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

At each of these three points of contact, the river current encounters the elevated
bank upon which El Marquesillo is situated. The flow of the river destroys the elevated
landform by undercutting the banks at their base. The undercut deepens until the weight
of the ground above can no longer be supported and a portion of the wall collapses; an
effect analogous to the calving of glaciers (Figure 3.7). This phenomenon occurs during
flood stage or when the river channel changes.
After the El Niño enhanced floods of 1994, the southern meander at El
Marquesillo was cut off and the new channel intensified the destruction along the portion
of the west bank that contained the Classic period Villa Alta phase architectural complex
(Figure 3.8). The intensive flooding in 1998 caused the neck of the northern meander to
be breached, which resulted in the loss of thousands of square meters of land surface at El
Marquesillo. The loss included numerous homes of contemporary inhabitants (see Figure
3.7) and extensive archaeological constructions.
The San Juan River is more than a cultural and ecological border, however.
Contemporary researchers have used the river as a topographically convenient line at or
near which to halt their regional archaeological surveys (Borstein 2001,2005; Killion and
Urcid 2001). The river has also been employed as an arbitrary dividing line between
cultural and linguistic groups (Aguirre-Beltrán 1992; Delgado-Calderón 1997b,2000).
This artificial boundary line has prevented a more complete consideration and
understanding of the demographic and sociopolitical development in the region. El
Marquesillo is on “the other side of the river,” and its existence has not been anticipated.
Locational models and associated hypotheses that were assembled prior to its discovery
will need to be reconsidered.
73