Colha, Belize is a Maya archaeological site located in northern portion of the country, about 52 km. north of Belize City, near the town of Orange Walk. The site is one of the earliest in the Maya region and remains important to the archaeological record of the Maya culture well into the Postclassic Period. According to Palma Buttles, “Archaeological evidence from Colha allows for the interpretation occupation from the Early Preceramic (3400-1900B.C.) to Middle Postclassic (A.D. 1150-1300) with population peaks occurring in the Late Preclassic (400B.C.- A.D. 100) and again in the Late Classic ( A.D. 600-850)”.Buttles, Palma J. 2002. Material and Meaning: A Contextual Examination of Select Portable Material Culture from Colha, Belize. Dissertation for University of Texas at Austin. These peaks in population are directly related to the presence of stone tool workshops at the site. Colha's proximity to an important source of high quality chert that is found in the Cenozoic limestone of the regionJones, John G. 1994. Pollen Evidence from Early Settlement and Agriculture in Northern Belize. Palynology. Vol. 18; 205-211 and well traveled trade routes was utilized by the inhabitants to develop a niche in the Maya trade market that may have extended to the Greater Antilles.Wilson, Samuel M.; Iceland, Harry B.; Hester, Thomas R. 1998. Preceramic Connections Between Yucatan and the Caribbean. Latin American Antiquity, Vol. 9(4): 342-352. During the Late Preclassic and Late Classic periods, Colha served as a primary supplier of worked stone tools for the region. It has been estimated that the 36 workshops at Colha produced nearly 4 million chert and obsidian tools and eccentrics that were dispersed throughout Mesoamerica during the Maya era.Brown DO, Dreiss ML, and Hughes RE. 2004. Preclassic Obsidian Procurement and Utilization at the Maya Site of Colha, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 15(2):222-240Santone L. 1997. Transport Costs, Consumer Demand, and Patterns of Intraregional Exchange: A Perspective on Commodity Production and Distribution from Northern Belize. Latin American Antiquity 8(1):71-88. This made it an important player in the trade of essential good throughout the area.
Archaeological history The first archaeological excavations at Colha were in 1973. As part of the British Museum-Cambridge University Corozal Project, Norman Hammond mapped, named, tested, and reported the site for the first timeHammond, Norman. 1973 Corozal Project Interim Report, edited by N. Hammond. Centre of Latin American Studies, Cambridge University, England. In 1975, Hammond returned to Colha for further investigations which uncovered large deposits of lithic production debitage and showed that the site had a long history of occupation.Wilk, Richard L. 1976 Work in Progress at Colha, Belize, 1976. In Maya Lithic Studies: Papers from the 1976 Field Symposium, edited by T.R. Hester and N. Hammond:35-40. Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio. At the 1976 Maya Lithic Conference, a discussion on the possible importance of Colha in the archaeological discussion of Maya lithics and craft specialization prompted a call for a long term investigation at the site.Hester, Thomas R., and Norman Hammond (editors). 1976 Maya Lithic Studies: Papers from the 1976 Belize Field Symposium. Special Report Number 4, Center For Archaeological Research. The University of Texas at San Antonio. It was decided that Thomas R. Hester and Harry J. Shafer should be in charge of this project due to their experience with lithics.Hester, Thomas R., G. Ligabue, Harry J. Shafer, Jack D. Eaton, Robert F. Heizer, and Sandro Salvatori. 1979. Colha, Belize: A Preliminary Statement on the 1979 Season. In Belizean Studies, Vol. 7, No. 6:1-7. The result was a 14-year project by Hester, Shafer, and colleagues under the auspices of the University of Texas at Austin's Colha Project (discussed below).
Important contributors to the knowledge and publications available on Colha include (alphabetically, not by importance); Richard E.W. Adams, Dana Anthony, Jaime Awe, Palma Buttles, Meredith Dreiss, Jack D. Eaton, James T. Escobedo Jr., Lawrence H. Feldman, Eric C. Gibson, Thomas R. Hester, Harry B. Iceland, John S. Jacob, John G. Jones, Thomas C. Kelly, Eleanor M. King, Jon C. Lohse, Virginia K. Massey, Marilyn A. Masson, Roberta McGregor, Richard Meadows, Frances Meskill, George H. Michaels, Shirley B. Mock, Daniel R. Potter, Ketherine V. Reese, Erwin Roemer, Robert F. Scott IV, Harry J. Shafer, Leslie C. Shaw, Janet Stock, Lauren A. Sullivan, A.J. Taylor, Fred Valdez Jr., Richard r. Wilk, and Lori Wright.
