In Search of Maya Sea Traders

CHAPTER 10. In Search of the Coastal Maya

107 CHAPTER 10 IN SEARCH OF THE COASTAL MAYA M y doctoral committee had asked me whether Wild Cane Cay was an isolated trading port for long-distance sea traders. In other words, was the coastal area north of Punta Gorda, which was virtually devoid of modern settlement, also virtually uninhabited in ancient times? Or were there other sites in the area? If there were other sites in the Port Honduras coastal region, did the Maya at those communities have access — by trade — to the exotic artifacts and raw materials that were traded to Wild Cane Cay? Once my dissertation was completed, I was able to address those questions. We had already found a few sites while traveling to and from Wild Cane Cay or going up Deep River to get drinking water. Nevertheless, I wanted to more comprehensively and systematically search the coast and cays for archaeological sites. Initially this task seemed quite small since there was little dry land in the region apart from our tent camp on Wild Cane Cay. I was surprised to find that sites were not restricted to dry land. We discovered ancient Maya sites in the mangrove swamps on the mainland and on the cays that were currently uninhabited and inhospitable . As at Wild Cane Cay, several of the sites continued into the shallow water around other cays. Some sites were even completely underwater with no dry land. Fortunately, neither the volunteers nor my student field assistants had other archaeological experience, so they did not realize that my project was in any way unusual.1 Evidently the landscape and seascape of Port Honduras was quite different in ancient times. There must have been more dry land to support human settlement. There had been either a widespread rise in sea level that 108 i n s e a r c h o f o t h e r m a y a s i t e s had affected the region, a subsidence of the land, or a combination of sea-level rise and subsidence. The alternate hypothesis, that the ancient Maya lived underwater, provided comic relief and produced chuckles from the students and volunteers. Once we found a site, we inspected the ground surface and collected artifacts with decoration or a shape that I recognized as characteristic of a particular time period. If there were no distinctive artifacts on the ground surface , we often excavated a 1 by 1 m test unit. Where there was no dry land or when we found no artifacts on the ground surface, we sometimes did shovel tests. In fact, in many instances there was no surface evidence of an ancient site or even the likelihood of an ancient site (no dry land), but we found deeply buried archaeological deposits. My suspicion was that almost anywhere we excavated we would find buried sites, and this speculation was borne out by the sites we found. We mapped the sites and backfilled the excavations , returning to some sites for further excavations if they were large or I had other reasons to return, such as finding trade goods in datable deposits or documenting changes in sea level. When we excavated submerged sites, we recorded the depth of the ancient deposits below the current sea level and the age of the artifacts, based either on their styles or on radiocarbon dates of associated organic remains. Even though I couldn’t tell whether the sea had actually risen or the land had sunk, I could document the dates of sites at particular depths below the current sea level. Obsidian continued to be a useful gauge of external trading ties.2 Nevertheless , we increasingly found resources and artifacts from nearby that indicated active trade locally between the coast and the adjacent, inland Maya communities. Local goods from the coast included sea urchin spines, stingray spines, salt, coral, manatee and shell carvings, and seafood. (We didn’t actually find salt but instead the pots that were used to boil brine to make salt.) Inland trade goods at coastal sites included the freshwater river shell “jute,” limestone, chert, and pottery, including figurine whistles and jars with distinctive , stamped impressions. A growing body of evidence contributed to a view of a vibrant coastal-inland trade in Port Honduras that linked with the long-distance trading port at Wild Cane Cay. Having a base camp on Wild Cane Cay allowed me to explore the coastal waters when the sea was relatively calm while continuing to excavate on...