L'occupation des monticules architecturaux au site Las Mercedes du Costa Rica : une étude de la variabilité stylistique de la céramique
The archaeological site of Las Mercedes is located on the Atlantic slope of Costa Rica. This monumental site is regarded as the center of a hierarchical society with a complex sociopolitical organization. Las Mercedes represented an administrative and ceremonial center between 1000 and 1500 CE. This thesis documents the ceramic assemblages excavated from stratified archaeological contexts at two architectural mounds. The project aims at understanding and sequencing the cultural affiliations reported at the site from a diachronic perspective. Radiometric measurements from the foundations of the mound structures cluster around 1000 CE. In addition, the ceramic assemblages corresponding to the cultural styles El Bosque (500 BCE-500 CE), La Selva (500-1000 CE)and La Cabana (1000-1500 CE) suggest an occupational sequence of approximately two millennia. Our study aim to understand this phenomenon. The data analysed in this study were collected during archaeological fieldwork in 2005, carried out jointly by the Museo Nacional of the Costa Rica and the Université de Montréal. The ceramic analyses focuses on technological, morphological and stylistic attributes. Results are interpreted from a comparative perspective. They suggest that independently of the archaeological contexts, ceramic assemblages exhibit heterogeneous stylistic compositions and include all three cultural styles : El Bosque, La Selva and La Cabana. However, a model of deposition reveals a certain character of homogeneity. Thus, the assemblages are composed in a recurring way of 12% of ceramics El Bosque, 55% La Selva and 33% La Cabana. This research leads to a premiliary interpretation of this mixture of ceramic styles. Tha amalgam of the ceramic styles indicates that Las Mercedes was occupied over a long period, however the results of our analyses have not being sufficient to confirm or to inform our working hypotheses.
Costa Rica Las Mercedes ceramics archaeology complex society