Investigations at Piedras Negras, Guatemala: 1999 Field Season

Among the River Kings: Archaeological Research at Piedras Negras, Guatemala
Stephen D. Houston, Héctor Escobedo, Richard Terry, David Webster, George Veni, and Kitty F. Emery

Acknowledgements

The 1999 Field Season existed only because of a permit generously granted by the Guatemalan Instituto de Antropología e Historia (IDAEH). Its advisory council and field inspector, Gustavo Amarra, provided thoughtful oversight. A variety of funding sources and friends transformed that permit into full-fledged fieldwork. First and foremost, the Project thanks Mr. Kenneth Woolley, of Salt Lake City, along with timely assistance from his colleague Mr. Spence Kirk, both astute businessmen with a love of learning and an appreciation for the arduous path of archaeology. Their visit in 1999 heightened our spirits. Funding also came from our stalwarts, the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies Founder, Lewis Ranieri, Director, Dr. Sandy Noble, and the Ahau Foundation, Peter Harrison, President. The Rust Trust of Brigham Young University and Dean Clayne Pope, College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, funneled crucial funds, as did Vice President Gary Hooper for lab rental. BYU generously granted a leave for Houston during the 1998-1999 academic year. Evie Forsythe helped as ever with innumerable and thankless tasks of accounting, as did Houston’s department chair, Prof. Joel Janetski; Prof. John Hawkins provided an invaluable loan of his computer during the lab season. Supplementary help came from the Albers Fund (Yale, for Mark Child), the Bowditch Fund (Harvard, for James Fitzsimmons), and the personal account of Charles Golden (Penn). The National Geographic Society, Committee for Research and Exploration, Dr. George Stuart, chair, continued to support Webster and Kovak’s research in the site periphery.

Our work relied utterly on the backbreaking efforts of our laborers from Dolores, Petén. Next to them our mainstays were diligent members of the junior staff: Ernesto Arredondo (del Valle, test pits and Acropolis), Mark Child (Yale, Field Director and sweatbaths), Jessica Child (SUNY-Albany, sweatbaths), Pierre Robert Colas (Hamburg, caves), Benjamin Crozier (BYU, soil studies), Emily Elmer (BYU, flotation), Fabian Fernandez (BYU, soil studies), James Fitzsimmons (Harvard, Acropolis zone), Lillian Garrido (San Carlos, Acropolis zone), Charles Golden (Penn, Acropolis), Alejandro Guillot (del Valle, test pits and residential architecture), Zachary Hruby (UC-Riverside, artifacts, Project Artist), Heather Hurst (independent, architectural rendering), Amy Kovak (Penn State, peripheral settlement), René Muñoz (Arizona, ceramics), Zachary Nelson (BYU, mapping), Jacob Parnell (BYU, soil studies), Mónica Pellecer (San Carlos, Acropolis), Luis Romero (San Carlos, residential architecture), Christian Wells (Arizona State, residential architecture). In a real sense, they can be considered as the true midwives of this report. Allan Cobb and Bonnie Longley helped us greatly in understanding the local landscape of Piedras Negras; Prof. James Brady of Cal State-LA, facilitated their participation. In our lab in Guatemala City, Cassady Yoder (Texas A&M) and Andy Scherer (Texas A&M) patiently patched and documented human bone, and Sarah Jackson (Harvard) and Faviola Quiroa (del Valle) assisted in integrating archaeology with artifacts. Alexander F. Christensen made useful comments on an earlier draft.

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