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.

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.

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.

Peak timeOver 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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.