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

evered causeway, and why the multiple spatial and temporal uniformities? Widmer
(2000:3) maintains that trash middens are spatially disassociated from primary activity
areas, and designed to remove debris from activity areas. The PDZ appears to be at the
center of a significant administrative or ritual corridor and not a place one would expect a
Mesoamerican trash heap to be located. Additionally, there is evidence for extensive
ceramic trash deposits hundreds of meters away and closer the production areas.
It is also recognized that unknown formation processes, natural or anthropogenic,
may have contributed to this spatial delineation of artifacts. The destruction of the
artifacts or their conveyance to or from around the PDZ is a possibility. Nevertheless,
even this type of apparently precise activity could be considered atypical.
Site Planning and Concepts of Directionality
“Many societies use architecture for symbolic expression, and often buildings and
other constructions constitute maps of a culture’s worldview (Ashmore 1991:199).
Sugiyama (1993:103) adds that material remains at Mesoamerican sites were used to
explicitly express ideological aspects that incorporated ritual, cosmology, worldviews,
legendary history, and calendrical systems. The alignment of architectural constructions
with astronomical events and landmarks on the terrain have been documented and
discussed frequently in Mesoamerica (Aveni and Hartung 1986; Aveni et al. 1982;
Benson 1981a; Demarest 1984; Freidel and Schele 1988; Sprajc 2000).
The viewshed, or the total visible area from a single or multiple observation
points, from El Marquesillo is significant to the layout of the site. The entire southern
flank of the Tuxtla Mountain Range is visible along the northern horizon. In the opposite
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