The Cuyamel Caves: Preclassic Sites in Northeast Honduras
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Publication Date
1-1-1974
Publication Title
American Antiquity
Volume Number
39
Issue Number
3
Abstract
The southern border of Mesoamerica is traditionally drawn at the Ulua river of western Honduras, before dipping southward to include El Salvador, Pacific Nicaragua, and northwest Costa Rica. Recent work in the Department of Colón, Honduras, provides the earliest evidence of aboriginal occupation in the region and extends the established chronological sequence back more than a thousand years. A preliminary examination of the ceramics, and a comparison to other Preclassic sites, indicates that eastern Honduras, despite its later affiliation with Lower Central American cultural patterns, was probably participating in the cultural development and long-distance trade network of Early and Middle Preclassic Mesoamerican neighbors. Using ethnohistoric analogy, the possibility of cacao as a Preclassic trade commodity is raised. Finally, it is suggested that the cultural frontier of Mesoamerica in the southeast be extended for the Preclassic time horizon.
Document Type
Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.2307/279432
Recommended Citation
Healy, Paul F., "The Cuyamel Caves: Preclassic Sites in Northeast Honduras" (1974). KIP Articles. 6914.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/kip_articles/6914
