Aguada Fénix: An Early Middle Preclassic Monumental Site in the Middle Usumacinta Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The site of Aguada Fénix, located on the San Pedro River in northeastern Tabasco, Mexico, was recently discovered by the Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project through LiDAR mapping. The site layout corresponds to what the project has defined as the Middle Formative Usumacinta Pattern (MFU), which consists of a large north-south oriented rectangular platform or feature, delineated by low structures, and a central E-Group. Aguada Fénix is the largest of these sites and may have served as a central place in the Middle Usumacinta drainage during the early Middle Preclassic. It features a monumental rectangular platform with a large E-Group at its center, and several causeways that lead towards it from the west, as well as pairs of ramps and causeways on its northern and southern ends, and is surrounded by large man-made reservoirs. The construction system of the monumental platform resembles some of the building techniques used at the Olmec center of La Venta. Nevertheless, the recovered ceramics suggest that the site was built during the early Middle Preclassic (ca. 1000-700 BC) and point towards an intense interaction between the local population and the central and southern Maya lowlands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23883