Las Bocas, Puebla, Archaeological Project

Acknowledgements

First, we would like to extend our gratitude to the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., (FAMSI), and to its Director Dr. Sandra Noble, for Grant No. 99041 in the amount of $7,800 U.S. dollars received to undertake work for the Las Bocas Archaeological Project, Third Field Season 2000.  We are also indebted to the Director’s Assistant, Rita Fleming, whom on numerous occasions replied kindly to our queries and doubts on the appropriate procedures for obtaining the grant.

For their trust, we want to thank FAMSI’s Board of Directors: Lewis Ranieri, Margaret Ranieri, Elizabeth Barbera, Richard Diehl, Marilyn Goldstein, Barbara Kerr, Justin Kerr, Sandra Noble and Dorie Reents-Budet, for the approval of our project and the granting of their financial support.

We want to extend a very special acknowledgement to Dr. William T. Sanders, from Pennsylvania State University, who since 1995 when we initiated our investigations, has enthusiastically and generously supported our project, whose primary objective was the study of a community from the Formative Period located in the Mexican central altiplano, a region poorly known to archaeology. In addition to his constant advise we also thank him for his suggestion to apply for the FAMSI, Inc. grant, as well as for his recommendation of the Las Bocas Project for obtaining the grant.

We are indebted to Dr. Mercedes de la Garza Camino, Director, National Museum of Anthropology and to Dr. Jaime Litvak King, Institute of Anthropological Investigations, UNAM, who strongly recommended our research proposal to FAMSI, Inc.

We also wish to thank Lic. Sergio Raúl Arroyo, Technical Secretary, INAH, for helping us with the formalities of the budgetary execution regarding the funds granted by FAMSI, Inc.

Also, we are indebted to the Director of the Archaeology Council, Eng. Joaquín García Bárcena for his recommendations regarding our work in this season, and to the DICPA representatives before the Council, Prof. Leonor Merino Carrión and Archaeologist Luis Alberto Martos.

We are particularly grateful to Prof. Felipe Solís Olguín, Assistant Director of Archaeology, National Museum of Anthropology, for the facilities provided, and to Computation Chief Jenny Piña, together with the staff and students of the Computation Center of this institution, for their advises and support in the preparation of this report.

We thank Prof. Hernado Gómez Rueda, from DICPA, for his excellent pictures of archaeological materials and his pertinent observations regarding the Formative communities in Mesoamerica.

For the second time, ENAH’s P.A. José Rodríguez Yc has been responsible for the analysis of the chipped lithics included in this report. His expertise with this kind of Formative material comes from his study of grinding instruments from the Basin of Mexico present in the collections of the National Museum of Anthropology, and from the analysis of artifacts recovered at Las Bocas in 1997. To José, our most sincere thanks for his help.

Among the academicians that have encouraged our project, there’s a very special place for Prof. Josefina Bautista, Director of Physical Anthropology, INAH, who is presently studying the bone remains from Las Bocas’ Burial 2; we wish to thank her for her enormous enthusiasm and her invaluable knowledge of the ancient populations that once inhabited our country.

To Pablo Brontese Vicari, thanks for the drawings that illustrate Plate 2, Plate 3 and Plate 4.

Our most sincere thanks go to Eng. Luis Téllez, Head of the Technological University at Izúcar de Matamoros, and to Eng. Victor Luna and Lic. Dolores Ceballos Bravo, also from that institution, for their interest in our investigations and their subsequent dissemination, for inviting us to participate in their academic gatherings, and for sharing their facilities with us.

We are indebted to our workers from the town of San José Las Bocas for their constant support to our work. Through many days of hard work and with the difficulties we had to face to access the archaeological site, they helped us recover a fragment of their region’s history, showing at all times a great respect for our explorations and great skill and care during the excavations and handling of the materials. Warm memories of the pleasant moments of rest we shared under the shadow of a tree, while talking about the ancient inhabitants of the region and enjoying the delicious "taquitos" they offered us for breakfast, will forever remain with us.

Click on image to enlarge

We also wish to thank the teachers of the Benito Juárez school from the town of San José Las Bocas for the visit they paid to the excavations with the 4th, 5th and 6th graders of the elementary school, and in so doing, they helped us bring awareness to the people about the value of the archaeological heritage of their region and the importance of its study and preservation (Photo 5, shown above).

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