Cerro Palenque - Location and Context

Location and Context

The site today is found on top of the hill known as Cerro Palenque (232 meters above sea level), above the town of Santiago, near the confluence of the Ulua, Humuya (Comayagua) and Blanco rivers, and on several hilltops to the north. It is located some 40 kilometers from the city of San Pedro Sula in Honduras.

The first part of the site to be settled was on the top of the hill, Cerro Palenque, and along its sides. This part was developed in the Late Classic (500 to 800 AD) and remained fairly small, but impressive. In the Terminal Classic (850-1100 AD) the city moved to the lower hill tops north of Cerro Palenque. In the Terminal Classic, this was the largest city in the lower Ulua river valley.

Because of its location where the major rivers enter the valley from the south and southwest, Cerro Palenque was in a strategic position where it could have mediated access from the interior of the country to goods produced along the coast, and coming in trade with Belize and Yucatan.

The Maya of Yucatan told the Spanish, in the 16th century, that the Ulua River valley was the land of feathers and honey. They also valued it for its chocolate (cacao). Pottery, and other kinds of artifacts, tell us that there was trade between various cities in the Ulua river valley, and the Maya of Belize and Yucatan because artifacts from these Maya centers have been found in cities in the valley at this time, and in turn, artifacts made in the valley have turned up in Maya cities in Belize and Yucatan.

The valley is formed by the Ulúa, Comayagua, and Chamelecón rivers, which provided natural transport routes into the rest of present Honduras as well as Central America. The Gulf of Honduras facilitated easy access to Yucatán and Belize. The valley was agriculturally fertile, and had access through nearby supplies or long distance exchange to luxury goods like spondylus and other marine shells, copper (in the postClassic), feathers (especially quetzal), obsidian, jade, and turquoise.