Late Preclassic Ceramic Industries of Pacific Guatemala and El Salvador: The Pacific Coast as Core, Not Periphery

Abstract

Previous interpretations of Late Preclassic ceramic interaction spheres in the SE highlands of Guatemala, El Salvador, and the Pacific coast have emphasized the similarity of diagnostic ceramic types based on style and decoration. Recent research on the ceramics from the Departments of Santa Rosa and Jutiapa, on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, supports this uniformity of ceramic styles. Compositional analyses of the Pacific coast ceramics and raw materials suggest that the Pacific coast was at the center of a ceramic sphere from Guatemala to El Salvador between 400 B.C. and A.C. 250. This research serves to highlight the utility of combining traditional field research and classificatory analyses of ceramics with technological approaches such as instrumental neutron activation to establish more firmly the presence and role of prehistoric interaction in complex societies.