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352 N o t e s o f M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 89 April 5, 1948 Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala: Addenda and Corrienda A. V. Kidder Some 400 m south of the Esperanza mounds there is a slight rise in the generally flat terrain. This was chosen as the sits of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Hospital, a joint enterprise of the Guatemala and United States governments. We had previously examined the locality as part of our general surface survey of Kaminaljuyu, but had found no mounds and only a few sherds and chips of obsidian. When digging for the hospital’s extensive foundations began in the spring of 1944, however, a small Esperanza tomb was encountered. The engineer then in charge, Mr. F. A. Crampton, reported it and kindly turned over to us the pottery and other objects it contained (KJS, p. 85). He was asked to save any further archaeological material that might come to light during the summer. When I returned to Guatemala in the autumn, I found that Mr. Crampton had made a large collection of sherds from a series of bottle-shaped pits dug through the surface clay and into the underlying volcanic ash. The fragments were unweathered, with sharp, clean breaks, and it was obvious at a glance that they represented a ceramic complex not previously known. It was equally obvious that it bore some relationship to Miraflores because of certain close resemblances in vessel shapes and because very similar white ware occurred in both. On the other hand, there were lacking such characteristic Miraflores types as needle-point incised brown-black, heavily incised brown-black, and fine red. Several entirely unfamiliar types also appeared: red jars with bolster rim and simple incising, red-on-yellow bichrome In the recent report by Kidder, Jennings, and Shook (Kaminaljuyu, hereafter referred to as KJS) on the great archaeological site of Kaminaljuyu in the outskirts of Guatemala City, it was stated that four cultural phases were there represented: Miraflores, an Archaic or Middle Culture development; Esperanza, of the Early Classic Period; Amatle and Pamplona, which we assigned to the first part of the Late, or post-Classic, Period. We believed that in the terminal half of the Classic Period either Kaminaljuyu was not occupied or we had failed to hit upon remains which might have been laid down during that time. Two years after the close of our field work, a local find suggested the presence of an additional early phase, but we did not have opportunity to study the specimens carefully enough to warrant its inclusion in our report. Still later, when the report was already in press, a discovery to Salvador made it evident that the postulated hiatus between Esperanza and Amatle-Pamplona had not existed and that the latter was, in reality, Late Classic. The new phase, which has been named Las Charcas, serves to lengthen the known occupancy of the site; the closing of the hiatus indicates that its occupancy was probably continuous. Although these two pieces of information do not greatly alter our original conclusions as to Kaminaljuyu and its exterior contacts, they bear sufficiently upon certain wider problems of Mesoamerican prehistory to justify this postscript. The Las Charcas phase will be considered first: Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala: Addenda and Corrienda 353 bowls, deeply scored graters. Detailed description of the Las Charcas wares will be included in a later report on the pottery of Kaminaljuyu. The Crampton collection, of course, raised the question of the chronological relation of Las Charcas to Miraflores. This could not be denied on stylistic grounds, for the wares of the two groups were equally excellent. For some time the specimens from the hospital were the only ones available for study. But in 1946 Shook found further sherds, thrown out in grading operations near Guarda Viejo, about 2 km east of the hospital. Again there were no mounds. A third find, once more unconnected with mounds, was made in the suburb of Santa Clara. In this case the sherds were picked up along a trench for a pipe line. Only in 1947 did evidence for the greater age of Las Charcas come to light. In that year Shook examined a mound cut through by a road at Canchon, on the plateau...

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