Site History
Henri de Saussure claimed to have discovered Cantona in 1855 after a lengthy and prolonged search, Nicolás León, based on a Saussure publication, visited the zone in the early 1900s and explored the site, he left a full and comprehensive description of structures and surface objects at that time. Cantona is derived from the Nahuatl word Caltonal which means "House of the Sun".
In 1938, Paul Gendrop mentions that Cantona occupies an area of almost 20 km long by 12 kilometers wide. As far the site architectonic elements distribution, he noted that it is formed by numerous rectangular rooms 20 to 30 meters long by 12 to 20 meters wide, delimited by thick stone walls, fairly straight and well preserved.
Eduardo Noguera, in 1958, after a tentative study of ceramics and constructive systems, noted that Cantona occupies only half the size of what was previously calculated by Paul Gendrop and locates it, chronologically in the preclassical horizon (200 to 100 BC), coinciding with data available then.
In 1980 archaeologist Diana Lopez de Molina, based on aerial photographs, made a sketch of the settlement and dug some stratigraphic wells that allowed her to propose a tentative timeline to the occupation of the area. Previous studies allow the assumption that this prehispanic city submitted was occupied from the late preclassical horizon (200 BC) to the early classic (0 to 200 AD), which makes it one of the oldest cities of the country.
According to investigation, Cantona would be chronologically situated between 600 and 1000 AD; its splendor coincides with the fall of the main cities of the classical horizon (it is even thought it had something to do with the Teotihuacan fall, by obstructing passage of products from the coast to the Highlands) and with the arrival of warrior people who soon seized and dominated the region.
Read more about this topic: Cantona (Mesoamerican Site)
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