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Preclassic Ceramics from Chalchuapa, El Salvador, and Their Relationships with the Maya Lowlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert J. Sharer  and
James C. Gifford
Robert J. Sharer
Affiliation:
Department of AnthropologyPitzer College
James C. Gifford
Affiliation:
Department of AnthropologyTemple University
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Abstract

Application of the type-variety analytical procedure to Preclassic ceramic material excavated from mound-fill deposits at Chalchuapa, El Salvador, has provided important indications of possible ceramic relationships between this site-zone and the Maya Lowlands. Of the five ceramic complexes, the earliest (the Tok ceramic complex) seems related to the Early Preclassic (Cuadros phase) of south coastal Guatemala and Mexico. Pottery of the early Middle Preclassic (the Colos and Kal ceramic complexes) appears to involve certain direct type-variety relationships with the Lowland Maya Xe and Mamom ceramic spheres. Late Middle Preclassic pottery (the Chul ceramic complex) is evidently almost exclusively affiliated with Highland Guatemala (the Providencia phase at Kaminaljuyu). Pottery of the Late Preclassic and "Protoclassic" (the Caynac ceramic complex) at Chalchuapa continues to reflect these ties (now with the Miraflores, Arenal, and Santa Clara phases at Kaminaljuyu). Apart from such ties, however, there are also significant indications of renewed ceramic connections with the Maya Lowlands during this time interval that we believe might have been of some consequence for the development of the Classic Lowland Maya. The implications of these ceramic relationships for the problem of the initial occupation of the east-central Maya Lowlands and the later intrusive Floral Park ceramic sphere at Barton Ramie are discussed. The paper also considers the implications of this evidence for the type-variety analytic procedure and proposes a tentative outline of Preclassic ceramic relationships in the Maya area.

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American Antiquity , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 1970 , pp. 441 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1970

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