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

Paso Nuevo

Paso Nuevo is geographically much closer to Palenque than the other survey sites considered here. Most Preclassic ceramics from Paso Nuevo are from a low platform, slightly less than a meter in height. A stone retaining wall, at one end of the platform, contained five stacked dishes (Figure 13a-e). This cache should provide a minimal date for the platform and its redeposited, multicomponent sherds. The dishes are similar: waxy red slip (interior and exterior); flat base; flared walls with outturned rims; and rim moldings that are sometimes groove-incised. Generally similar ceramics occur in the mound fill (Figure 13g, h).

Earlier ceramics are abundant in the fill (Figure 14). The exterior thickened band in a slants downward, the tecomate otherwise resembling, for example, ceramics of the Duende phase at Izapa (Ekholm, 1969:Fig. 66w) and Tok at Chalchuapa (Sharer, 1978:Figs. 6a3, g5). Sharply incurved, c also has Tok-Colas correspondences at Chalchuapa (Sharer, 1978:Figs. 6a2, g5, 7f, 10, 11), and d is Xe-like. White slips (a, e-g), sometimes with a fugitive, mottled black interior, also contrast with the Paso Nuevo cache vessels and with the thickened, everted, or bolstered forms shown elsewhere in Figure 14 (see Lowe, 1978:360-362 for a discussion of Middle Preclassic white wares). In n the rim is interior faceted, a closely similar red sherd being illustrated for Palenque (Figure 16i). Figure 14m resembles ceramics from Zapatillo and Chinikiha (Figure 7l, Figure 11e). Incised semicircles have analogs at Trinidad (cf. Figure 4c, Figure 14h); for concentric squiggles (Figure 14k) compare the Cantera phase at Chalcatzingo (Cyphers Guillen, 1987:Fig. 13.26). Similarities are widespread on a modal level, ranging from the Early to Middle Preclassic.

Jars from Paso Nuevo are shown in Figure 15. Generalized shape classes are high-necked with gentle curvature (a-c); low, flared to curving necks (d-f, j); and thick, coarsely finished high-neck jars flaring toward exterior-faceted rims (g-i). Exterior beveled rims (a-c, g-i) occur in other form classes at Paso Nuevo (Figure 14f, m) and may be seen as a characteristic of the site, replicating, for example, their prominence at Chalchuapa in the Tok, Colas and Kal phases (Sharer, 1978:Table 3B7, Figs. 6a, 7d-f, 8a); also compare jars at Tres Zapotes (Drucker, 1943:Fig. 19). The tapering, long-neck jar (Figure 15a) approaches a La Venta bottle form (cf. Drucker, 1943:118, Fig. 39d) and Middle to Late Preclassic Mal Paso materials (Lee, 1974:Fig. 43b); see also earlier ceramics in Coe and Diehl (1980); Sisson, (1976); and comments by Lowe (1978). White or red-on-white jars are common at Paso Nuevo (Figure 15b, c, e, f); conversely, h is a rare example of brushing and j is bituminous. The strap handle (b) is very rare in the Palenque survey and, generally, in the west (see Lowe, 1978:347). Compared to Chiuaan at Trinidad and some of the Zapatillo ceramics, black is rare at Paso Nuevo and, when present, tends to be distinctive, sometimes recalling the fugitive mottled black-and-whites seen in (Figure 14e, f).

At Paso Nuevo, as in other survey sites considered here, modal similarities suggest relationships outside the Maya Lowlands on early Middle Preclassic and even Early Preclassic levels, followed by ceramics more characteristic of the late Middle to Late Preclassic. The appearance of waxy-surfaced pottery, primarily red but lacking some of the more distinctive features of Sierra Red, appears pivotal, transcending even the Early and Middle Preclassic distinctions. This said, the apparent absence of a number of Early Preclassic diagnostics constitutes an argument against a pervasive occupation at that time.

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