Social Dynamics of Early Formative Honduras: Excavations at Puerto Escondido (CR-372), Lower Ulua River Valley

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This award permits Dr. Rosemary Joyce to conduct archaeological excavations at the site of Puerto Escondido, located in the Ulua River Valley in Honduras. During the construction of a housing project, bulldozers exposed an archaeological sequence which extended from Archaic through Classic periods. Although, unfortunately, the later part of the sequence was removed, the lowest Formative and Archaic levels were preserved intact and are easily accessible for excavation. Such occurrences are extremely uncommon in Middle America. Preliminary work by Dr. Joyce and her colleagues have demonstrated that the deposits are extremely rich and contain worked shell and jade as well as abundant ceramics and obsidian (volcanic glass) tools. Botanical remains, which provide insight into agricultural practices, were also recovered. Evidence indicates the presence of multiple dwellings on the exposed elongated mound (one of five) which forms the focus for the current research. Dr. Joyce will excavate at four localities identified during prior work. Because of the distances between each, it is clear that they are associated with four separate household compounds. The materials recovered will be analyzed to reconstruct subsistence practices and determine the degree of craft specialization among households as well as possible wealth and status differences among them.While archaeologists understand a great deal about how complex Mayan societies functioned, much less is known about the processes which led to their rise. The Archaic and Formative periods marked the shift from a hunting and gathering to a settled village lifestyle and established the base on which later complex states arose. To date research on the Formative has focused on the Olmec culture located in Southern Mexico. Puerto Escondido is important because it provides a chronologically identical yet geographically distinct situation and it should be possible to compare the two to determine whether trends observed in Olmec Mexico hold in Honduras as well. Through such analysis it should be possible to distinguish between general process and historical particular. The data recovered will increase anthropological understanding of the origins of social complexity and provide information of interest to many archaeologists.