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Concept
Mokaya
Summary
Mokaya were pre-Olmec cultures of the Soconusco region in Mexico and parts of the Pacific coast of western Guatemala, an archaeological culture that developed a number of Mesoamerica’s earliest-known sedentary settlements.
The Soconusco region is generally divided by archaeologists into three adjacent zones along the coast—the Lower Río Naranjo region (along the Pacific coast of western Guatemala), Acapetahua, and Mazatán (both on the Pacific coast of modern-day Chiapas, Mexico). These three zones are about 50 km apart along the coast, but they are connected by a natural inland waterway, which could have permitted easy communication in prehistoric times.
The term Mokaya was coined by archaeologists to mean "corn people" in an early form of the Mixe–Zoquean language, which the Mokaya supposedly spoke.
The Mokaya are likely contemporaneous to the La Venta Olmecs. The Olmecs were the first in Mesoamerica to have used cacao, the plant from which chocolate is derived. While Theobroma cacao is indigenous to the Upper Amazon, it was somehow present here in a domesticated form by approximately 1900 BC. Evidence suggests they were the first to domesticate the cacao around 2,500 BC; even the word cacao belongs to the Olmec language.
A Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating to this time.
The Barra phase of the Mokaya culture dates between 1900-1700 BC. Early sites belonging to this phase include Altamira, San Carlos, and Paso de la Amada. This phase is distinguished by a seemingly ex nihilo appearance of sophisticated pottery. Its forms are thought to have initially developed as skeuomorphs of earlier gourd containers.
The Locona phase followed from 1700-1500 BC. Populations and numbers of settlements expanded substantially during this phase.
This was followed by the Ocos Phase (1500-1200 BC), exemplified by a ceramic tradition famously identified by archaeologist Michael D. Coe in the 1960s during his work at the Early Formative village of La Victoria.
Official source
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