Archaeological Investigations at Holmul, Guatemala

Preliminary Report on the Ceramics from Holmul, Guatemala: Year 2000 Season
Laura J. Kosakowsky
Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona & Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology, Boston University

Introduction

The Maya site of Holmul, in the northeastern Petén, Guatemala, was first visited and excavated by Raymond Merwin in a 1910-1911 Harvard University, Peabody Museum expedition. Subsequently, due to Merwin’s ill health and premature death, this initial work was completed by George Vaillant, and the limited excavation and mapping data, and resulting ceramic sequence, were published only many years later (Vaillant, 1927; Merwin and Vaillant, 1932). Not surprisingly, given the spectacular nature of the burials and associated mortuary furniture uncovered in these early excavations, the site of Holmul and the "Holmul I style" (Merwin and Vaillant, 1932), or the "Q-Complex" (Lothrop, 1927) as it also became known, assumed the role as the defining type site for an entire period in Maya prehistory known in the literature as the "Protoclassic" (Pring, 1977), and its ceramic sequence became the standard for Maya sites until the publication of the Uaxactún report in the 1950’s (Smith, 1955). While there has been much recent regional settlement and excavation data available from neighboring projects such as El Proyecto Triangulo (Samayoa, 1996); the El Pilar Project (Ford and Miller, 1997); the Belize River Valley work centered on Buenavista del Cayo (Ball and Taschek, 1991); and the Atlas Arqueológico de Guatemala [Sureste Petén] (LaPorte, 1997), Holmul itself never has been reexamined intensively and relatively little really is known of the ceramics, to say nothing of the settlement patterns, architectural configurations, sculpture, or chronological history of the site.

In the spring of 2000, a multi-year project was begun at Holmul to address questions concerning the development of this site through time, its role as a sub-regional center in wider spheres of political interaction, and to document its settlement history both within the ceremonial center and peripheral areas. Initial mapping of the site center produced a refined map of the main groups (I, II, and III) originally identified by Merwin (Merwin and Vaillant, 1932), and the results of the mapping, limited test pitting of the main plaza area, and cleaning and drawing of looters’ trenches will be reported elsewhere. However the work from this season has produced some interesting preliminary information and new understanding of the ceramics from Holmul.

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