Sierra del Lacandón Regional Archaeology Project

Introduction

This report describes the results of the first field season of the Sierra del Lacandón Regional Archaeology Project (SLRAP). Supported by a grant from the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., (FAMSI), a team of Guatemalan and American archaeologists, soils scientists, and park guards working with the assistance of workers from Dolores, Petén carried out the first systematic archaeological reconnaissance of the Sierra del Lacandón National Park of Guatemala from May 10 to June 1, 2003. The SLRAP was conducted as a subproject of the Piedras Negras Regional Archaeological Project, an integral part of the Fundacíon Defensores de la Naturaleza’s work towards the protection of cultural patrimony in the Sierra del Lacandón National Park of Guatemala (Figure 1). ¹ 

The primary research goal of the SLRAP is to achieve a better understanding of political integration in Classic period Maya society, particularly as this pertains to the relationship between primary rulers and the subordinate nobility who governed the frontier settlements between competing kingdoms. In addition, the SLRAP was charged by park authorities with creating a cultural inventory of the park in low-lying areas adjacent to the Usumacinta River that are threatened by inundation resulting from the construction of hydroelectric dams at the Boca del Cerro in Tabasco, México (Figure 2, shown above). ²   In this brief first field season, the SLRAP achieved great success in establishing the basis for future research in the park. Members of the project identified two previously unknown sites and investigated two sites that had been informally reported, but not adequately documented (Figure 3, shown below).

Endnotes

1. The Fundación Defensores de la Naturaleza is an NGO that co-administers the Sierra del Lacandón Park with the governmental Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas of Guatemala (CONAP). In addition to the SLRAP, The Piedras Negras Regional Archaeology Project includes consolidation, conservation, and touristic development of the site of Piedras Negras under the direction of Lic. Luis Romero.

2. A recent report of the Comisión Federal de Electricidad of México (2003a) indicates that the dam will be 46 m high, and constructed about 90 m above sea level. An unknown number of archaeological sites in the Usumacinta drainage will be flooded when the development project is completed. By the admission of the CFE at least eleven sites in México will be entirely inundated (Comisión Federal de Electricidad 2003b), and this is a conservative estimate that does not include sites in Chiapas or the Petén. Working in conjunction with the Defensores de la Naturaleza, members of the SLRAP, and others are working to assess the potential threat to the cultural and natural patrimony of Guatemala along the Usumacinta River.

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