005/julio/30/119912.html 2005 La Prensa Libre Kaplan, Jonathan 2005 Exploring Chocolá � Lost City of the Southern Maya. Part II. El Palacio 110(1):10-15 Kaplan, Jonathan 2004 Exploring Chocolá � Lost City of the Southern Maya. Part I. El Palacio 109(4):6-11 Bawaya, Michael 2004 The Beginnings of Maya Civilization. American Archaeology 8 (3):31-39


SECTION II: VOLUNTEERS 26 September 2005 Dear Volunteers:

Each of you in your own unique way contributed to making the 2005 season an outstanding success. It is no exaggeration to say that vital new Maya research was realized and that this would not have happened without you. Each of you left a positive impression and made a good impact on the town. I am richer as a person having met and gotten to know each one of you, and I have wonderful memories of our time together.

As I wrote to the volunteers from the first and second seasons, it is difficult to summarize results since each of you came to Chocolá at different times, on different teams, and each of you was privy only to fragments of results (I will also say that results I am now reporting to you we are still trying to interpret!) As a result, emphases in the formal report (see Part I) may seem unusual or surprising; some will be old-hat, but much may be new to you. What follows is my impressionistic remembering of you as you gave so much of yourselves to a project that is so close to my heart.

TEAM I: Ralph Barnhart, Patricia Coen, Trudi Ferguson, William (Allan) Hard, John Keller, Eric Kingsbury, Rebecca Lightbourn, Philip Loring, Lara Novelly, Marjorie Siegel, Dina Solomon, Meredith Witte. You twelve were the first of the volunteers to come to Chocolá this year, and you suffered from not getting to see what we discovered later. On the other hand, you did see what the great structures we discovered looked like when they first began to appear. And the work you did helped later groups and the project find the wonderful stuff we did ultimately dig up. Your collaborative spirit and good humor were invaluable. In sum, you all were certainly present at the creation, in on the ground floor, and have bragging rights to be the fathers and mothers of the child the succeeding groups got to see grow during the third season (the best yet!), at least to a bit more than infancy, the wonderful site of Chocolá.

TEAM II: Michael Linderman, David Linderman, Laura Pratt, Christopher Shaw, Ceil Worden. A smaller group, but extremely dynamic, simpatico, and hard-working, with barely a murmur of complaint about the field conditions (at least to my ears). And with another great son-father duo! And, Ceil, your generosity and kindness truly moved me.

TEAM III: Paula Biggar, Peter Browning, David Greco, Jason Hibbard, Jean Larmon, William Manley, Nick Tilley, Karen Upton. A wonderful team � energetic, good-humored, and great �men�s� and �women�s parties�! (Bill, what a karaoke star! And it was great to see you and meet your children in San Francisco in July at the California Academy of Sciences.)

TEAM IV: Ann Austin, Leland Chambers, Jason Fabozzi, Judith Fryer, Hal Green, Brenda Hill, John Hill, Susan Hollyday, Cyndi MacDonald, Thomas Reiley, Aura Smithers. Again, a terrific group � especially so, in my view, because the Amigos de Chocolá received its initial impetus with you all. And, Hal, what a Mayanist you already are! All told, this is a special, special group of people!

TEAM V: Luellen Brochu, Dennis Cabrera, Tommy Criswell, Andrew Hanawalt, Michael Hanewald, Philip Houten, Elias Kennedy, Susan Mach, Enrique Macias, Nadja Meyers, Janet Ort, Andrea Talarico. This group had some complaints, specifically because of my absences. I regret this, although, again, the absences were project-related and could not be avoided. I am so glad you appreciated my wonderful staff while I was not in Chocolá. And I appreciate your great work efforts literally in the muddy trenches on behalf of Maya research! I want to assure you that you were of enormous help in unearthing a vital part of Maya history and of world cultural patrimony.

TEAM VI: Samuel (�Curt�) Breckenridge, Alan Cariaso, Hazel Cheilek, Monique Cleland, Barbara Collier, Jean Griswold, Deana Katz, John McManus, Emily Neill, Ann Schwendener, Robert Temple, Susan Watts. The last, like the first, is somehow particularly


special. Collectively, your compassion, and your good humored acceptance of the difficulties of field life, together with your expressions of sincere interest in what we are trying to do at Chocolá, made a tremendous impression on me. I loved our conversations and learning from each of you. I am sure the men will appreciate my extending a very special word of admiration and affection to the absolutely wonderful group of women in this team.

