Caminos perdidos y vías olvidadas: Trade Routes and Exchange Networks in Late Pre-Hispanic Central America

Twenty-first century archaeological research focusing on southern Central America is producing a substantial amount of knowledge concerning a culture area that has long suffered a reputation for being “poorly known.” Despite an increase in data, scholars still have a comparatively limited understanding of how the various regions and polities within this culture area interacted with each other and with their more distant neighbors to the north, south, and east before the arrival of Europeans. Many discussions of trade and exchange between different regions remain largely speculative. Papers in this session will attempt to take a fresh look at archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence for the lost social networks and trade routes that once carried Maya jades to Costa Rica and copper bells from Panama to West Mexico.