Yarumela

Yarumela
	Shown within Honduras
Alternative name	El Chircal
Location	Comayagua Valley
Coordinates	14°21′49″N87°38′51″W / 14.363706°N 87.647633°W
History
Builder	Proto-Lencas
Founded	600-400 b.C
Abandoned	250 a.C
Associated with	Lencas

Last updated November 07, 2024

Yarumela also known as El Chircal, is one of the archeological sites located in Honduras and based around the Middle Formative era in Mesoamerican history, occupied between 1000 BC and AD 250 by the ancestors of the Lencan culture also known as the Proto-lencan people. During its heyday at the end of the Preclassic mesoamerican period was a popular trade center, especially for precious commodities.^[1]

Overview

Yarumela also called Hiarumela, llarumela, or "El Chilcal", was a Lenca settlement from the Middle Formative period in Mesoamerica, a period that ran from approximately: 900 BC-300BC. The Lenca are an indigenous mesoamerican people from southwestern Honduras and eastern El Salvador. Yarumela was part of a region that covered around 16,000 square kilometres and shared the region with other archaeological sites such as: La Venta, Los Naranjos, Lo de Vaca and Playa de los Muertos.

Features of Yarumela

Located sixty kilometres south of the Los Naranjos, the site of Yarumela yielded information that led archaeologists to believe that it was another imposing Middle Formative center. This information also led archaeologists to believe that Yarumela as a center had a focus on precious commodities. Much like the settlement found at Los Naranjos, Yarumela's area was protected by the location in which it was found. On the eastern side, the settlement at Yarumela was protected by the Humuya River, which was a branch off of the Ulua, and on the western side it was protected by a large man-made ditch.

The settlement at Yarumela was considered to be a large and prosperous trade center; archaeologists determined this from the numerous large structure mounds they found on the site as well as some of the material artifacts located there as well. Artifacts like shells, jadeite, obsidian fragments as well as exotic ceramics.^[2]

History

Many vessels have been found at the site. LencaVasija.jpg — Many vessels have been found at the site.

According to the archaeological studies carried out in the area, this settlement was first inhabitated approximately 1,000 B.C during the Mesoamerican pre-classic period by the ancestors of the Lenca culture known as the Proto-Lenca. The El Chircal de Yarumela settlement covered approximately 74 acres (30 hectares) of territory in the Comayagua Valley, and due to its location, the site took advantage of its fact of being an important passageway between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

This was evidenced by the large number of ornamental shells found at the site, the shells that were native to both coastal regions, this together with the amount of Guatemalan jade and other exotic items found by archaeologists at the site location makes the researchers believe that this was the case.^[3] In fact, several discoveries indicate that it was a central trade route that connected Mesoamerica with the intermediate zone.

Peak time

Over the centuries, thanks to its commercial importance and its wealth, the city would become the capital of a chiefdom later known as Señorío de Yaruma which was founded around 400 B.C thanks to the union of various tribes from both the Valley of Comayagua and other surrounding areas. It is possible that it was during this period that most of the major structures and urbanization projects were carried out, although this is the time when the most visible structures on the site were built. When conforming as capital its estimated population at the end of the pre-classic period was about 6,400 inhabitants. Thus, the Yarumela society began to become a more cosmopolitan city, receiving new settlers who moved in search of being able to better sell their products and by the beginning of the classical period it would end up becoming the most populated city in what is now Honduras by the time.

Although the city was mostly made up of modest merchants due to its constant economic activity in the area and had an active urban life, much is unknown about what its rulers were, since the residents of the Yarumela did not leave written testimonies. Archaeologists could theorize that like every Mesoamerican city it had a good social stratification, with the priestly caste and the nobility at the top. The commercial activity of the city and the arrival of various travelers loaded with their merchandise made it a city full of life and many monuments that reflected its beauty as a result of its wealth.

Decline

Entering the classical period, despite its high population density, the city experienced a decline due to several factors such as the appearance of new important centers, conflicts between different manors and poor harvests, the final blow for the city being an eruption of the San Migel Volcano, whose ashes reached the Comayagua Valley; after this fact several experts point out that it began its absolute abandonment after the last remaining residents decided to completely abandon the center.

Studies

The site has been studied since the 19th century, first foreign impressions of the place were collected by Ephraim G. Squier, an American traveler, American diplomat and ethnographer, who visited the area in the to carry out a study of the long-awaited interoceanic railway. Squier. He expressed himself of the structures of Yarumela in the following way: "Of regular, rectangular shapes and placed with scrupulous reference to the cardinal points having been arranged in terraces flights of harrows in the middle of each site still standing fragment of walls with cut stones”.^[4]

At the beginning of the 20th century there are brief mentions of Yarumela in two archaeological expeditions: one of them by Samuel K. Lothrop of the Haye Foundation (1926), who carried out excavations in Tenampua (1927), and that of Jens Yde (1935), who led a joint expedition of the Danish museum and the University of tulane. Archaeological investigations in the Comayagua Valley carried out by Doris Stone, an American archaeologist daughter of the Director of United Fruit, managed toraise the importance of the site worldwide.

