Recorrido Arqueológico El Mesón

Summary and Significance

To date, the RAM survey has documented over 1,000 years of occupation in the eastern basin of the Papaloapan River. The survey data indicate that people had been living in the area perhaps as early as the Early Formative period. During the Late Formative period, populations in the area around El Mesón began to expand, and El Mesón itself appears to have emerged as a small regional center. This growth paralleled the development of the large center Tres Zapotes located to the south. Settlements continued to expand in the El Mesón area through the Early Classic period; however there is some indication that by the Early Classic period El Mesón’s prominence as a center was being eclipsed by settlements located to the north. During the Late Classic period, the area was in decline, and given the paucity of Postclassic materials, possibly abandoned by A.D. 1000.

This research is significant because it has provided the first systematically collected regional scale settlement data from this area of the southern Gulf Lowlands. Previous research in the area has focused more on the stone monuments than on the archaeological sites themselves (Stirling 1943; Drucker 1968; Scott 1977). Understanding the political development of the El Mesón area is important because the major occupations date to the transitional period between the earlier Olmec cultures and the later Classic period cultures.

Some important questions about the El Mesón area remain to be answered. One of the most important will be characterizing the relationship between El Mesón and Tres Zapotes. Does the use of the Tres Zapotes long mound/conical mound pattern reflect El Mesón’s role as a secondary center of the Tres Zapotes polity or does it represent the appropriation of the symbols of leadership by a politically independent leader. The results of ongoing analyses of the settlement data and collected artifacts will continue to address this question more fully.

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