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65 Tabasco lies in southeast Mexico on the Gulf of Campeche. It consists mainly of an alluvial plain through which the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers and their tributaries slowly meander. Only at the southern edge of the state does the plain merge into the northern Chiapas mountain chain. As Tabasco has one of the heaviest rainfalls of all Mexico, the country suffers each year from tremendous floods; even during the dry season, much of the land is perennial swamp. Groves of coconut palms flourish along the coast, cacao is cultivated in the Chontalpa, and cattle are raised wherever possible, with a growing tendency to convert all Tabasco into a huge grassland for pasture. Corn, grown in the old milpa fashion, is insufficient to meet the demand and must be supplemented by imports from Campeche. Bananas, beans, copra, rice, and coffee are the other major agricultural products, followed by oranges, mangoes, and avocados. Rivers and streams serve as main lines of communication . Riverboat service, with modern outboard motors, is available everywhere though irregular . Most of the larger villages are now connected with the capital of the state, Villahermosa, by plane; and the Ferrocarril del Sureste provides easy access to the hinterland of Tabasco and Campeche. Permanent highways supplement the railway to Villahermosa and to Puerto Ceiba on the coast. Many other places can be reached by bus, at least during the dry season. Our knowledge of the archaeology of Tabasco is limited to a few sites. The principal explorers have been Désiré Charnay and Frans Blom; Berendt, Maler, and Seler have added a few bits of information . In recent times, E. Wyllys Andrews discovered new sites in southeast Tabasco; M. W. Stirling and his group thoroughly explored La Venta, with attention to the sculpture and ceramics. The meagerness of this archaeological record prompted a fresh survey of this region where lie the C u r r e n t R e p o r t s Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Archaeology No. 7 December 1953 Archaeological Reconnaissance in T abasco Heinrich Berlin Heinrich Berlin 66 westernmost outposts of Classic Maya culture. It was particularly hoped that we might find indications of a supposed Toltec movement from Tula (Hidalgo) to Chichén Itzá, especially in view of the current belief that the Toltec cultural traits were transmitted to the Itzá by contact with Nahuat-speaking nations west of Laguna de Terminos. Therefore, I spent four months in Tabasco, from January to May 1953. As other institutions were surveying the district of Huimanguillo and the region around La Venta, I did not investigate the western part of the state. To acquire the archaeological background, I visited all known major sites (except Moral and La Venta), which I shall describe under the following more or less geographical groups. The Chontalpa lies north of an imaginary line from Cardenas to Villahermosa, extending almost to the coast and framed by the Rio Gonzalez and the Rio Seco. This region, where cacao shrubs dominate the landscape, has had the highest concentration of Indian population ever since the 16th century. But now the native dialect is rapidly dying out; Nahuatl, or Nahuat, which was spoken in several villages, has disappeared altogether. The search for major evidence of pre-Spanish occupation was disappointing ; at a village with the promising name of Macuiltepec (Five Hills) there were no mounds at all. Even if, under strong clerical influence, the old temples were demolished here more rapidly than in the less populated hinterland, at least the substructures should have survived as places of refuge during the periodical inundations. The Coast was surveyed from Laguna Machona to Laguna de Terminos; all along it is lined with coconut palms. The existence or absence of lagoons with brackish water seems to have played an important part in the ancient cultural development of the region. The Lower Usumacinta, from a geographic point of view, should probably end above Jonuta where the Palizada River separates, but here the term Lower Usumacinta denotes the stretch from Tenosique to the point below Jonuta where the San Pedro y San Pablo River branches off. In this region, known in colonial times as El Partido de 1os Rios, are Tabasco’s major cattle reserves, where the beasts graze in open savanna-like country. A few sites outside these three areas will be described, together with two Campeche ruins, under “Miscellaneous Sites.” It was necessary, during the time allotted to this first survey, to probe the region as a...

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