UC Riverside

Architectural designs and site-planning principles have been well studied within Mesoamerica, however, predominantly informed from large urban polities, monumental styles, and elite-associated contexts. A standardization of the architectural designs of domestic, rural, and/or household milieus remain underexplored, especially within Southeast Mesoamerica (eastern Guatemala, western Honduras, and El Salvador). The approach of evaluating vernacular architectural traits from this particular region of the Pre-Columbian Americas is a promising application to initiate deciphering and systematizing of construction similarities and variations from "everyday" settings.

Therefore, this dissertation analyzes the vernacular architecture of household settings from the Late (AD 600-800) and Terminal Classic (AD 800-950) site of PVN647, located near the border between the Naco and Cacaulapa Valleys in northwest Honduras. Vernacular architecture is defined here as a building practice that makes use of immediately available resources to address immediate needs and can serve as a translation into physical form of a cultural expression or display of group affiliation. Of particular focus is the assessment of architectural arrangement design, location, construction quality, temporal order, and function. These aspects are examined within a household patio group and the larger hamlet-center plaza group, which includes residences, work areas, and storage facilities. Results of full structure clearing excavations indicate similar building practices were occurring in both settings, though on differing social scales, representative of a most site-specific identity expression.

Additionally, intra-regional (within the Naco and Cacaulapa Valleys) and inter-regional comparisons reveal the extent of architectural design correlations with other settings of northwest Honduras, which includes the Classic period Maya site of Copán. Results contribute to understanding the vernacular architectural practices at the archaeological site level, as well as the valley and regional levels and advance our understanding of the elasticity of shared identity expression to meet local ideals, as interpreted from the fixed material record, as well as the cultural diversity from this region of Southeast Mesoamerica.