Early Mesoamerican Social Transformations: Archaic and Formative Lifeways in the Soconusco Region

9. Early Formative Transitions in Settlement and Subsistence at Chiquiuitan, Guatemala

191 smaller-scale perspective on settlement and subsistence shifts through a focus on specific household developments at Chiquiuitan. This chapter describes the gradual development of Chiquiuitan from an Early Formative resource extraction locale to a fully sedentary, foodproducing community by the Middle Formative . The interpretations made here are important to consider in relation to those from the Soconusco region and other sites on the Guatemala coast. Taken together, the information that is presently being compiled from the various regions along the Pacific coast, including Chiquiuitan, offers a nuanced reconstruction of this critical period in Mesoamerican prehistory. THE SITE OF CHIQUIUITAN Chiquiuitan is located in the Chiquimulilla coastal estuary ecological zone in southern Guatemala. North of the site lies the fertile coastal plain and the beginning of the slope to the Sierra Madre volcanic chain of the Guatemalan highlands less than 20km away. Rivers Understanding early sedentary society and the concomitant cultural transitions that occurred in the Formative period have been some of the most difficult problems of Mesoamerican archaeology. Along the Pacific coastal region of Mexico and Guatemala , increasing evidence demonstrates signi ficant advances in subsistence, technology, trade, symbolic systems, and social relations. Much of the recent work on these topics is documented in the chapters of this volume. This chapter adds to the growing Pacific coast data by addressing settlement and subsistence at the site of Chiquiuitan in Guatemala. I describe data collected at Chiquiuitan between 2006 and 2009 from a small site at the southeastern edge of the coastal culture area. These data offer another example of Early and Middle Formative development. The area around Chiquiuitan was previously studied through a regional survey project that revealed an increasingly complex settlement during the Formative period (EstradaBelli 1998, 2002). More recent research builds upon the regional study by providing a NINE Early Formative Transitions in Settlement and Subsistence at Chiquiuitan, Guatemala Molly Morgan 192 beyond the individual study area system that may have destroyed additional mounds of the site. The Chiquimulilla Lagoon is located to the east. Estuaries, mangrove forests , the Chiquimulilla Canal, and an extinct beach dune separate Chiquiuitan from the Pacific coast 1km to the south. Barrier ridges such as the one to the south of Chiquiuitan are found all across the coastline and show evidence for progradation since the stabilization of the sea level after about 5500 b.c. (Kennett, Voorhies, and Martorana 2006; Voorhies 2004). The only previous survey and excavation project conducted at Chiquiuitan took place between 1995 and 1997, when Francisco Estrada-Belli identified the site as part of a regional Global Information System (GIS) study (Estrada-Belli 1998; Estrada-Belli, Kosakowsky, and Wolf 1998). That survey project helped define the occupational chronology of the region between the María Linda and Paz rivers and over the coastal plain and piedmont (Estrada-Belli 1999, 2002). Furthermore, Laura Kosakowsky conducted a preliminary ceramic analysis, which identified diagnostic attributes and established flow out of the mountains and form wetlands and lagoons that are connected by man-made and natural canals all along the coastal edge. The rivers nearest to Chiquiuitan are the María Linda, 15km to the west, and the Esclavos, 15km to the east. Chiquiuitan occupies the seasonally inundated land near the Chiquimulilla Lagoon, 3km west of the modern town of Monterrico . Its soils are composed of sand and heavy clays. The hot tropical climate involves a six-month dry winter followed by concentrated rains, especially between July and September. The site itself is composed of twenty-two broad and flat earthen mounds varying in size between 50 and 150m in diameter and 1 and 4m in height. The site layout comprises a center of twenty mounds arranged in an irregular fashion in this relatively flat area of the coastal plain, including Mound 13, located slightly to the west, and two other mounds slightly removed to the east (Figure 9.1). The northern and western boundaries of the site are created by an artificial road and canals that delineate the southern extent of a man-made irrigation FIGURE 9.1 Map of Chiquiuitan showing the locations of mounds discussed in the text, as well as modern villages and landscape features settlement, subsistence at chiquiuitan 193 the small scale. This research considered material evidence from household contexts to clarify how the founders of Chiquiuitan first established a sedentary community, as well...