The Colha Project The Colha Project is a long running dig at and around Colha. The project began in 1979 with an extensive investigation of the lithic production sites noted by Hammond and his associates, under the direction of Thomas Hester, Harry Shafer, and Robert Heizer. Highlights from this season included the development of quadrants and numbering schemes, the beginning of a regional survey program, and the outlining of a preliminary ceramic chronology by Adams and Valdez. The 1980 season confirmed that Colha was an important center for the production of lithics for the areaHester, Thomas R., G. Ligabue, Jack D. Eaton, Harry J. Shafer, and R.E.W. Adams. 1980. The 1980 Season at Colha, Belize: An Overview. In The Colha Project Second Season, 1980 Interim Report, edited by T.R. Hester, J.D. Eaton, and Harry J. Shafer, pp. 1-14. Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio. and the formalization of the regional survey under the title, Colha Regional Survey(CRS). The CRS program was important in the locating of several preceramic sites in Northern Belize including; Ladyville, Lowe Ranch, and Sand Hill.Kelly, Thomas C. 1980. The Colha Regional Survey. In The Colha Project, Second Season, 1980 Interim Report, edited by T.R. Hester, J.D. Eaton, and H.J. Shafer, pp. 51-70. Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio The following season, 1980, contributed significant information about how control and distribution of Colha lithics was managed at the site and accommodated the establishment of a detailed lithic chronology for the region, by the end of the 1981 season. Excavations in 1983 were the most expansive in the number of people and area covered of all the years of the Colha Project and covered several aspects of the site in the Preclassic and the transition from the Classic to the Postclassic.Hester, Thomas R. 1983. A Preliminary Report on the 1983 Investigations at Colha. Colha Project, Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio. the latter being the subject again in 1984. 1985 saw no work of the Colha Project, but 1986 saw a return to this transition with a greater influence on expanding the knowledge on the Late Classic, especially as it pertained to Lithic production.King, Eleanor M. 2000. The Organization of Late Classic Lithic Production at The Prehistoric Maya Site of Colha, Belize: A Study in Complexity and Heterarchy. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. In 1987, while research continued on the 1986 studies, a new emphasis was developed on the Preceramic Period. Operation 4046 located off mound at the edge of an aguada recovered lithic tools and debitage from the Preceramic period. Investigations at 4046 continued during brief investigations in 1988 and recovered additional lithic material below the Maya ceramic zone.Wood, Gregory, Excavations at Op. 4046, Colha, Belize: A Buried Preceramic Lithic Deposit, unpublished MA Thesis, University of Texas at San Antonio, 1990 1989 saw the first inclusion of a field school from the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Fred Valdez Jr. The research centered around preclassic deposits at Operation 2031,Sullivan, Lauren A. Preclassic Domestic Architecture at Colha, Belize. Masters thesis, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin. while John Jacob's important soil coring project started in the adjacent Cobweb Swamp.Jacob, John S. 1992. The Agroecological Evolution of Cobweb Swamp, Belize. Doctoral Dissertation. Texas A&M University. Jacobs work was the main focus in 1990, but in 1991 attention turned back to the preceramic and operation 4046 through Valdez's second Colha field school.
Formative Period In Belize, there is sparse evidence for occupation during the Archaic period before 3400 B.C.Lohse, Jon C.; Awe, Jaime; Griffith, Cameron; Rosenwig, Robert M.; and Vadez, Fred. 2006. Preceramic Occupations in Belize: Updating the Paleoindian and Archaic Record. Latin American Antiquity, 17(2), pp.209-226 This date has been used in conjunction with the Colha chronology, introduced by Iceland (1997), to outline the delineation of the Late Archaic period (3400-900B.C.).Iceland, Harry B. 1997 The Preceramic Origins of the Maya: The Results of the Colha Preceramic Project in Northern Belize. Ph.D. dissertation. The University of Texas at Austin. This period seems to have been a time of temporary settlement and selective adaptation through agriculture, with most sites located near easily attained natural recourses and adjacent to "swamp and lagoon margins, river valleys, near-coastal areas, upland settings along ecotonal boundaries, rockshelters, and caves".Lohse, Jon C.; Awe, Jaime; Griffith, Cameron; Rosenwig, Robert M.; and Vadez, Fred. 2006. Preceramic Occupations in Belize: Updating the Paleoindian and Archaic Record. Latin American Antiquity, 17(2), p.214. Despite the understanding of where to look for these evidences, concrete habitation sites for this period have been illusive to archaeologists, who must rely heavily on lithics and pollen studies to reconstruct the settlement patterns for the Late Archaic in Belize. Colha falls in an area of one particularly important natural resource, chert, and is very near to Cobweb Swamp. Therefore it was an optimal area to search for evidence of Late Archaic evidence in Belize. On this assumption, Thomas Hester and Harry Shafer dedicated the 1993-1995 Colha Project field seasons toward the investigation of the Late Archaic near Colha.Hester, Thomas R., Harry Iceland, Dale Hudler, and Harry J. Shafer 1996 The Colha Preceramic Project: Preliminary Results from the 1993-1995 Field Seasons. Mexicon 18:3 (June):45-50.
In his 1997 Ph.D. Dissertation, Harry Iceland put together a compilation of 23 calibrated radio-carbon dates from between 3400 B.C. and 900 B.C. that demonstrated regular utilization of the site throughout the Late Archaic, with the exception of a gap between 1900 B.C. and 1500 B.C., when the site is presumed to be empty. This chronology was supported by the pollen data from Cobweb Swamp. In his dissertation, Jones (1994) suggests that manioc and maize were being cultivated by the people of Colha at Cobweb Swamp. Jones documented evidence that "early human forest modification, disturbance and domesticated plant cultivation was established for the period prior to 2,500 B.C. (or nearly 1500 years before any other Maya site).