Rio Amarillo: A Community on the Edge of the Kingdom

Summary

Situated along the frontier between Maya and non-Maya lands, Rio Amarillo reflects mixed allegiances in its architecture and artifacts, although its Late Classic ceremonial core is most strongly associated with Copan. While politically autonomous during the Early Classic, an inscription on an altar at the site demonstrates that this pre-Columbian town came under Copan’s power during the time of Ruler 12. The construction of an elaborately sculpted building during the reign of Ruler 16 suggests that this control continued through to the end of the Late Classic. During this period the ceremonial core of the site and its residential structures broadcasts affiliations with Copan, including the veneration of K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, Copan’s “founder.” Like Copan, Rio Amarillo’s population enjoyed imported goods from eastern Honduras, but unlike Copan some residential structures outside of the center were constructed in styles that copied those of the interior of Honduras. For the large polity downriver from the site, the fertile alluvial plains of Rio Amarillo may have helped solve food shortages in the kingdom’s center, but this area likely held another valued resource, the tropical rainforest and its products that stretched along the hillsides to the north of the town.

Cite this Record

Rio Amarillo: A Community on the Edge of the Kingdom. Cameron McNeil, Edy Barrios, Alexandre Tokovinine, Walter Burgos. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 404396)

Keywords

Geographic Keywords
Mesoamerica

Spatial Coverage

min long: -107.271; min lat: 12.383 ; max long: -86.353; max lat: 23.08 ;