In the 1940s the Vatican's apostolic nuncio to Honduras, Monsignor Federico Lunardi, showed interest in Yarumela. He wrongly attributed the origin of the structures to the Mayans, In the following decades there were mentions of various archaeologists such as Boyd Dixon, who carried out excavations in the area at the end of the 1970s. From the 1980s, large-scale works are carried out. Researchers include Leroy Joesink Mandeville, Boyd Dixon, Carleen Sanchez, among others. Claude Baudez French archaeologist, related Yarumela with ceramic complexes in northern Honduras, specifically with Los Naranjos and Playa de los Muertos.

Craig Goralski, affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, conducted one of the most comprehensive recent studies on the archaeological site of Yarumela. His doctoral dissertation drew upon the field notes of Claude Mandeville, a late archaeologist who dedicated significant time to research at the site but published very little during his lifetime. Goralski's work is especially valuable as it aims to recover and analyze Mandeville's extensive but largely unpublished field notes. This research holds the potential to provide new insights and a deeper understanding of the structures and historical context of Yarumela, offering a vital contribution to the study of this pre-Columbian site in Honduras.^[5]

Structures

More than 60 structures have been found on the site, of which only 9 can be seen with the naked eye, most of which have not yet been unearthed. The largest one founded is the Structure 101 also named as "El Cerrito", which reached a height of approximately 20 meters or sixty two feet high. This was determined to be the ‘main mound’ and was located in the central district of the site.

Archaeologists determined that when it was fully functional and maintained his original structure was visible from almost any point in the valley where the site was situated. El Cerrito is the main focus/attraction of the site at Yarumela, along with another visible large mound and a reconstructed small step pyramid close to the river opposite the large mounds.^[6]

Rehabilitation of the archaeological site

On April 11, 2019, the mayor of the town of Yarumela and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History with the support of the national police of Honduras, restored structure 102 and managed to rehabilitate a good part of the site, installing signs where there is information about the history of the place. It is currently open to both national and foreign public.

In 2024, talks were held for the preservation and restoration of several pyramids with the municipality of the town of Yarumela to turn it into an archaeological park. The project is an initiative of the Institute of Anthropology and History of Honduras.

Related Research Articles

Xunantunich is an Ancient Maya archaeological site in western Belize, about 70 miles west of Belize City, in the Cayo District. Xunantunich is located atop a ridge above the Mopan River, well within sight of the Guatemala border – which is 0.6 miles (1 km) to the west. It served as a Maya civic ceremonial centre to the Belize Valley region in the Late and Terminal Classic periods. At that time, when the region was at its peak, nearly 200,000 people lived in the Belize Valley.

Comayagua is a city, municipality and old capital of Honduras, located 80 km (50 mi) northwest of Tegucigalpa on the highway to San Pedro Sula and 594 m (1,949 ft) above sea level.

The Lenca, also known as Lepa Wiran, meaning “Jaguar People” or “People of The Jaguar” are an Indigenous people from present day southwest Honduras and eastern El Salvador in Central America. They historically spoke various dialects of the Lencan languages such as Chilanga, Putun (Potón), and Kotik, but today are native speakers of Spanish. In Honduras, the Lenca are the largest tribal group, with an estimated population of more than 450,000.

Mesoamerican pyramids form a prominent part of ancient Mesoamerican architecture. Although similar in some ways to Egyptian pyramids, these New World structures have flat tops and stairs ascending their faces, more similar to ancient Mesopotamian Ziggurats. The largest pyramid in the world by volume is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, in the east-central Mexican state of Puebla. The builders of certain classic Mesoamerican pyramids have decorated them copiously with stories about the Hero Twins, the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, Mesoamerican creation myths, ritualistic sacrifice, etc. written in the form of Maya script on the rises of the steps of the pyramids, on the walls, and on the sculptures contained within.

Cerro Palenque is an archaeological site in the department of Cortés in Honduras. The city was founded in the Late Classic but reached its peak population and grew to over 500 structures in the Terminal Classic. Archaeologists cannot determine how the people who lived at Cerro Palenque would have identified themselves since unlike the Maya of Copan and far western Honduras, they left no writing. Over the years archaeologists have tried to ascertain the identity of the people who lived on the lower Ulua river drainage at various times in terms of populations known to have existed at the time of the Spanish conquest (1536). Popular candidates include the Tol, Lenca, and Maya. Unfortunately, archaeologists cannot currently determine if it was one of these groups, or some other unnamed group.

