La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2017, data from the Pacunam Lidar Initiative revealed a previously undetected Maya fortress situated at the edge of a steep limestone escarpment binding the northern edge of the Buenavista Valley, running between the ancient kingdoms of El Zotz and Tikal. The site, named La Cuernavilla, occupies two adjacent hilltops and some of the foothills below. It is protected by concentric rings of massive defensive systems at a scale and intensity previously unattested for the Maya Lowlands. Initial reconnaissance recorded the distinctive Teotihuacan talud-tablero architectural style in one of La Cuernavilla’s temples, suggesting a connection to the important 378 CE entrada during which Tikal’s ruler was assassinated and replaced by an invading party from Central Mexico. Initial test excavations indicated a deeper and more complex history that provoked a more intensive investigation of the fortress in 2021 and 2022. The goals of the research at La Cuernavilla were to understand the site’s emergence and growth in relation to its local and regional environs, as well as its place within broader geopolitical machinations in the Buenavista Valley and the Maya Lowlands as a whole. The papers in this session report the most recent results from the research at La Cuernavilla.