Cancuén Regional Archaeological Project: Highland-Lowland Influence and Exchange along a Geographical Boundary

La Caoba

The site of La Caoba (Figure 10) is located under the modern town of the same name approximately 11.5 kilometers northeast of Cancuén. It is a small village comprised of more than 30 structures with the main plaza group situated at 16º05’80"N, 89º58’96"W. Settlement is concentrated on high ground in a region surrounded by cave-riddled karst towers that were used for rituals as early as the Preclassic period (Woodfill, et al. 2001). Despite two small aguadas, there is no nearby permanent source of abundant potable water. The main group is a fairly massive plaza group, dominated by four structures around a central plaza. The largest of these cover more than 400 m² and are more than two meters tall. This group is set atop a hill on the east edge of the site. The hill was modified in a large-scale (relative to the size of the ancient village) leveling project. Fortunately, the modern inhabitants of La Caoba have not built over this group. However, school buildings were built just south of the main group and the village cemetery is just to the north. Additionally, the south structure was heavily mined for stone in the 1990s to build a church (Figure 11, shown below). Small clusters of structures are located atop other hills in the area to the east and southeast of the main group.

Ceramics recovered in limited excavations at La Caoba primarily date to the latter part of Tepeu 2 with a few Early Classic and Late Preclassic sherds in deeper levels and are of the Cancuén ceramic sphere (Bill, et al. 2002). While La Caoba may have been settled to control access to nearby caves (Woodfill, et al. 2001), the date of the ceramics and the marginal environment may indicate that much of the site was occupied when the Pasión River route was erupting in endemic warfare (Demarest 1997, in press). Populations may have moved further inland to less hospitable areas to escape the turmoil, as documented elsewhere in the Petexbatún region (O’Mansky, et al. in press).

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