Download - MyWeb - Texas Tech University

The 2012 Season of the Chan Chich Archaeological Project
completely deserted, and rested by the Rio
Bravo.” From that description, from his sketch
of the settlement, and his caption on that
sketch, which describes the water hole as the
“only source of drinking water for villagers”
(see Figure 4.2), I conclude that Kaxil Uinic
village was located some distance from the
Rio Bravo and not on it, as reported by Jones
(1977:161). The “dirty water hole” mentioned
by Thompson is a feature known as an aguada,
and it is around this feature, not the river, that
the village was located.
The Archaeological Evidence
When Chan Chich Lodge was opened in the late
1980s, the presumed location of the village and
its aguada was found by lodge staff, and until
the late 1990s the trail to “Xaxe Venic”—an
old logging road that passes through the Main
Plaza of Chan Chich and heads west toward
Guatemala—was kept opened and maintained
by the lodge. Long-time lodge guide Hilberto
Vasquez (personal communication, 2012)
reported the lodge staff used to put bananas by
the aguada to attract tapirs and that at one point
a guide had found “the big stones the Maya
women used to wash clothes” at the edge of the
aguada and placed them at the base of a tree.
The trail from the lodge passes through the
prehistoric Kaxil Uinic ruins (see discussion
below), but it had grown over with disuse
since the late 1990s. To make matters worse,
Hurricane Richard in 2010 had severely
damaged the forest around Kaxil Uinic,
destroying the canopy and littering the ground
with massive tree falls. As Harris and Sisneros
(this volume) report, the amount of debris
forced us to alter our research design at the
ruins.
The lodge sent workers to reopen the trail and
conduct initial clearing at the ruins prior to the
arrival of the project staff in late May 2012.
Once the project staff arrived and identified
where we wanted to work, we employed lodge
staff for several days to continue clearing the
ruins. While that was going on, I asked one
of the older employees at the lodge, Jorge
Montuy, to look for the aguada, which the
guides remembered as being several hundred
meters south of the ruins. Montuy—who had
incidentally accompanied us on our 1998
hike—and another worker spent several hours
cutting through dense growth and hurricane
debris, ultimately reporting that afternoon
that they had reached the aguada. Although it
turned out that they had not actually reached
the aguada, they were very close, and two other
workers and I managed to locate it off their trail
the next morning.
The area around the aguada is a dense cohune
forest made thicker by hurricane debris. The
aguada is a natural depression on the landscape.
By the end of the dry season in May 2012
it retained water in its center (about 40 m in
diameter) and was covered in aquatic vegetation
(Figure 4.3). It is likely, based on the vegetation
and topography, that the aguada doubles in
diameter during the rainy season. The feature
is approximately 500 m south/southeast of the
prehistoric ruins of Kaxil Uinic, which places
the village on Yalbac Ranch, the property that
borders Gallon Jug Ranch to the south. A quick
reconnaissance to the southern side of the
feature found a fairly recent trail cut from the
south and marked with orange flagging tape, so
it is likely that workers on Yalbac Ranch have
occasion to visit the aguada.
The first indication that we were near the aguada
was the large number of beer bottles scattered
about the ground. In fact, glass bottles are the
only indication of a historic settlement that we
discovered, other than one metal pot. The few
bottles that were collected or photographed
include three beer bottles from the early 1900s
(two from New York and one from Detroit)
and a hair tonic bottle (Table 4.1). Church et
al. (2010:187) report finding “a tremendous
36