I could go on and on but that�s it for now. Please stay in touch! Jonathan (for Rene, Doña Maria, Mayra, Carmen, Matilde, Juan Pablo, Federico, Victor, Juventín, and all the men) PS I still resent the fact that only some of the teams actually arranged for alternate parties in the men�s and women�s houses. PPS I still think all of the fellows who had to sleep in the bed with the rod sticking opportunely right in one�s back should compose a collective memoir for publication on the website. Next year, better beds! MATI�OX! Volunteer Tasks and Accomplishments I have found that Earthwatch volunteers on the whole possess far more than the usual useful abilities and skills. In addition to working hard on mundane and often quite tedious tasks and/or physical labor, the volunteers employed their particular, and often quite impressive, skills, experience, and talents to help realize particular project assignments, including photography, mapping, drawing, and help with logistics. The most unanticipated contribution this season came from volunteers offering productive interpretations of archaeological evidence, for example, insights about ancient artifacts, hydraulic engineering, and architecture. In all, the great good cheer despite sometimes difficult field conditions made the work go so much more easily for me and the staff. Archaeology in the field depends mainly on hard, tedious, physical labor. That we moved great volumes of earth, with each volunteer toting buckets to screens, screening artifacts in the field, and washing and marking the artifacts in the lab, meant that the great bulk of the necessary archaeological labor was completed. We do not have a total count yet of all of the artifacts recovered this season, but, without doubt, it numbers in the many tens of thousands. Beyond the contributions of muscle, sweat, and cheerful perseverance, the volunteers this year helped keep relations between the project and the town on an even keel. Kindness, genuine interest, and appreciation for what they were receiving in a human sense and culturally from the Chocolenses impressed the townspeople, facilitating the project�s research in an extremely difficult Third World context. Project Development The primary logistical challenges were threefold. The first was dealing with the heavy rains, the second with being able to transport staff, volunteers, and equipment over the back roads of the site, the third with precise mapping of the great site. There is little I can do about the rains except, as we did this year, to build ramadas from bamboo and banana leaves; another option is to work in the dry winter months, which is contemplated. While I was hopeful of acquiring a four-wheel drive vehicle to replace the two-wheel drive pickup we now have, unfortunately this did not possible for lack of funds. Scientifically, a primary challenge is to map the site topographically, an essential task but which with only a total station will take years to complete. I am still hopeful of obtaining funds to buy a one meter-precise digitally referenced satellite image with contours we can add to, in more fine-grained fashion as needed, with the Total Station, which will serve to link all parts of the site. Another logistical problem we will address next season is housing for the male volunteers. Although clean and otherwise commodious, the domicile rented this year was


