Sampling Cerros' Demise: A Radiometric Check on the Elusive Protoclassic

Introduction

FAMSI funds for this grant supported radiocarbon assays of samples collected at Cerros, Belize (Figure 1). Six usable radiocarbon samples from the site's monumental center produced a tight suite of dates. In this report, new dates are compared to recalibrated dates reported previously (Freidel and Scarborough 1982); taken together they clarify our understanding of the site chronology.

Cerros was first excavated in the 1970s by David Freidel, and a spate of dissertation research ensued (Carr 1986; Cliff 1982; Cliff and Crane 1989; Garber 1989; Lewenstein 1987; Mitchum 1994; Robertson-Freidel 1980; Scarborough 1991). Freidel originally went to Cerros in search of a Postclassic port-of-trade, but, after the first season, determined the site's major occupation to be Late Preclassic (Figure 2; cf. Freidel 1979). Subsequent finds included monumental masked façades at Str. 5C-2nd (Figure 3) and a cache of royal jewels at Str. 6B (Figure 4). Excavation terminated in 1981 and a summary report was completed (Robertson and Freidel 1986).

Most research centered on aspects of the Late Preclassic settlement, and later occupations were not documented until Walker (1990) completed research on ceramic collections from Classic and Postclassic contexts. It was the identification of these later occupations (Figure 5) that prompted additional work at Cerros in the 1990s. Invited to return by Belize's Archaeology Commissioner, Walker, along with Kathryn Reese-Taylor and Beverly Mitchum Chiarulli, initiated the Cerros Cooperative Archaeological Development Project (CCADP) in 1992. They returned to Cerros to investigate the site's demise at the end of the Late Preclassic (cf. Walker 1994, 1995; Reese 1996; Walker et al. 1997).

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