Rastrojón is a

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

in western

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

. It appears to be associated with the major Classical period city of

Copán Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. This ancient Maya city mirrors the beauty of the physical landscape in which it flourished—a fert ...

―the capital of a Maya kingdom that existed from 5th to 9th centuries CE―situated just two kilometres away. Rastrojón was abandoned following the collapse of the Copán kingdom in 822; the site was constructed on top of a

geological fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

that made building difficult, so it may be that the inhabitants judged the location not worth the effort after the fall of the nearby royal centre. Rastrojón was discovered in 1979, during a

survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...

of the area around Copán. From 2007 to 2013, the Rastrojón Archaeological Project (, PARACOPAN), sponsored by

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and the

Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History Honduran may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Honduras * Hondurans, persons from Honduras or of Honduran descent * Honduran population, see Ethnicity in Honduras * Honduran Spanish, the language spoken in Honduras * Honduran cuisine ...

undertook a programme of

rescue archaeology Rescue archaeology, sometimes called commercial archaeology, preventive archaeology, salvage archaeology, contract archaeology, developer-funded archaeology or compliance archaeology, is state-sanctioned, archaeological survey and excavation car ...

and

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...

at the site. The project was led by archaeologists

William Fash William L. Fash, Jr. (born 1954) is one of the founders of The Copan Association, which he describes as "charged with research on and preservation of the Copan Archaeological Site, and other archaeological, cultural and natural resources of Hondura ...

and Jorge Ramos, and conservator Antonia Martínez, and resulted in the site being turned into a protected archaeological park. The program was discontinued and nobody is working on it. (feb, 2022) Personal reference

References

Archaeological sites in Honduras Maya sites in Honduras {{SouthAm-archaeology-stub

See also

References