Talgua Caves - Trade Networks

Trade Networks

Architectural patterns and objects found at the Talgua settlement provide indicators of both social stratification and trade networks with the Maya. Jade and marble vessels found at the site are seen as items of prestige and clues to the degree of social stratification. In addition to the prestige items found, there were numerous items made of obsidian, which would have come from the Maya highland regions and jade from Maya areas of Guatemala. Whereas, items found to be made out of green, jade-like rocks indigenous to northeast Honduras were found not to be Jade at all, but jadeites or green rocks with a distinct talc feel (Cuddy 122). In further exemplification of the role of this area as an important buffer zone between Mesoamerica and southern Central and South America, Doris Stone (1966) has pointed out that much of the area’s later fascination with gold came from the south and fascination with jade came from the Maya in the north. Items and beads of greenstone were in full production by around 500 CE.

The Cuyamel ceramics found in northeastern Honduras are contemporaneous with the Olmec rise in the Middle Pre-classic period. It has not been definitively determined that Olmec art and culture would have spread to northeastern Honduras during this time period. However, the ceramics are thought to have stylistic similarities to other Pre-Classic Mesoamerican ceramics and the presence of Olmec imagery is documented at Early Pre-Classic villages in northeastern, coastal Honduras, such as Puerto Escondido.

Although not much can be said definitively about trade with Maya during the Early to Middle Pre-Classic, other than that it occurred, there are other, better-documented cases of Maya trade with northeastern Honduras during later periods. For example, the site of Naco was involved in steady trade with Maya areas of the Yucatán and may have been an intermediary trade location between the Maya and other cultures of Central America just prior to arrival of the Spaniards.