The Expanding Southwestern Frontier of Mesoamerica: Research on Previously Excavated Pacific Coastal Nicaraguan Collection: Peabody Museum

Conclusions

Our understanding of the role and activities of the Tepetate site have been enlighted with the research conducted at the Peabody Museum. Tepetate provides the first concrete evidence of economic specialization found in precolumbian sites of Pacific Nicaragua. In addition, the higher percentage of obsidian prismatic blades found at Tepetate compared to other sites of Granada, and the structural characteristics of the site as reconstructed by Salgado (1996), provide strong evidence for its place as a regional center during Cocibolca and Ometepe.

Changes in pottery and lithic technologies and incorporation of new iconography point to strong interaction with Mesoamerica. The etnohistorical evidence evaluate with the archaeological data strongly support the idea that Mesoamerican groups, or at least with strong links to Mesoamerica, settled the site around 900 A.D. When the Spaniards arrived to Granada in 1522 A.D. Tepetate was very likely part of the Chorotega town of Xalteva mentioned in the historical sources.

Genetic studies of populations of human skeletons of Cocibolca and Xalteva and populations of previous phases could confirm the arrival of Chorotega groups to Granada. Excavations at secondary centers also are necessary to expand the data base to reconstruct the process of settlement of the Chorotega in Granada, and the transformations occurred as a result of it.

The research reported here has shown that Granada was part of the Mesoamerican periphery during the last six centuries before Contact. The study of precolumbian populations during that period has to be understood in the context of sociocultural processes and interactions taking place in the Mesoamerican world-economy.

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