Final Report of the 2000 Yo’okop Field Season: Initial Mapping and Surface Collections
Justine M. Shaw, Dave Johnstone, and Ruth Krochock

Introduction to the Site

Location
The Maya site of Yo’okop, also known as Okop or La Aguada (Figure 1), is located in the contact period province of Cochuah (Roys 1965), approximately 12 kilometers southeast of the modern pueblo of Sabán (Figure 2) at 88° 24’ E and 19° 57’ N, in west-central Quintana Roo. The site lies in the center of a large archaeologically uninvestigated region between those areas surveyed by Sanders (1960) and Harrison (1973 and 1981).

Physiographic Characterization
While the Yucatán peninsula is often referred to as a single region, it is characterized by a remarkable diversity of geological, climatic, floral, and faunal features. Physiographically, the peninsula has been defined by Shattuck (1933) as the area north of a line extending from the mouth of the Gulf of Honduras to the western limit of the Laguna de Términos in the state of Campeche (Robles R. 1958) or between 21° 30’ and 18° N latitude and 86° 25’ and 91° 40’ W longitude (Figure 1).

The Yucatán peninsula is a flat, low-lying Cenozoic marine limestone platform that projects northward into the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of México. The northern portion of the peninsula is a pitted karst plain (West 1964). With the exception of the Puuc hills, or the Sierrita de Ticul, rising to 130 meters above sea level in the west, the terrain in the north is flat (Covich 1970; Ward and Wilson 1985).

The North also has a number of unique geological features. Aguadas, intermittent or permanent ponds, are present throughout the northern plain (West 1964); one is located near Group A at Yo’okop (Figure 3). These features are both culturally and naturally created, and are frequently stone and clay lined when of human origin (Dahlin 1986; Shattuck 1933). Constructed aguadas were, and are, frequently placed in and around rejolladas (sinkholes without water) (Siemens 1979). Some aguadas are created naturally as cenotes (sinkholes with water) filled with sediment and organic debris (Tamayo and West 1964). No cenotes are present at Yo’okop; the closest cenote is approximately 15 kilometers from the site near the modern pueblo of X-Cabil. Additionally, underground cavities at Yo’okop and other sites have been excavated for centuries to obtain sascab, a nearly pure carbonate material for construction (E. Wilson 1980).

As might be expected, soils within the peninsula are highly variable according to the topography, rainfall, age of the soil, organisms within and on top of the soil, parent material, and organic materials (Dunning 1991). In the North, this soil cover is extremely thin with little to no transition zone; bedrock comprises up to 50% of the surface (Ringle 1985; E. Wilson 1980). Soils of the state of Yucatán, northern Campeche, and northern Quintana Roo are generally described as Laterization-process soils, while those to the south are Rendzina (southern Quintana Roo and southeastern Campeche) and Glei (southwest Campeche and Tabasco) soils (Stevens 1964). The laterization found in the north occurs as conditions of fluctuating groundwater levels result in reduction of iron and loss of silica (Limbrey 1975).

Modern climatic variations in the Yucatán are generally moderate, although the northeastern corner of the peninsula does lie on a hurricane track through which passes nearly every storm impacting the northern Caribbean coast (Contreras Arias 1958; Ward and Wilson 1976). This brings damaging storms to the Yo’okop area once or twice each decade. The northern part of the peninsula possesses a Tropical Monsoon (Am) climate, with very heavy rainfall only in the summer, while the southern portion is designated Tropical Rainy (Af) with at least 60 millimeters of rainfall in the driest month (E. Wilson 1980).

Previous Research at Yo’okop
While no concentrated program of research had taken place at the site of Yo’okop prior to the 2000 season, several archaeologists have made extended visits to the area. The first to report the site, as "Okop" or "La Aguada", were Mason and Spinden (Mason 1927). Then, in 1954, Stromsvik and Pollock (Stromsvik et al. 1955) visited the site. Concentrating on the northern group (Group B), they noted the existence of three good-sized pyramids ranging from 9-15 meters in height. Additionally, they extracted the remains of a stela from a ramon tree and noted the existence of a southern group (Group A) joined to the northern mounds by a sacbe. Although Stromsvik and Pollock noted that the largest structure in Group A had re-used Terminal Classic Puuc style elements, they estimated, based upon the style of various stelae, that the major period of construction at Yo’okop was the Late Classic. No ceramics were recovered at this time.

In 1966, Jack Walker and Reginald Wilson made a brief visit to the structures closest to the aguada, in Group A.  Pilot Bill Clapp then located Groups A, B, and C, sacbeob 1 and 2, and three stelae (stelae 1, 2, and 3) in 1969.  This spurred Walker and Wilson to return in 1972 to make basic renderings of the main groups and take measurements of important structures and features. Although they conducted no excavations, their work provides the most extensive description of the site yet published (R. Wilson 1974). A correlation between Wilson’s (1974) structure numbers and those assigned by the current project are presented in Table 1.

In 1998, INAH conducted basic reconnaissance and surface collections at Yo’okop. Shaw and Johnstone also visited the site this year, after preliminary meetings with INAH Quintana Roo and then the leaders of Sabán, in order to take photographs and assess the logistics of conducting research at the site. Additionally, Arq. Luis Alberto Martos López (1997) has worked at the historic Fortín de Yo’okop, a Caste War installation between the pueblo of Sabán and the Maya site of Yo’okop.

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