Chocolá
 | This articlemay be too technical for most readers to understand.(May 2022) |
 Modern Village of Chocolá | |
  Shown within Guatemala | |
| Location | San Pablo Jocopilas,Suchitepéquez,Guatemala |
|---|---|
| Region | Southern Maya area |
| Coordinates | 14°37′01″N91°25′42″W/ 14.616944°N 91.428333°W |
| Area | 2 x 6 km |
| History | |
| Periods | Preclassic,Classic |
| Cultures | Maya civilization |
Chocoláis aPreclassicSouthernMayasite whose developmental emphasis was fromc.1000 BC to AD 200. The site lies within theSouthern Maya area.
Chocolá is in theSan Pablo Jocopilasmunicipality in the southernSuchitepéquez DepartmentofGuatemala.A modern village lies on top of and within the ancient site.
Importance of the site
[edit]Lying on a plateau below volcanic mountain ridges to the north and east, and at a height of 500–1000 meters, the site consists of three general groupings extending over c. 6 by 2 kilometers, oriented north-to-south. To the north, great platform mounds consisted of elite residences, with elaborate hydraulic networks of stone-lined canals bringing water in from underground springs.
In these precincts, large palaces were built; from Structure 7-1, c. 25 by 25 meters and 5 meters high, caches of fine complete vessels were recovered, likelydedicatory offeringsplaced during the construction of the edifice.
In the ancient central district further south, pyramidal mounds up to 25 meters held administrative structures.Archaeoastronomicalresearch has tentatively identified crucial alignments from structures in the administrative center of the city that reflect primordial measurements that underlay development of theMaya calendar.[1]Still further south, flatter areas contained commoner houses and workshops. Thus far, hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been found, including many whole vessels, sculptured monuments and altars, and figurines, most dating to the Preclassic. Around the site are caves still sacred to localritualists.
Researchers have hypothesized that one reason for the early development of such high complexity at Chocolá is the intensivecultivationofcacaofor long-distance trade.[2]Based on older as well as still accumulating evidence, scholars assume that innovative developments occurred in the southern Mesoamerican area during the Preclassic period (1500 BC – AD 200) that strongly influenced the later great Mesoamerican civilizations.[3]However, scholars lack a clear sense of even the broader events and processes that shaped southern Guatemala's history and gave it its peculiar and, as long assumed, seminal character. Investigations atKaminaljuyu,in the central Guatemalan highlands, andTakalik Abaj,in southwestern Guatemala, over recent decades showed the strong relationship between these two regions. These centers, along with other nearby sites, like Chocolá, participated in distinct political networks and shared ideologies, technologies, and economics.
Chocola also participated in thepotbelly sculpturetradition. One such monument was found there.[4]
Archaeological investigations
[edit]
A complex of more than 100 structures was discovered byKarl Sapperin the last years of the 19th century[5]and a few mounds were excavated by Robert Burkitt in the 1920s.[6]The discovery by Burkitt of Monument 1, astelacarved in the "Miraflores" style, sparked interest among scholars, suggestive as it was that Chocolá may have been an important polity early on with distinct political connections with Kaminaljuyu.[7]This stela bears extraordinary similarities both in style and content to Kaminaljuyu Stela 10, a gigantic throne and the site's single largest monument.[8]In 2003, long-term excavations were initiated by the Proyecto Arqueologico Chocola (PACH). These investigations are exploring the social and cultural developments that led to the rise of the Classic Maya, with sophisticatedcity-states,hieroglyphicliteracy, exquisiteceramics,and the most advanced mathematics andastronomyin the New World.
Also in 2003 a large portion of work was focused on the division of Chocolá into three different sectors, a northern elite sector, a central administrative sector, and a southern commoner and agricultural sector. In succeeding field seasons, evidence from the first field season of subterranean water conduits was expanded to reveal an extensive water management system. Also, excavations of three structures in the north sector of the city of large, grouped edifices and platforms, included one very large elite palace structure. Excavations in the central, presumed administrative sector of particularly large pyramidal mounds revealed a very early (Middle Preclassic, or c. 800 BC) earthen edifice. In the southern sector, excavation of a very large platform with a cobble wall recovered evidence suggesting agricultural management.
