UC San Diego

This paper presents archaeological research from the El Cafetal group in the El Paraiso Valley, Honduras, obtained during the 2006 field season of the Proyecto Arqueologico Regional El Paraiso and the Kenyon Honduras Project. These data indicate that during the Late Classic, peoples of two distinct material cultures occupied the valley. These groups occupied two civic cores, El Paraiso and El Cafetal, only 1.2 kilometers apart on opposite banks of the Rio Ocote. The distinct dual character of the material cultures at the cores is evident in site planning, architectural style, and material remains in such a way that the two locales of this single Late Classic community form a dual center within the southeast Maya periphery