Kulubá Archaeological Project 2001 Field Season

Previous Research

Despite being one of the largest and best-preserved sites in northeast Yucatán, Kulubá has until very recently seen a dearth of research. Most work has consisted of brief visits to the monumental architecture at the site. The first professional archaeologist to visit Kulubá and publish his findings was E. Wyllys Andrews IV (1941). Andrews IV visited the site for a day and sketch-mapped what is now referred to as Group C (Figure 1.3). He noted two buildings that had fallen columns and perceptively noted their stylistic similarity to the colonnaded buildings at Chichén Itzá. In 1970, three students of the Centro de Estudios Antropológicos de la Universidad de Yucatán (today the Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas) in Mérida visited the site, took photos, and produced a brief report (Anonymous 1970).

In 1973, E. Wyllys Andrews V visited the site and took numerous photos of the standing architecture. Andrews V subsequently published many of these photos (1979) and emphasized the importance of the site for understanding basic cultural-historical questions in Yucatán. He noted several different styles of architecture at the site and re-affirmed Andrews IV’s assertion that least two structures at Kulubá featured Chichén-style architecture (commonly called "Modified Florescent"). In summarizing his observations about Kulubá, Andrews V (1979:17) stated "The presence of at least three and probably four periods of reconstructable masonry architecture at Culubá is unusual, but the strong indications of Modified Florescent colonnaded buildings is even more surprising, for until now practically no Toltec architecture has been reported outside Chichen itself." For purposes of being better able to identify a colonnaded structure in Kulubá’s hinterland, we visited the Modified Florescent buildings reported by Andrews V and took notes and photos (Plate 1.2, Plate 1.3).

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

Kulubá was registered as site 16Qe(4):1 in the groundbreaking Atlas arqueológico del estado de Yucatán of Garza T. and Kurjack (1980). They assigned Kulubá a Rank III site and their published location is only 500m northwest of the GPS point taken in 2001. In 1980, Ricardo Velázquez Valadez of INAH carried out some basic restoration work at the site, including solidifying some collapsing vaulted rooms. G. Andrews (1995) and Gendrop (1983) made brief mention of Kulubá in their comparative analyses of northern lowland architectural styles. They noted that Kulubá is a far-flung example of the Mosaic Pure Florescent architecture and Modified Florescent architecture.

Alfredo Barrera Rubio (Barrera Rubio et al. 2001) of CRY-INAH has recently initiated a much-needed project at Kulubá and his research has greatly increased our knowledge of the site. Among the primary goals of the project were to study the site’s natural environment, map the main civic architectural groups and some adjoining residential settlement, conduct a regional reconnaissance, and initiate a program of architectural restoration. The three main clusters of civic architecture have now been mapped. Group A (Figure 1.4) features a Puuc building with distinct U-shaped blocks that was photographed by Andrews V (1979). The Mosaic Pure Florescent building (Plate 1.1), complete with Chac Masks and several geometric elements, is found in Group B (Figure 1.5). Barrera Rubio’s mapping crews also re-mapped Group C, the civic complex where two colonnaded structures are found (Figure 1.6). Whereas Andrews IV had Group C U-shaped with the northern side open, Barrera Rubio’s map has the north side filled in with civic structures. The evidence acquired during Barrera Rubio’s test pitting and restoration work has only strengthened the argument that there was a connection between Kulubá and Chichén Itzá. His excavations have yielded significant quantities of Sotuta ceramics and green obsidian; both of which are intimately associated with the Itzá capital.

Despite major advancements in our knowledge of Kulubá the site, a more comprehensive understanding of the entire Kulubá polity was, until the 2001 field season, simply an impossibility. The only reconnaissance of lower-order sites in the Kulubá region was the Atlas Project (Kurjack and Garza T. 1980) and Barrera Rubio’s Project (Barrera Rubio et al. 2001). However, both of these projects simply recorded the location of the sites they encountered and produced some preliminary sketch maps. While this work was invaluable for us in re-locating these sites, the lower rungs of Kulubá’s settlement hierarchy were not the primary focus of these projects. With its explicit regional perspective, the project reported here makes a logical complement with Barrera Rubio’s site-centered project and together they provide critical new data about Kulubá and its environs.

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