The Lencan languages are a small linguistic family from Central America, whose speakers before the Spanish conquest spread throughout El Salvador and Honduras. But by the beginning of the 20th century, only two languages of the family survived, Salvadoran Lenca or Potón and Honduran Lenca, which were described and studied academically; Of them, only Salvadoran Lenca still has current speakers, despite the fact that indigenous people belonging to the Lenca ethnic group exceed between 37,000 and 100,000 people.

Los Guachimontones is the largest Late Formative to Classic period pre-Columbian archaeological site in the state of Jalisco. Situated in the hills above the town of Teuchitlán that provides the namesake for the culture that built the site, Los Guachimontones is part of the Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila UNESCO world heritage site and a major tourist attraction within the Tequila Valleys.

Holtun, originally named La Máquina, is a Maya archaeological site located in the Petén Department of northern Guatemala on the road to Melchor de Mencos from Flores. The city had a long period of occupation that lasted from the Middle Preclassic through to the Late Classic periods. The site was officially recognized by the Guatemalan authorities in 1994 in response to reports from the local community of looting activity in the area. This looting had revealed large masks sculpted onto the side of one of the principal structures at the site. Holtun is the southernmost site in the Maya lowlands that is known to have such masks. The site is characterized by the presence of two particular architectural groups, consisting in a triadic acropolis and an E Group, which are markers of the sociocultural complexity of the Preclassic period in the Lowland Maya area. In addition, the nature of the karstic bedrock allowed for the creation of a great quantity of chultuns, which can be found in almost all of the architectural groups

El Puente, or the Parque Arqueológico El Puente, is a Maya archaeological site in the department of Copán in Honduras. Once an independent Maya city, the city of El Puente became a tributary to the nearby city of Copán between the 6th and 9th centuries AD. The site contains more than 200 structures that include tombs, religious structures, and living quarters, but only a few have been excavated, including a large Maya step pyramid.

El Tintal is a Maya archaeological site in the northern Petén region of Guatemala, about 25 kilometres (16 mi) northeast of the modern-day settlement of Carmelita, with settlement dating to the Preclassic and Classic periods. It is close to the better known sites of El Mirador, to which it was linked by causeway, and Nakbé. El Tintal is a sizeable site that includes some very large structures and it is one of the four largest sites in the northern Petén; it is the second largest site in the Mirador Basin, after El Mirador itself. El Tintal features monumental architecture dating to the Middle Preclassic similar to that found at El Mirador, Nakbé and Wakna. Potsherds recovered from the site date to the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods, and construction continued at the site in the Late Classic period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talgua caves</span>

Talgua Cave is a cave located in the Olancho Valley in the municipality of Catacamas in northeastern Honduras. The misnomer “The Cave of the Glowing Skulls” was given to the cave because of the way that light reflects off of the calcite deposits found on the skeletal remains found there. The site has gained the interest of archaeologists studying cave burials of Central America and of Mesoamerica as one of the most extensive Early to Middle Pre-Classic ossuary cave sites currently known to have been in contact with the Maya societies of nearby Mesoamerica. It provides many valuable clues to how the inhabitants of the Talgua Cave may have been an important link between Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and parts further south and east in Central America and extending into those societies in northern South America, a region known as the Isthmo-Colombian Area.

Los Naranjos is the name for an archaeological region in western Honduras. It lies on the north border of Lake Yojoa. It is significant to the region because of its implications for determining where the Mayan frontier existed, as well as which ancient peoples were in contact and what relations between "tribes" may have been like. Whether or not the Olmec influenced the people of the Lake Yojoa region is disputed.

Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the southern bank of the river, northeast of modern-day town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize; it is 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) downstream from the Barton Ramie and Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of cash-cropping cacao as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to the Postclassic period.

La Ciudad Blanca is a legendary settlement said to be located in the Mosquitia region of the Gracias a Dios Department in eastern Honduras. It is also known by the Pech name Kahã Kamasa. This extensive area of rainforest, which includes the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, has long been the subject of multidisciplinary research. Archaeologists refer to it as being a part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area of the Americas, one in which the predominant indigenous languages have included those in the Chibchan and Misumalpan families. Due to the many variants of the story in the region, most professional archaeologists doubt that it refers to any one actual settlement, much less one representing a city of the Pre-Columbian era. They point out that there are multiple large archaeological sites in the region and that references to the legendary White City cannot be proven to refer to any single place.

