Palenque and Selected Survey Sites in Chiapas and Tabasco: The Preclassic

Chinikiha

Small quantities of Preclassic ceramics were obtained from several mixed deposits, notably caves. Correspondences are close to the high-neck daub jars of Trinidad, although at Chinikiha red completely covers the sherd exterior (Figure 11a, b). Aside from Tierra Blanca, an Usumacinta site just upstream from Trinidad, Chinikiha is the only other site in the survey region where this daubed, volcanic-glass bearing type is known.

Other Preclassic jars from Chinikiha are shown in (Figure 11c-e). Widely distributed in the survey region, the shape class in c occurs, with only slight variation, at Trinidad (Figure 5c), Zapatillo (Figure 7i), Paso Nuevo (Figure 15f, j), and Palenque (Figure 18c). Volcanic ash temper is characteristic. Fluted rim moldings (Figure 11d) are also known on jars from Palenque, the form being relatively less common there, however, than at Chinikiha; coarse carbonate temper is usual. With folded rim and slightly grooved lip, the Chinikiha jar in Figure 11e is closely paralleled at Zapatillo (Figure 7l) and (not illustrated) at Palenque; again carbonate temper is characteristic. Chinikiha, therefore, is important for its intraregional ceramic crossties. Figure 12 expands comparative material from the site on an interregional basis.

In discussing affiliations between Komchen and La Venta, Will Andrews (Andrews V, 1986:34-39, 4d3, Figs. 11b, i, k and 12d-m) illustrates sharply everted and downturned dish rims; dates may be on the order of B.C. 600/500 to 400/300. Perhaps slightly less strongly, Chinikiha dishes also fit into his illustrated range (Figure 12a, b), and a generally similar form occurs at Palenque (Figure 16f). At least occasional ceramics from the Palenque survey seem to reflect the inferred contacts, perhaps rendering unnecessary the direct seagoing route between the Olmec area and Yucatán posited by Andrews (1986:41-42).

The possibility of Olmec-Chinikiha affiliations is strengthened, on at least a modal (shape) level (Figure 12c, d). Nuances of rim and wall curvature correspond closely to types of the San Lorenzo phase, as known both at the type site (Coe and Diehl, 1980:Fig. 154) and at Mirador (Agrinier, 1984:Fig. 36w). Red-on-white is also shared in this form class (d) and for the early Olmec horizon we may approach a typological, rather than simply modal, level of comparative analysis.

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