The Valley de Naco: Ethnohistory and Archaeology in Northwestern Honduras

Abstract

At the time of the conquest, northwestern Honduras, a part of the culturally complex eastern Maya frontier zone, participated in extensive exchange networks. Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that Naco, one of the principal late prehispanic centers in the region, maintained strong ties with the rest of the Maya world and with non-Maya Central America. A similar pattern of external connections characterized earlier centers in the Valle de Naco. Archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and linguistic evidence indicates that northwestern Honduras was part of the eastern frontier of Mesoamerica. The Valle de Naco, in the middle part of the Rfo Chamelecon valley (Fig. 1), was situated within a zone of cultural transition between Maya groups to the west and non-Maya groups to the east. The Valle de Naco has a strategic geographical location, facilitating external connections. The upper Chamelec6n provides a natural route to the Copan region and the Guatemalan highlands beyond. Trail systems, many still in use today, lead from the Chamelec6n valley, across the Omoa mountains, to the Motagua drainage and the southern Maya lowlands. To the east, the Chamelec6n flows into the Sula plain, which offers easy access to the coast and to central Honduras. Reconstructing the external relationships of the Valle de Naco can provide important insights into the larger problem of cultural relationships along the eastern Maya frontier. Exchange is an obvious facet of these relationships, for conquest period historical documents show that northwestern Honduras was heavily involved in long-distance commerce. Intersecting exchange networks gave the region an intermediary economic status, linking it with Maya towns to the north and west and with non-Maya centers to the south and east.