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

Ceramic Analyses

Surface collections were undertaken at Yo’okop in order to establish a preliminary site chronology and to enable content comparison to other sites in the region. These collections were undertaken primarily in Group A, but also from Group B and a few structures alongside Sacbe 1.  A variety of features were sampled, including plazas, residential platforms, range structures, and pyramids. For structures less than six meters in length, the northern half of the building constituted the sample area. Larger structures had a 2x6 m area that was collected, also on the northern side. Plaza areas had standard 2x2 m collection areas. All sherds within the collection area that could be recognized as such were bagged, washed, and given a permanent label with their provenience noted by structure number or plaza number. Ceramic analysis was carried out using the Type-Variety system (Smith et al. 1960). Those sherds that could be identified were identified to at least the level of the ceramic type.

Thirty-eight localities were surface collected during the 2000 field season. Over a third (13) of these localities did not yield any ceramics. The remaining twenty-five localities produced a total of 622 sherds, of which more than half (54.02%) were unidentified. The number of unidentified sherds is more than twice the rate of unidentified sherds from excavated contexts at Yaxuná (Johnstone 1999). This large discrepancy is largely due to the nature of the sherds themselves. Surface ceramics are exposed to a wider range of mechanical, thermal and chemical agents that reduce the surface detail needed for accurate identification.

In spite of the poor quality of the ceramics themselves, 27 types were identified (Table 2), along with an unknown type containing shell temper. These types are fairly evenly distributed between 5 components spanning the Late Formative through the Postclassic. Though too early to say definitively, there does not seem to be any obvious gaps in the sequence, suggesting continuous occupation at Yo’okop for approximately 1000 years. Trade wares, in the form of polychrome vessels, are present during the Early and Late Classic Periods. These wares originate in the Southern Lowlands, and suggest a trade link between Yo’okop and the Petén for much of the Classic Period. Though its significance is limited by the sample size and the percentage of identified sherds, it should be noted that no Batres group ceramics were recovered. These ceramics are common at Cobá in the Late Classic, and should be present at Yo’okop if it were indeed a part of an Eastern cultural sphere dominated by Cobá (Robles and Andrews 1986:76).

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