Bruce Warren - Northern Central American Ceramic Units and the Land of Nephi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northern Central American Ceramic Units and the Land of Nephi

by Bruce Warren, PhD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction
 
Recently, several Book of Mormon scholars have published some of their research on the geography of the Book of Mormon. These works have all placed the Land of Nephi in highland Guatemala (Palmer 1981:176; Sorenson 1985:1214,141-48,229-30; Hauck 1988:9,143; and Allen 1989:359-70).
A couple of recent research concepts have been developed for using ceramics more effectively in historical and cultural reconstructions of the past. These two concepts are in the literature as "utilitarian ceramic tradition" (Hatch 1988:151-70) and "ceramic spheres" (Willey, Culbert, and Adams 1967:289315). A "utilitarian ceramic tradition" refers to locally made domestic ceramics that involves the same clay deposits and craftspersons using the same techniques of manufacture over long periods of time, i.e., several generations. The "ceramic sphere" concept refers to fine ware or nondomestic ceramics of the same cultural style that have spread over a large territory implying economic and political influence from a common center(s).
I will deal with five "utilitarian ceramic traditions" and one "ceramic sphere" dating to the Late Preclassic and Protoclassic periods of the highlands of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The timespan involved is from about 250 B.C. to A.D. 250. The geographical clustering of these ceramic traditions and the one ceramic

sphere should have an important role in defining the location of the land of Nephi and other areas that the people in the land of Nephi were interacting with economically and politically.

Unfortunately, the archaeological literature for Mesoamerica is full of chronological charts that use variant terminology. Table I will give my version of labels for Mesoamerica as a whole and present in parallel columns the chronological labels for the local KaminaIjuyu, Guatemala and Chalchuapa, El Salvador archaeological sequences.

 
 
Locating the five ceramic traditions and one ceramic sphere
 
 
 
 

I will approach this task by starting in the northwestern part of our area of concern and proceeding to the southeastern limits of this area. The ceramic traditions will be analyzed first and the ceramic sphere last.

 

The Naranjo Ceramic Tradition. This utilitarian ceramic tradition is confined to the south coast (Pacific) of southeastern Chiapas, Mexico, and the western half of the south coast of Guatemala (see Map 1). The region is usually referred to as the "Soconusco" in Mesoamerican literature. It runs from Mapastepec, Chiapas to the river Naranjo on the southwest coast of Guatemala.

Hatch (1988:154) begins the Naranjo tradition in the Early Preclassic Arevalo Phase or earlier (early Middle Preclassic on Table 1) and persists until about 950 A.D. at the close of the Terminal Classic Period. The publications relevant to this ceramic tradition, as well as the other ceramic traditions, are grouped separately in the bibliography at the end of this article.

The language affiliation for this region was probably Mixe (Clark 1991:13; Lowe 1977:199202; and Kaufman 1976).

 

The Achiguate Ceramic Tradition. Map I shows this tradition as confined to the area of three rivers on the south coast of Guatemala. The three rivers from west to east are the Coyolate, the Achiguate, and the Maria Linda.

The Achiguate ceramic tradition lasted from
 

the Las Charcas phase to the Amatle R phase (900 B.C. to A.D. 600).

The language affiliation of the Achiguate group is very problematic but a reasonable speculation would be proto-Lenca(?).

Map I Development of the Ceramic Traditions during the Middle Preclassic Period, 900-250 B.C.