Honduras is a touristic destination that attracts visitors due to its natural environment, white and dark sand beaches, coral reefs, abundant flora and fauna, colonial era towns, and archaeological sites. Other attractions include the area's customs and traditional foods. In 2019 Honduras received 2.8 million foreigners, half of those tourists are cruise passengers.

The territory of current Honduras was inhabited by two culturally distinct peoples: the cultures of Mesoamerican and nahua influence and the cultures of the intermediate area that had certain influences from Circum-Caribbean and Chibcha groups. Although the Mesoamerican influence was the one that remained as the dominant influence in the territory.

Intibucá is a city, with a population of 28,220, and a municipality in the department of Intibucá, Honduras. The urban area of Intibucá is an important transit and commercial site in the South-West region of Honduras. Located 1,850 meters above sea level, Intibucá has a cool and often foggy climate, hence the nickname "La ciudad del manto blanco". Potato production, celebrated by the annual Festival de la Papa, is the principal basis of the economy for the municipality.

Tenampúa is an archaeological site belonging to the Lenca culture dating from the Mesoamerican classical period, located in central Honduras in the Comayagua valley. It is known for having the interesting characteristic of having several mounds of between 6 and 15 meters and a fortress inside, in addition to being a place located in a mountainous area with difficult access. The area is also characterized by being full of pine trees and a cool climate hovering between 15 and 21 degrees Celsius in temperature and strong gusts of wind.

The Museum of Comayagua is an archaeological museum located in the city of Comayagua, Honduras, founded on June 6, 1940 and managed by the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History. The museum has ten exhibition rooms and an archaeological theme of the history of the Comayagua Valley from ancient times to the present day. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to the Lenca culture. The museum is housed in a historic Spanish colonial house built in the late 16th century with a long history of use as the Presidential House of Honduras among many other important historical uses.

Plan Grande is an archaeological site on the island of Guanaja, Honduras in the department of the bay islands, this consists of an open space delimited by a stone wall inside which They find irregular mounds of earth and large low rectangular platforms covered with slabs monoliths already fallen.

References

↑ Valladares, O. A. (2008). Yarumela: Revalorizando un sitio arqueológico en el valle de Comayagua. Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH).
↑ Voorhies, Barbara (December 2005). "Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History. Susan Toby Evans. Thames and Hudson, London. 2004. 502 pp., bib. $70.00 (cloth), $50.00 (paper)". Latin American Antiquity. 16 (4): 473–473. doi:10.2307/30042512. ISSN 1045-6635.
↑ Beaudry-Corbett, Marilyn; Henderson, John S. (1993-07-01), "Introduction", Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, pp. 1–2, retrieved 2021-10-12
↑ Ryaxkin2008_01Yarumela_Revalorizando Un Sitio Arqueológico En ElValle De Comayagua
↑ Scheffler, Timothy E.; Hirth, Kenneth G.; Hasemann, George (December 2012). "The El Gigante Rockshelter: Preliminary Observations on an Early to Late Holocene Occupation in Southern Honduras". Latin American Antiquity. 23 (4): 597–610. doi:10.7183/1045-6635.23.4.597. ISSN 1045-6635.
↑ Ramos Castro, Josue Erubel (2018-05-18). "Arqueoastronomía en el Sitio Arqueológico de Yarumela". Revista Ciencia y Tecnología: 194–211. doi: 10.5377/rct.v0i20.5956 . ISSN 1995-9613.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Valladares, O. A. (2008). Yarumela: Revalorizando un sitio arqueológico en el valle de Comayagua. Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH).

[2] Voorhies, Barbara (December 2005). "Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History. Susan Toby Evans. Thames and Hudson, London. 2004. 502 pp., bib. $70.00 (cloth), $50.00 (paper)". Latin American Antiquity. 16 (4): 473–473. doi:10.2307/30042512. ISSN 1045-6635.

[3] Beaudry-Corbett, Marilyn; Henderson, John S. (1993-07-01), "Introduction", Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, pp. 1–2, retrieved 2021-10-12

[4] Ryaxkin2008_01Yarumela_Revalorizando Un Sitio Arqueológico En ElValle De Comayagua

[5] Scheffler, Timothy E.; Hirth, Kenneth G.; Hasemann, George (December 2012). "The El Gigante Rockshelter: Preliminary Observations on an Early to Late Holocene Occupation in Southern Honduras". Latin American Antiquity. 23 (4): 597–610. doi:10.7183/1045-6635.23.4.597. ISSN 1045-6635.

[6] Ramos Castro, Josue Erubel (2018-05-18). "Arqueoastronomía en el Sitio Arqueológico de Yarumela". Revista Ciencia y Tecnología: 194–211. doi: 10.5377/rct.v0i20.5956 . ISSN 1995-9613.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]