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

Introduction
Chapter 3. El Marquesillo, Juan Rodríguez Clara, Veracruz, Mexico
Prior to 2002, the archaeological significance of El Marquesillo in the
Municipality of Juan Rodríguez Clara was restricted to a 32 m high precolumbian earthen
mound known by locals as Cerro de Moctezuma (Hill of Montezuma). The earliest
cartographic representation of the site appeared in an obscure nineteenth century map of
unknown provenience. It depicted the monumental construction on the west bank of the
middle San Juan River (Hernández 2003:3). The structure is also mentioned briefly in
Aguirre-Beltrán’s “Pobladores del Papaloapan” (1992).
In early 2002, El Marquesillo was brought to the attention of the contemporary
archaeological community when photographs of a carved Olmec tabletop throne (Figure
3.1) were published in El Liberal del Sur, an Internet news outlet. This account was made
after the monumental basalt throne had been fortuitously discovered by residents of the
modern village in late 2001, and documented by Lourdes Herández, an archaeologist with
Centro INAH Veracruz, in January 2002.
Evidence produced during the throne’s archaeological recovery revealed it was
ritually buried sometime during the Middle to Late Formative period (900 to 300 BC).
Ancillary investigations suggested that the surrounding site was occupied on a consistent
basis for the past 3,500 years, beginning in the pre-Olmec period (c. 1500 BC).
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