The region's settlement history began with small nucleated
communities within the coastal estuaries, in an environment
favorable for the establishment of sedentary communities of hunting
and gathering groups. The earliest and largest settlement was found in the
coastal lagoon of Chiquiuitán, near
Monterrico beach,.It dates to ca 1400 to 600 B.C. It is among
the earliest villages in Mesoamerica, and is composed by 21 mounds The Early Preclassic
pottery from Chiquiuitán shows a distinct
localized style that nevertheless denotes the participation of the
early settlers in the Ocós and Cuadros and Jocotal ceramic spheres
with other early settlements along the Pacific rim, dating to about
1300 B.C. to 850 B.C.
During the
Middle Preclassic phase, the focus of settlement
progressively shifts to the interior plain and piedmont. The limited
excavated sample shows a number of small independent farming
communities without clear signs of settlement hierarchies. Villages
across the region continue to participate in a coast-wide
interaction network that includes forms and decorative motifs that
are widespread across Mesoamerica such as the double-line break and
flamed-eyebrow motifs. While architectural growth is not as great on
the Southeastern Coast between 850-400 B.C. as elsewhere in southern
Mesoamerica, the foundations were laid in that period for the next
phase of peak development.
During the Late Preclassic period, the region's population grows
considerably, ranging now in the several thousands, and
larger centers with impressive civic/ceremonial plazas built;
the
regions population is organized in a three-tiered settlement
hierarchy marking the development of complex administrative networks
between 400 B.C. and A.D. 200.
Ujuxte
in
Santa Rosa, (Different from the western
Ujuxte near
La Blanca, San Marcos on the western area), is a
Late Preclassic (400 B.C.- A.D. 200) has
been recently discovered. In its main plaza there are
9 Stelas and
five Altars oriented
astronomically. It is
a unique example of Stela-Altar religious complex in this part of Guatemala that had
survived intact and undetected in spite of its location in a
cultivated field near the town. Five of the Stelas and
associated altars are placed at the four ends of the plaza in
apparent astronomical orientation (aligned with equinox at 90
degrees). (Map Below) Photos in situ of Stelas and Altars below
Twenty km. further down towards the
Pacific Ocean a second Late Preclassic
center has been found,
Nueve Cerros. It has
nine tall pyramids (10 m high) and long structures on the east side
in an arrangement reminiscent of other known Preclassic astronomical
complexes. (Aerial map below)
The Southeastern Coast ceramics, civic-ceremonial architecture and stone
sculpture of the Late Preclassic show great similarities with those
of neighboring regions of the Pacific Coast,
Highland Guatemala
(including the
Potbelly sculptural style).
The subsequent Middle/Late Classic periods, A.D. 450-900,
represent the highest peak of population density in the Southeastern
Coast regional sequence with up to 79 individual settlements and an
estimated population of perhaps 100,000. The entire region appears
to be sub-divided into four three-tiered polities centered at the
Durazno,
Maneadero, La Nueva and
La Máquina
settlements . (Map above).
La Máquina is the largest of this centers and has an Acrópolis
and platforms that resembles those in other sites of the
Guatemala Pacific Lowlands such as
Los Chatos/Montana
(Texas/Montana) in the Escuintla region, about 80 km to the west of
La Máquina, and Los Cerritos-Norte about 60 km north-west of La Máquina. There is also a general resemblance with acropolis
structures of the
Cotzumalguapa centers of Bilbao, and El Baul.
Also found at La Máquina were small quantities of imported
Petén-style polychrome pottery. The nearest possible place of origin
for these types is the site of Asunción Mita, although they are also
likely to have been produced in the Maya Lowlands. Its masonry
architecture and artifacts suggest that this was an outpost of
Lowland Maya groups in the Southern Highlands of Guatemala. The
elites residing at Asunción Mita, probably controlled the
exploitation of the Ixtepeque
Obsidian source and its distribution
to the Maya Lowlands, and therefore may have been directly linked by
frequent visits to and from Copán,
Quiriguá and centers of the
Maya
Lowlands.
Petén
Style pottery |
Copador
Style Pottery |
La Nueva
is the second largest center in the region, it features
a central acropolis that is the second largest structure in the
region and its settlement area appears to extend for about 4 km2
along a relict channel of the Paz river. Its population may have
ranged from 3000 and 4000 people. Several stone monuments were also
found at La Nueva that may date to the Late Preclassic and Classic
periods and which together with the architectural and ceramic
evidence form the basis for evaluating the existence of a culturally
and politically integrated settlement system and long-distance
interactions with neighboring polities.
The sculptural style of Middle/Late Classic monuments found at
Durazno, La Máquina,
Maneadero and La Nueva, appears to be most
closely linked to the sculptural style of the
Cotzumalguapa Nuclear
Zone. The Southeastern Coast corpus includes
23 monuments from La
Nueva, one sculpture from Maneadero, and
three sculptures said to be
from La Máquina. The occurrence of such a large number of sculptures
at La Nueva, rather than at La Máquina, opens the possibility that
La Nueva had closer ties with the
Cotzumlguapa centers, while
La Máquina possibly had ties with Asunción Mita and more distant
centers. The similarities in Middle and Late Classic period
(A.D. 400-900) ceramic, architectural and sculptural styles of the
Southeastern Coast centers indicate that their prominent interaction
partners were in the Escuintla and Cotzumalguapa areas. In fact, the
Southeastern Coast was part of a wide Pacific coastal interaction
sphere identifiable by the distribution of
Tiquisate and Perdido
ceramics, acropolis-type civic/ceremonial architecture and Cotzumalguapa-style sculpture. This interaction sphere might have
had its cultural and political epicenter in the Cotzumalguapa
Nuclear Zone, and stretched from the Nahualate river to western
Pacific El Salvador in Cara Sucia, reaching into the
highland valley
of Antigua. Finally, while it is difficult to determine what
specific ethnic groups correlate with the Classic period coastal
styles, it is noticeable that the Classic period interaction
networks continued a pattern of interactions that had been in
existence since the Preclassic period.
The most spectacular sculpture from La Nueva, Monument 1,
portrays a ruler wearing insignia typical of Cotzumalguapa
iconography, although with some local variation in the details.
Among other sculptures from la Nueva that have distinctive
Cotzumalguapa-style motifs are three columnar coiled serpents (Mon.
7, 20, 21), one of which (Mon. 7) is in Guatemala City's Museo
Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología a finely carved slab with
a serpent head
A sculpture stylistically similar to the typical Cotzumalguapa
low-relief monuments was found at the piedmont site of
La Gabia,
about 20 km NW of Durazno, representing a long-haired figure in
profile. Two tenoned heads housed in the Museo Nacional are probably
from the La Gabia site. The Maneadero sculpture is a human tenoned
head half carved naturally and half as a skull .
La Gabia Monument 1 |
La Gabia Monument 2 |
El
Maneadero |
Durazno Monument |