In 2017, cacao residues in ten vessels from the site, all Preclassic in style, were identified at the Hershey Company laboratory,[9]lending greater weight to the theory that cacao arboriculture existed at Chocolá early in the trajectory of Maya civilization. If Chocolá grew cacao intensively, it likely would have traded this commodity, so highly valued by the ancient Maya and other ancient Mesoamerican cultures. Given the long-standing accumulation of evidence of high or advanced hallmark traits of Maya civilization - writing, the stela-altar complex and "kingship", the Maya calendar - appearing first in the Southern Maya Region, PACH investigators have proposed a material basis for the emergence of at least some of these traits, based on the discovery of the sophisticated water management system and of possible cacao cultivation and trade.
Water and chocolate
[edit]
Discovered between 2003 and 2005, networks of stone-lined or stone-enclosed drains and conduits, extending at least 1.5 kilometers, demonstrate sophisticated hydraulics.Radiocarbon datingsituates the system in the Late Middle Preclassic period, or as early as 500 BC.[10]Early and later Post-Conquestethnohistoryattests thatSoconusco,Suchitepéquez, andEscuintlawere important centers for the production of cacao, a high water-demand plant. The same ethnohistory records very dense populations at the time of the Conquest and fierce fighting between variouscaciquesfor control of cacao in an area where today one findsMazatenango,Cuyotenango,Zapotitlán,San Antonio,andSamayac,all indicated by ethnohistory to have been significant centers of cacao production and trade, and all clustered closely around the Chocolá site. While such ethnohistoric information cannot be relied on as direct evidence to characterize events and processes from millennia earlier, it seems reasonable to use these data as a guide for what one could look for, including evidence of large-scale exchange, perhaps most plausibly, of obsidian for cacao. If, indeed, archaeological evidence can be found to support intensive cacao cultivation at and around Chocolá, a yet stronger case will be made for the Southern Maya area as crucial to the rise of Maya civilization.
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- Burkitt, Robert (1930) Excavations at Chocolá.The Museum Journal21:5-40
- Green, Harold H. (2014). "Cosmic Order at Chocola: Implications of Solar Observations of the Eastern Horizon at Chocola, Suchitepquez, Guatemala." In Archaeoastronomy and the Maya, Gerardo Aldana y Villalobos and Edwin L. Barnhart, editors, pp. 19–39. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
- Kaplan, Jonathan (1995) The Incienso Throne, and Other Thrones from Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala: Late Preclassic Examples of a Mesoamerican Throne Tradition.Ancient Mesoamerica6:185-196.
- Kaplan, Jonathan (2000) Monument 65: A Great Emblematic Depiction of Throned Rule and Royal Sacrifice at Late Preclassic Kaminaljuyú.Ancient Mesoamerica11:185-198
- Kaplan, Jonathan, Federico Paredes Umaña, W. Jeffrey Hurst, D. Sun, Bruce Stanley, Luis Barba Pingarrón, and Mauricio Obregon Cardona (2017) Cacao Residues in Vessels from Chocolá, an Early Maya Polity in the Southern Guatemalan Piedmont, Determined by Semi-Quantitative Testing and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography.Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports13:526-534.
- Kaplan, Jonathan and Federico Paredes Umaña (in press)Water, Cacao and the Early Maya of Chocolá.University Press of Florida, Gainesville
- Love, Michael and Jonathan Kaplan (2011).The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic: The Rise and Fall of an Early Mesoamerican Civilization,Michael Love and Jonathan Kaplan, eds. University Press of Colorado, Boulder
- PACH (Proyecto Arqueológico Chocolá),http://www.chocolaproject.org
- Sharer, Robert (2005)The Ancient Maya,6th ed. Stanford University Press, Stanford
- Sapper, Karl (1897)Das nordliche Mittel-Amerika. Nebst einem Ausflug nach dem Hochlandvon Anahuac-reisen und Studien aus den Jahren 1888-1895.Braunschweig
Further reading
[edit]| This article is part ofa serieson the |
| Maya civilization |
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| History |
| Spanish conquest of the Maya |
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External links
[edit]- Chocolá Archaeology: Introductionchocolaproject.org
