Playa de los Muertos

Playa de los Muertos (Beach of the Dead) is an archaeological site from the Middle Formative period and is located on the Honduras north coast, in the Ulua valley,[1] however it has "had a continuous history going back as early as any sedentary society yet documented in Mesoamerica".

[1] Archaeologists have identified a strong Aztec and Mayan influence on the early inhabitants at Playa de los Muertos, however it is considered a distinct culture.

[2] Archaeologists believe that people at Playa de los Muertos likely participated in long-distance trade networks which reach from Guatemala to the Gulf Coast Olmec centers.

The high number of animal bones has led researchers to believe that Playa de los Muertos was at least partially supported through hunting.

[5] George Clapp Vaillant was born 1901 in Boston, Massachusetts and attended Harvard University, where in 1927 he received his doctorate in Anthropology with a thesis that established the chronology of Mayan ceramics.

[7] In terms of the excavations at Playas de los Muertos, Vaillant used the pottery found at the site in order to trace the development of the Middle Cultures of Mesoamerica.

After the war, she worked at the Kew Garden in London, England as an assistant to Dr. Otto Knapf until 1923 when she was invited by Agnes Chase to join the staff of the United States National Herbarium in the Office of Foreign Plant Introduction.

In 1925, her husband accepted a position with the United Fruit Company as the director of agricultural experiments and moved the family to Tela on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras.

[11] Rosemary A. Joyce, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University argues in her analysis that on the basis of these figurines being a representation of individuals.

Joyce believes that on the basis of ceramic images we may be able to draw conclusions about gender roles in the Honduran societies in the Formative period.

[13] Therefore, the similarity would suggest that both Aztec and Playa de los Muertos societies were very conservative in the expression of the genders and life stages.