Ch'orti Maya Area: Past and Present

6. Archaeological Investigations in the Camotán Valley, Guatemala

6 Archaeological Investigations in the CamotánValley, Guatemala Carson N. Murdy Modern country borders do not reflect the limits of ancient Maya kingdoms and, in fact, complicate the study of them. The Copan kingdom, whose political center lies in modern Honduras, for some time preceding the death of its thirteenth king, Waxaklajun Ub′ah K′awil, held dominion over areas in what is now Guatemala. The limits of this great kingdom are still not well understood. While the relationship between Copan and the archaeological site of Quirigua, located to its north in Guatemala has been extensively studied (Ashmore 1981; C. Jones and Sharer 1986; Looper 2003a; Schortman 1993; Sharer 1978a), little research has been conducted in the Guatemalan lands immediately east of Copan where the Copan River becomes the Camotán River (see Figure 1.1). In 1990, I conducted an archaeological survey in the bottomlands that lie along the Camotán River in the hopes of better understanding the relationship of this area to the political center that lies across the border. This survey of both site distribution and agricultural fertility provides clues about Maya settlement strategies and dissolves the artificial boundary that has separated the research of the Guatemalan and Honduran preColumbian communities. The Camotán Valley Area From its headwaters on the southwestern slopes of the Sierra Gallinero in Honduras, the Copan River traces a sinuous arc to the south and west through a steep-sided, narrow valley before joining the Motagua River 78 Archaeological Investigations in the CamotánValley · 79 northeast of Zacapa, Guatemala, some eighty kilometers downstream (Turner et al. 1983). The valley formed along the banks of the river occasionally opens into wider pockets where alluvial plains have developed, bordered by relatively flat fluvial terraces; there are five of these in Honduras and six in Guatemala before the valley widens to join the Motagua River plain just south of Zacapa. The upper and middle courses of this river, known as the Amarillo River and the Copan River, respectively, have a more or less adequate moisture regimen, with an average annual precipitation from around 2,000 millimeters at the headwaters to some 1,300 millimeters downstream at the Honduras-Guatemala border (Turner et al. 1983: Fig. T-13). The upper reaches of the valley support a mixed deciduous forest, with pine and oak forests at higher elevations. Upon crossing into Guatemala, the Camotán River valley enters a notably drier region where the precipitation continues to diminish to less than 1,000 millimeters annually through most of its lower course, and the vegetation tends to be xerophytic. The portion of this valley in Honduras has been the scene of more than one hundred years of archaeological and ethnological fieldwork (Andrews and Fash 2005; Baudez 1983; Fash 2001; Gordon 1896, 1898, 1902; Longyear 1952; Morley 1920; Sanders 1986; Sharer, Miller, and Traxler 1992; Sharer, Fash et al. 1999; Stromsvik 1935; Trik 1939; Webster and Freter 1990a; Webster, Freter, and Gonlin 2000; Willey and Leventhal 1979; Willey, Leventhal, and Fash 1978). Although the majority of these investigations have been focused on the center of the Copan polity, some projects have included intensive surveys in the rest of the Copan pocket (Fash 1983c; Fash and Long 1983) as well as in the other rural areas of the drainage (Gonlin 1993; Webster 1985; Webster and Freter 1990a, 1990b; Webster and Gonlin 1988). The results of these investigations thus far indicate that although Copan probably controlled almost all of the valley at its peak around a.d. 750–800, the majority of the estimated 18,000–25,000 inhabitants at that time lived in the Copan pocket, with only three or four thousand people living elsewhere in the valley and its tributaries (Webster and Freter 1990b). Little research has been done on the human settlement and population history in the Guatemalan sector of this valley, however. One archaeological site was documented in the hamlet of Lelá Obraje (Luján Muñoz 1968), and another with mounds visible from the highway in Lelá Chancó, was located either near the caserío of Limar (E. M. Shook, personal communication , 1989) and called “LaVergona,” or in the neighborhood of the caserío La Quesera (W. T. Sanders, personal communication, 1988). A protohistoric site, the Zacualpa de Yupelingo, is also mentioned in Span- 80 · Carson N. Murdy ish colonial documents archived in Guatemala and Tegucigalpa. This site was probably located near the...