La Pitahaya
The 2023 field and labwork season is centered upon the La Pitahaya archaeological site located on Isla Palenque; currently a luxury ecolodge off the Pacific coast of Panama.
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La Pitahaya was described as a "seat of a paramount chiefdom" by the influential Panamanian archaeologist Olga Linares. Linares did much of her dissertation and postgraduate work in the Chiriquí province of western Panama. Her work left behind detailed ceramic chronologies and survey data that informs our work today. The site and its region are described in two of her books, The Cultural Chronology of the Gulf of Chiriqui, Panama (1968) and Adaptive Radiations in Prehistoric Panama (1980).
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Our 2023 season will focus on the initial mapping of La Pitahaya, revisiting documented sites on nearby islands, and conducting test excavations to recover samples of domestic garbage from the ancient village. The site is believed to date to between 900 and 1100 A.D., which is a period of time associated with increased demographic growth, monumentality, and hierarchical differentiation across many parts of the isthmus.
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By the time our project begins in June of 2023, our work will be legally permitted by the Patrimonio Histórico of Panama, a division of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura.