This volume represents the first major attempt to deal with the archeology of the Southeastern Maya Periphery as a distinctive area. The primary focus is on the reporting and interpretation of extensive field research conducted in southeastern Guatemala, western Honduras, and El Salvador during the last decade; together, the 22 papers by 21 archeologists represent an up-to-date synthesis of the archeology of the region.
The first half of the volume presents new information on the recent investigations at the Classic Maya sites of Quirigua, Guatemala and Copán, Honduras, and includes papers on history, chronology, settlement patterns, architecture, sculpture, iconography, epigraphy, and ceramics. Several studies explore the nature of the relationships between these sites and the adjoining periphery during the Classic period. An issue of central concern is the history of the interrelationships between the two sites; new readings of the hieroglyphic texts raise the possibility of Quirigua’s conquest and domination of Copán in the eighth century, though the contributors are not in total agreement on the particulars of this reconstruction of events. The papers in this section of the volume are discussed in a summary paper by Gordon Willey.
The second half of the book contains studies of the greater southeast region beyond Copan and Quirigua. These cover a time span from Middle Preclassic to the Late Postclassic times and include a revision of the early ceramic sequence from Playa de los Muertos, Honduras (Nedenia Kennedy), a regional study of the Late Preclassic ceramic spheres of the southeastern highlands (Arthur Demarest and Robert Sharer), a study of the effects of the Protoclassic eruption of the Ilopango volcano in the Zapotitlán Valley of El Salvador (Payson Sheets), settlement pattern studies of the Sula, Comayagua, and Naco valleys of Honduras (Eugenia Robinson, Ricardo Agurcia, and Patricia Urban, respectively), as well as papers on Postclassic developments at Cihuatán, El Salvador (Karen Bruhns) and Naco, Honduras (Anthony Wonderly). The section concludes with summary discussions of these papers by Claude Baudez and Robert Sharer.
This periphery was a mosaic of different Maya and non-Maya ethnic groups whose boundaries and affiliations oscillated through time. These groups were also subjected to repeated waves of foreign influence, by both Maya and non-Maya peoples. The identification of these groups and their shifting interrelationships is another main concern of the volume. As Sharer notes in his summary paper, while several authors have made pioneering contributions in this regard, the archeological identification of such groups and their changes through time must be viewed with caution, as the evidence tends to simplify patterns that are likely to be much more complex.
The volume is well illustrated, and the editors are to be commended for including a profusion of readable, informative maps. The comprehensive bibliography and index render the work a useful reference tool. In sum, the editors and contributors have produced a valuable “minihandbook” of the archeology of the southeast periphery.
