Since the move of Guatemala´s capital from the Panchoy Valley to the Ermita Valley, the archaeological remains were doomed to be destroyed and 200 years later this could not be more true. Urban development is erasing the traces of a rich cultural past now hidden under modern houses, malls and football fields. Although the Cultural Heritage Law establishes that archaeological remains must be protected, the same law allows sites to be destroyed if they are excavated first. This has lead to an increase of the “Archaeological Rescue Projects”, where time and pressure restrict the scientific nature of the excavation. In this work I explore the theory behind rescue projects and how ethical issues can play a big role in th way rescue archaeology is been done in Guatemala. Also, i explore the history of the rescue projects in Guatemala to demonstrate how important is to have a strong cultural law but also a strong sense of responsibility towards our profession. I use the example of rescue projects, Santa Isabel, to highlight the importance of scientific oriented investigations but also the common mistakes that can be done in these projects. Finally, a proposed a series of steps that can improve the quality of the rescue projects with hopes that they can be implemented in other parts of Guatemala. / text

This dissertation examines El Marquesillo, a settlement in an archaeologically unexplored region of the Southern Gulf Lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. Evidence suggests the site has been consistently occupied from the Early Formative period (c. 1500 BC) to the present. Thus, this investigation presents an opportunity to re-examine the sociopolitical continuum encompassing the Olmec cultural phenomenon (c. 1150-300 BC), the emergence of which has been used repeatedly as an example of incipient social complexity. Theorists have portrayed the development of sociopolitical complexity as a mosaic process in which environmental, social, political, economic, ideological, and demographic variables act independently or in combination to bring about change. In order to examine these variables, a suite of traditional and progressive archaeological techniques -- remote sensing, geophysical survey, GIS, mapping, anthropogenic soil survey -- were employed to prospect, document, and analyze the natural and built environments along with the material record documented at El Marquesillo. I argue that the resulting data do not fit many of the traditional models that have been offered to explain the development of Olmec sociopolitical complexity. The term "traditional Olmec paradigm" is used to describe a collective array of conjectural concepts that have been proposed by theorists to explain how Formative people of the Southern Gulf Lowlands constructed and experienced their reality. Findings from El Marquesillo and other recent Heartland investigations suggest that much of this traditional Olmec paradigm may not be accurate. The Gulf Olmec were not a homogeneous and uniform entity across space and time. At El Marquesillo, idiosyncratic behaviors of the ancients relating to ancestor veneration and their connection to the landscape and worldview have been identified. These noted variations in social expression and the lack of adherence to the traditional Olmec paradigm suggest that some hypotheses regarding the Formative people of the Southern Gulf Lowlands be re-visited and possibly revised in the light of new evidence.

This thesis examines a special group of Middle Preclassic (900-600 BC) figurines excavated at La Blanca, an early Mesoamerican site on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. Figurines at La Blanca are ubiquitous and derive from both elite and non-elite household contexts. Because of their widespread distribution, archaeologists associate figurines with daily practice and household ritual in ancient Mesoamerica. They represent a rare opportunity to examine materializations of the human body across social strata, and because their depositional contexts do not seem to suggest ritual care, their context of use remains enigmatic. With the dawn of the Middle Preclassic period, the community at La Blanca was at the center of a dramatic transition: in addition to the reconfiguring of political, social, and economic structures, the nature of personhood was profoundly transformed during this period. I argue that figurines were actively involved in the ongoing negotiation of social identity and personhood at La Blanca during this important transitional period. I specifically discuss a group of figurines from La Blanca called 'tab' figurines, which are remarkable for their exaggerated sexual characteristics and distinct approach to depicting the human form. I examine the 'tab' figurine assemblage in depth and examine how aspects of their context, form, and function helped their makers negotiate social identity at La Blanca. / text