situated on the main street of the town and received more than its share of night time noise; we are in the process of locating a house further away from the town center and thus quieter. In addition to survey, mapping, including topographical mapping, and intensive excavation, all of which consumed most of the field season, ground-truthing investigated hot spots, indicated by gradiometric remote sensing. Using information from town residents occasional reconnaissance missions investigated outlying structures, features, and sculpture. Rescue efforts were mounted when unanticipated construction activities took place in the town, requiring project observers. Continued efforts were made to update and streamline the laboratory, and also to tailor it to better manage specific, unanticipated, needs; a bodega was created immediately adjacent to the laboratory. We will continue to pursue through palynological and other archaeobotanical methods evidence of ancient intensive cacao cultivation at Chocolá. We will continue excavation of selected buildings and building complexes to better understand the social and political organization of the ancient community. In addition, excavations in an area of low mounds representing commoner housing and workshops will seek information about Chocolá�s ancient economic activities as well as more information about the social hierarchies in play. We also plan to employ more and different forms of remote sensing, including resistivity, to search for buried features. Development of databases will permit entry of manipulable information in the laboratory so that we begin systematically to understand the implications of our raw data. Further, it is hoped that the archaeobotanical efforts will advance. Educational Opportunities Local communities. The local community provides personnel as workers, cooking staff, and for housekeeping; the project is providing education about archaeology, the cultural heritage of the site, and sustainable possibilities for future investment by the town and employment of townspeople in non-extractive industries such as eco- and archaeotourism. In addition, I have approached chocolate companies in the United States about investing time, money, and expertise to help the Maya farmers of Chocolá return to a great prehispanic industry in the region, cultivation of cacao. In so doing, I hope to provide opportunities for the impoverished farmers to escape from the disastrous dependence on small-plot coffee cultivation and to profit beyond bare subsistence. Students. Graduate students from the United States, Guatemala, France and other nations work with the project throughout and after the season. Early career scientists. Post-doctoral researchers are involved in the research, as archaeologists, architectural historians, archaeobotanists, and remote-sensing technicians. Other groups. Senior researchers are consulted frequently. These include many specialist Southern Maya researchers, as well as some of the foremost scholars of Mesoamerica. In addition, non-research related groups took were engaged, including political leaders at the municipal (alcaldes), departmental (the governor of Suchitepéquez), national level (the Guatemalan minister of culture), and international (the ambassador to Guatemala from the Federal Republic of Germany). Since the project�s research unfolds within, and draws on, a Third World community, the necessity of encouraging and facilitating sustainable, that is, non-destructive or non extractive export-only uses of the local resources, is clear to everyone who participates. This means that cultural and ecological as well as archaeological, as opposed to capital/economic resources, must


be respected. The fact that the project must secure permission from 774 individual small landowners to conduct the research requires the project to work with the local community in ways that benefit not only pure research but the quality of the lives of the local people as well. The project has sought to integrate the townspeople into the project intellectually as well as economically. Frequent talks given to the local community and advanced training and education of the workers demonstrate this. On the other hand, project staff members learn from the local people about local culture, history, and knowledge. Accordingly, the intellectual enterprise is framed ideally as an interactive and multivocal one, with the only imposed value being one that seems to be shared by both sides: viability of survival, and sustainability of cultural life, past, present, and future. One student has completed his master�s degree (licenciatura) in archaeology and has won a Fulbright scholarship to attend university in the United States. Several other students are completing master�s theses, and two are working on doctoral theses, through the project. In addition, with help from the Amigos de Chocolá, a young person from Chocolá is being enrolled in the archaeology program at the Universidad de San Carlos. Partnerships University of New Mexico, Universidad de San Carlos, Universidad del Valle, Université de Paris (Sorbonne), Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala provided researchers, students, and/or technical help. Over the next five to ten years, scholarly results will continue to be incorporated within and expressed through formal advanced degree research in master�s and doctoral programs. Collaboration between the Project and the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala resulted in declaration of the Chocolá archaeological site as part of the cultural patrimony of Guatemala and protected from destructive activities or developments. Acknowledgements Earthwatch, Inc., the National Geographic Society, the Brennan Foundation, the New World Archaeological Foundation, the Foundation for Archaeology and Community, and private donors generously funded our fieldwork. I thank Lic. Eduardo Salazar Tetzaguit, Ministro de Cultura, Arq. Arturo Paz, Director of the Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural y Natural de Guatemala, and officials of the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, including Lic. Salvador Lopez, chief, and Licda. Yvonne Putzeys, assistant chief of the Prehispanic Monuments division, Inspectadora Sheila Flores, and Inspector Regional Byron Lemus, for providing permits and for advice and assistance, both formal and on a continuing informal advisory basis. I thank the officials of the Empresa Campesina Asociativa Chocolá for their cooperation. Students from San Carlos as well from the Université de Paris ably directed some excavations. Colleagues including Drs. Fred Bove, John E. Clark, Elin Danien, John Graham, Michael Love, Marion Popenoe de Hatch and Robert J. Sharer, deserve my heartfelt thanks, as do the directors of the Proyecto Nacional Takalik Abaj, Miguel Orrego Corzo and Christa Schieber de Lavarreda, for logistical support and expert advice. I thank my co-director, Lic. Rene Ugarte, for his valuable collaboration. Finally, the PACH staff, especially Juan Pablo Herrera and Federico Paredes Umaña, was essential to whatever success the project has enjoyed.

earthwatch institute field report - chocolaproject.org · the southern maya area saw the earliest...

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