Publications
Arquitectura demostrativa y asamblearia en el contexto paisajístico del sitio arqueológico Guastomatal, Mansión de Nicoya, Costa Rica
Research at the Guastomatal archaeological site in Costa Rica reveals a unique residential and assembly architecture, featuring two elevated foundations and a U-shaped plaza bounded by stone walls. These structures share similarities with sites in the Central Caribbean region of Costa Rica, suggesting a common pattern of chieftain status-related administrative and religious activities. The site also exhibits landscape attributes such as formalized roads, earthen ridges likely used for palisades, and deposits from a chipped-stone workshop and midden. Preliminary dating places Guastomatal between 600-900 C.E., based on ceramic and architectural correlations. This study highlights the significance of limited monumentality sites with strong landscape symbolism in understanding pre-Columbian chiefdom settlements.
Patterns of Disease and Culture in Ancient Panama
A study of human skeletal remains from Cerro Juan Díaz, a pre-Columbian site in coastal Panama, reveals that age was the primary determinant of mortuary adornments during A.D. 30–650, challenging previous assumptions about regional value systems. Analysis of oral pathologies and dental wear indicates a diet rich in cariogenic foods like maize and habitual use of teeth as tools, possibly for processing manioc tubers. The research also identifies high frequencies of artificial cranial modification as an identity marker, evidence of male-dominated aquatic activities through external auditory exostoses, and a prevalent systemic infection consistent with Treponema pallidum. These findings were derived from a bioarchaeological examination of early mortuary contexts uncovered during a decade-long excavation campaign (1992–2001).
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