One of the more interesting archeological sites in the Americas is Teotipa, El Salvador. It is a 10,000 year-old village with clear signs that it was a base for early agriculture. One of its ancient teosinte fields can be seen at right. From teosinte the Maya hybridized corn.
I estimate that it was inhabited from 8,200 BCE to 7,400 BCE when it was flooded. This will need to be confirmed with more traditional dating methods. Teotipa only came into view in the last 25 five years when a damn was built upstream on one of its feeder rivers in Guatemala, according to local people. Prior to that it was underwater - perhaps for most or all of 9,400 years. Even now it is submerged some years. For that reason it is relatively well preserved. Teotipa lies within a kilometer of Guatemala on Lago Guija.
Teotipa was one of the four original island homelands of the Maya. The other three were Lago Olomeka (Teomeka) in eastern El Salvador, where the Olmec and Lenca ancestors come from; the mouth of the Lempa River, Teoakan, where the Zapotec ancestors come from; and Lago Coatepeque and Teopan, where the Quiche ancestors come from.
In proto Ch'orti', Teotipa means:
Teo - island
Ti - in, on, within, from, pertaining to
Pa' - tortilla, masa (corn meal), food (generally)
Teotipa means "island pertaining to corn food". It was the island where corn was first cultivated. Earlier I mapped out the locations of the teosinte place names, which were nearly all within a 100 kilometer radius of Lago Guija, and I wrote about how corn was first cultivated on an island. This is known from the name teosinte:
Teo - island
Si - number, line of objects, row
Si'in - extended, long, in a line or series
Te' - plant(s)
And here are the rows where these plants were cultivated on an island:
There are two rows each three to five meters wide and perhaps 200 meters long. One can see the second row to the right in this photo. The 'rows' are lined with rocks. And much shorter grass grows in them now 10,000 years later rather than the weeds and taller grass which grow outside of the rock sidings. Some of the rocks have moved into the area of planting, which can be expected after so much time.
The range of Balsas teosinte, the precursor of corn, used to be to the south of its present range during the Ice Age. Sometime, perhaps between 8000 and 6500 BCE, the southern
range of Balsas teosinte in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala disappeared. According to University of El Salvador professor Vicente Ginovez, the people in Santa Ana, where Lago Guija is located in western El Salvador, still plant little plots of primitive corn that they called something like "ulupiche". This is not to eat but simply to please the ancestors. I believe that the name should be "ulumpitzi":
Ulum - Of the earth, of the corn field (milpa)
Pitz'i - press, pinch, crush
Pihchi - touch
Or "crush of the corn field" - grinding what comes out of the earth. Here are the first corn grinders - the grinding hole above and the pounding stone to the right. The first corn would have been much tougher, requiring a vertical pounding motion rather than the horizontal motion used still today.
When my colleague and I reached Teotipa Island by a local boat service, five fishermen greeted us up on the rocks. They told us that there was nothing on Teotipa, that the Maya were never there and we should return to Igualtepeque. I decided to play a trump card and said that the Maya had to have been on Teotipa, since it
means "island of food". Ricardo, the leader of the group still said nothing. I stumbled off toward the higher part of the island, going very slow over the dangerous rocks. I saw a small field of corn, left, ironic on this island that gave birth to corn, but I was muttering about how I could be so wrong. There was nothing here.
I took a deep breath, turned around and saw this, below left, and knew I was in the right place.
Do you see it? [Click to enlarge.]
There is a rock wall curving from the left
back toward the right. And there is also a patch of yellow right in the middle of the picture. I rushed back to Ricardo and my colleague and pointed out the wall. Ricardo said something to the effect of "There's more. Let's go see." Later I was very thankful that he was so protective of this sacred space.
The reason that I believe Teotipa habitation began in 8200 BCE is that I think the move from Isla Tigre to the four island homes occurred right after the 8207 BCE triple star alignment and after the Maya learned cultivation through their experimentation with tobacco planting. They probably found teosinte first in the mountains of western Chalatenango - the closest Teosinte place names from Guija, but it also could have been from eastern Chalatenango in Arcatao municipality where there is a Teosinte place name which would have been quite close to the four island gatherings which took place near where the Sumpul and Lempa rivers meet.
Like the teosinte fields, the imprint of the houses can still be clearly seen. Few weeds grow where these houses were. And the fallen rock walls can still be seen quite clearly.
Other rocks may have been a walkway through the difficult rocky terrain. Domesticated jaguars and pumas would have walked these paths and landscapes with the Mayan ancesors.
The houses here at the north end of the site appear older - there are less weeds and the grass seems shorter, indicating a longer period of habitation. They are also set back from the rest of the village, which could indicate that the lead families lived here. This photo looks back to the north to the higher uninhabited part of the island.
The next two photos show housing sites in what may be the newer part of the site to the southeast.
In addition to the teosinte rows there appeared to be several nursery areas where there is now very thick, verdant growth of a special grass. I imagine that this might be where they first grew the corn and other experimental crops - squash, beans, etc.
The early Maya who lived at the Teotipa site where also spiritual
people. There are several clear indicators. The first one we saw was the
clear outline of a stone circle, perhaps 15 meters in diameter.
Further evidence of the spiritual nature of these people is their name in the Popol Vuh: Nijayib'. Tedlock translates this as Great Houses. Using Ch'orti' to translate provides:
Nihk : shaking, trembling
Hayitz : fast
Or "shaking fast". Clearly they were known for their fasting.
You can see that almost nothing grew inside this circle except short grass. Nature itself is keeping this sacred space clean.
The following stone was among the stones that formed the stone circle. It is clearly a cultural stone. The top half appears to be a face.
The next rock formation appeared to have a special meaning. The energy around these stones was strong.
This upside-down triangle of stones forms what was likely a fertility symbol.
Here is another cultural stone with a face.
The Maya made many journeys and made stones into walkways rather than being obstacles. But they did have obstacles - I still have more to tell about their conflict with the Xibalbhans at Corinto cave and the natural disaster that ended their stay on Teotipa. Much later I will tell about how they journeyed down the Lempa River in dug-out canoes and then near Tehuacan constructed rafts and boats to sail the Pacific Ocean.
The name for Teotipa in the Polol Vuh, Chi ismachi, directly points to this being a place for growing teosinte. Tedlock, using Quiche, translates this as Bearded Place. Using Ch'orti' it translates as "growing teosinte":
Chi - growth
Iximak - teosinte
Iximak would be a somewhat more recent word for teosinte and is composed of ixim (corn) and ak (grass), linking Teotipa not only to teosinte but also to corn.
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