An Unexplored Realm in the Heartland of the Southern Gulf ... - Famsi

Profile 6B suggest a low platform-like structure with a series of compacted red sand
floors that are associated with the original pre-Olmec occupation location. Profile 7A
demonstrates more substantial and complex construction efforts that occurred between
the Early and Late Formative periods (c. 900-300 BC), based on the deposition of
chronologically diagnostic ceramics. A series of superimposed constructions indicate four
major construction events that are separated by thick lines of compacted red sand. The
uppermost feature, identified as Levels II, IIa, and III in Profile 7A, represent a series of
disturbed floors. Below this feature is a 20 to 30 cm thick layer made up of a mixture of
rose colored semi-compacted sand and an ash-like, possibly volcanic, substance. This
material is not natural to this location and would have had to have been intentionally
mixed and deposited here. The thickness of the layer is relatively uniform and extends
beyond the profile a few meters to the south and into Field 6 to the north. Another red
sand line marks the lower border of this feature. Below is Level V, another relatively
uniform layer, around 30 cm thick, that contains less ash and sand than the level above
but has river gravel mixed into the aggregate, a material not found in the upper level
constructions. Level VI is a layer of mixed and modified sand and gravel with portions of
burned clay that may represent a floor.
A diachronic analysis of the deposition of chronologically diagnostic ceramics
indicates that the lower two levels, V and VI, were constructed during the Early
Formative period. Level IV contains no definitive ceramics and the multiple intrusions
may have moved diagnostic material; this level is attributed to sometime between the
Early and Late Formative. The upper levels were constructed and modified during the
Late Formative and possibly early Protoclassic period according to ceramic deposits.
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