NDLI: Ritual or residential? An integrated approach to geochemical prospection for understanding the use of plaza spaces at Palmarejo, Honduras

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Fulton, Kara A. Wells, E. Christian Storer, Donald A.
Copyright Year	2013
Abstract	Patios and plazas represent two of the most common types of open space found at ancient Mesoamerican settlements. Patios tended to serve as areas for household activities, while plazas were commonly the focus of community wide religious and political rituals. With the aid of geochemical prospection of sediments and plasters, archaeologists have been able to successfully identify and characterize these spaces at many archaeological sites in the Maya region of southern Mesoamerica. However, in communities located adjacent to the Maya world where cultural interactions between different ethnic groups were highly complex, it is difficult to understand the use, management, and meaning of open spaces, which often shifted over time. While geochemical studies in the region have been useful for detecting the locations of activity areas in open spaces, the structure and composition of these activities often remain challenging to interpret because they represent a palimpsest of different practices over time. In this paper, we examine the interplay of chemical residues with other sediment properties, including organic matter and potential hydrogen, with the greater goal of increasing the interpretive potential of geochemical data for understanding activity spaces at the site of Palmarejo in northwest Honduras (ca. AD 600–900). Using a mild acid extraction procedure and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, we chemically characterize anthrosols from a formally defined open space at the site, and analyze the data quantitatively and spatially using interpolation with Kriging. We then compare the spatial patterns of the chemical elements to the distributions of soil organic matter (loss-on-ignition) and soil pH (glass electrode), and evaluate the results with excavation data from the space. While the results are not straightforward, our research leads us to conclude that the area under investigation most likely served as a venue for ritual activities, a finding that is consistent with similarly structured areas in the community and the broader region. These results lead us to advocate for more integrated analyses of multiple sediment properties in archaeological prospection of complex spaces.
Starting Page	1059
Ending Page	1076
Page Count	18
File Format	PDF
ISSN	18669557
Journal	Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
Volume Number	9
Issue Number	6
e-ISSN	18669565
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2013-12-13
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Anthrosol chemistry Activity area analysis Mesoamerican plazas ICP-MS Organic matter Soil pH Earth Sciences Archaeology Chemistry/Food Science Geography Life Sciences Anthropology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Archeology Archeology (arts and humanities) Anthropology

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