The Beginning of a New Epoch: The Transition to Post-dynastic Life in Río Amarillo, Copán Valley, Honduras

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Contrary to what is reported for post-dynastic Copan, where evidence supports abandonment and reoccupation of the area by a new population, in the Río Amarillo area of the eastern section of the Copan Valley ceramic evidence supports a continual occupation that clearly displays an overlap of types and modes from both Late Classic and Early Postclassic periods. Outside of Río Amarillo’s Central Area and in many of the nearby Quebrada Piedras Negras domestic groups, we have found the coexistence of Copan’s ceramic assemblages with some local ceramic expressions, especially of a domestic ware that has not been reported in Copan. This type appears to have been produced in the area during the Late Classic period, persisting into the Postclassic with some modal changes. We also have some examples of vessels with a typical Late Classic Copan ceramic paste, which was used in Postclassic-produced vessels. In this paper, we will review all the ceramic data collected after seven seasons of research and propose a pattern for the transition between different social organizations in the Rio Amarillo section of the valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25769