Data From The Naco Valley Project

Honduras, Central America

Introduction
Welcome to the ongoing effort to make archaeological data obtained from the Naco valley, northwestern Honduras, available to the widest possible audience at the lowest imaginable cost. The advantages of putting the Naco findings on the web is that we can provide fairly detailed accounts of what was found without having to worry about making the resultant volumes so long and cumbersome that they could never be published or, if printed, moved from their steel- reinforced shelves in the library. In this way, we hope that you will download those segments of the report that you find useful, leaving the rest to float airily out in cyberspace. Before continuing, we need to issue some warnings. What you will find on this site is very much a work in progress. We are new at web working and the results may not be pretty, to say the least. Hopefully, production quality will improve as we go along. Further, reports will be added as analyses continue; there is already a backlog of excavation descriptions clamoring for inclusion. Figures, though listed in the text, are still being readied and will be made available when they are fully prepared and we figure out how best to use the scanner. Finally, we have tried to limit interpretations to that basic level needed to convey the appearance of buildings and the natures of deposits encountered. In other words, such functionally loaded terms as "basal wall" are regularly used whereas efforts to identify the purposes served by individual edifices are put off to a later date. You are, in short, entering an intellectual hard hat zone where much is left unfinished and work is always ongoing, never finished. So, please be careful where you step, feel free to use what you find, and let us know what more you need to know about specific features and how the site might be improved.

Definitions
Bajareque: Burnt fragments of clay that had originally been applied over a woven stick framework, often as part of a wall. Sometimes called, "wattle and daub."

Basal Wall: Refers to vertical stone constructions built to retain a platform's fill; also called, "facings."

Chinking Stones: Small pebbles, usually water-worn, used to fill in the spaces between larger rocks in platform facings and foundations.

Cobbles: River-rounded stones that show no clear signs of artificial modification.

Cut Blocks: Stones whose forms have been shaped to create at least one flat face; also called "blocks, " and, "faced masonry."

Feature: Refers to materials that appear to be parts of a construction, but their relationship to any known architecture is ambiguous. Tumbled architectural debris is always given a feature designation.

Fill: Material comprising the hearting of a construction; fill may or may not include artifacts.

Foundations: Low stone walls designed to support perishable upper constructions; also called, "footings. " Foundations define the perimeter of platform superstructures and buildings raised on ground surface.

Operation (abbreviated Op.): Refers to a coherent set of investigations conducted at a particular site. Operations are given a number designation. All work done at small settlements is carried out as part of a single operation, the numerical designation being the site's number. For example, all surface collections and excavations conducted at Site 441 were conducted as part of Op. 441.

Platforms: Buildings designed to raise a living and/or work area above ground surface; their summits may or may not have surviving architecture.

Stratum (abbreviated S.): A distinct earth level separated from others by color, texture, compactness, and/or inclusions.

Structure (abbreviated Str.): Any evidence of ancient construction; sometimes designated, " edifice" and "building."

Suboperation (abbreviated Subop.): A division of an operation keyed into investigations conducted within a specific portion of a site. The suboperation's signifier appears as a letter, or pair of letters, following the operation number (e.g., Subop. 43G).

Substructure (abbreviated Substr.): Refers to a building encountered during excavation that was not detected on ground surface. Substructures are given numbers in a running series within each operation (e.g., Substr. 31-2 is the second substructure identified in Op. 31).

Surface Level Building: A structure raised directly on ground surface; also called a, "0-level building."

Unit: Any uncovered piece of architecture.

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