Rural Production in Northwest Honduras: The 2004 Season of the Lower Cacaulapa Valley Archaeological Project
With contributions by: Edward M. Schortman, Anthropology Department, Kenyon College

Methods

At each site, every effort was made to select structures for excavation that spanned the full range of size and morphological variation seen on the ground surface at the settlement. Digging began with a trench set on each platform's axis, usually running from the patio-facing side of the edifice across to its presumed back. Architecture identified in this, the portion of the building where construction units were likely best preserved, was then followed laterally to the extent that time allowed. Our goal was to expose as much of every investigated structure as possible to reconstruct its basal dimensions and identify architectural patterns and artifact associations crucial to inferring the activities that were performed on and around the building. A portion of the axial trench was pursued to sterile to reconstruct the sequence of occupation at a site. Probes into construction were limited by Honduran law which restricts the extent to which standing architecture can be disturbed in excavations.

Recovered artifacts were washed and processed at the project lab in the town of Pueblo Nuevo, Santa Bárbara. Processing involves sorting finds into general categories, such as incense burners and figurines, counting the numbers of items within each taxon, and entering those figures on forms for each collection unit, or "lot." A sample of washed and processed pottery sherds was then subjected to more intensive analysis, while artifacts were cataloged. The choice of items for further study was determined by the importance of their contexts: e.g., objects from sealed deposits had a higher priority than those from construction fill.

Pottery sherds were classified according to the type-variety-mode system to date deposits and infer activities based on the distribution of such functionally sensitive attributes as vessel form. Figurines, whistles, ocarinas, incense burners, grinding stones, potstands, worked and used sherds, and other distinctive artifacts were drawn and described on catalog forms; particularly informative pieces were also photographed. Obsidian tools were analyzed by W. McFarlane, his efforts focusing on identifying features relevant to describing their sources, modes of manufacture, and how they were used. All recovered artifacts were washed and processed. Fully 31,538 sherds and 1,874 obsidian implements and pieces of debris were analyzed while 958 items were catalogued. Additional studies were carried out in the summer of 2005, all of which support the conclusions reported herein based on 2004 excavation and analysis.

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