Cuadernos de Antropología ISSN Impreso: 1409-3138 ISSN electrónico: 2215-356X
OAI: https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/antropologia/oai
For generations of young and old archeologists who have built their careers in Central American territories and who have actively participated in investigation, teaching, administration, management, and outreach of archeological heritage, Richard Cooke’s name must sound familiar. Cooke is one of the most renowned archeologists in the area due to the quality of his investigations, the longevity and constancy of his career, and his wide expertise regarding archeological, palaeoenvironmental and ethno-historical data. Besides, he gives a panregional vision to the interpretative approaches of common developing processes in the Isthmo-Colombian peoples, as they share a history.
The XI Central American Anthropology Network Congress (XI Congreso de la Red Centroamericana de Antropología) in San Jose, Costa Rica, in March and February 2017, in the Faculty of Social Science of the University of Costa Rica, was dedicated to Richard Cooke and other distinguished investigators. Therefore, this congress was the perfect venue to go through Richard’s path, the many facets of his work and idiosyncrasy, and to highlight his vast and diverse labor regarding the investigations Cooke collaborated with or in the ones he mentions the review of topics and concepts that have interested him.
Richard’s professional path has been so remarkable that it is impossible to refer to Panamanian Archeology and the Isthmo-Colombian Area without mentioning him.
Thereby, we organized a round table that pretended to clarify Richard’s fundamentals during the last decades, including a common origin of a historical unit, the shared cultural patterns, millenary geographical permanence, and the genetic and linguistic drift of the remaining peoples.
The meaning of “deep history”, “cultural heritage”, and “national legacy” to claim the indigenous peoples as the national identities has always been present in a pure investigator’s mind, but at the same time it is of acute social sensibility.
Because of that, this number of Cuadernos de Antropología and the round table are titled “After a Millennial Cultural Heritage: Contributions from Richard Cooke to the Archeology of the Isthmus-Colombian Area”. Richard’s impact in Central American Archeology was reflected not only in the number of lectures in the round table, but also in the variety of contents that were exposed. People from Colombia, Panamá, Costa Rica, USA, and Canada gathered to pay tribute to the great researcher Richard Cooke.
In the essays, only a small portion —though we hope it to be representative— of Richard’s contributions regarding the understanding of the pre-Columbian populations is exposed. Even though his career has been focused on the central Panamanian zone —which he calls “Gran Coclé semiotic tradition”— his contributions transcend the region. That is because they take into consideration the first settlements, the adaptability strategies, and the assimilation of different ecosystems, the effects of human development on the American tropical forest, the beginning and evolution of agricultural practices, the coastal economic strategies, the settlement of village life, the emergence of socio-political organization in the scale of chiefdoms and the impact of European colonization over the native peoples.
Since his arrival to Panama, Richard has been committed to the country forging friendly and familiar ties. This aspect has been clearly presented in the essays in the first part of this number of Cuadernos de Antropología, which is focused on Richard’s professional path and influence in the Isthmo-Colombian Area. Anthony Ranere, who has been Cooke’s life-time colleague, knows best the researcher’s motivations to permanently settle in Panama, and describes it shortly and accurately. What is more, Ranere offers a close look into Cooke’s career from an interdisciplinary point of view.
On the other hand, Tomás Mendizábal and Juan Guillermo Martín-Rincón emphasize Richard’s work from a socio-political and contextual perspective; they mention how, despite the stereotypes and the surviving stances during the nationalist and populist periods in Panama, Richard has worked tirelessly to find ways to communicate and contribute with the public institutions in charge of managing the national heritage. Despite not having a solid archeology teaching program in Panama yet, Richard’s efforts regarding that program and his projections of the Smithsonian Institution of Tropical Studies in the archeology and paleoecology fields towards the students and people in general have been recorded.
Colombia, Panamanian, and Costa Rican archeologists who have collaborated with Richard consider him their mentor not only because of the way he investigates, but also for making knowledge and archeological practice an effective tool of socialization. Diana Carvajal, from a public archeology point of view, has focused her studies on Richard’s creative and original strategies to bring archeological knowledge and valuable cultural heritage to communities. We can exemplify this with the excavation project that lasted 10 years in Cerro Juan Díaz, which allowed to offer workshops given by students and young people. What community leaders learned during those days they passed on to other members. Another achievement of this project was that it gathered thousands of school and high-school students and people in general that came to admire there the work that archeologists did, and to visit and interview them, while they exposed and excavated landfills and pre-Columbian tombs.
Richard has influenced and supported many generations of archeologists’ professional and academic training. Francisco Corrales’ review has revealed Cooke’s constant collaboration with Costa Rican archeology students —who aspire to graduation projects—, ethnohistorians, geneticists, and linguists to shape the concept of “Isthmo-Colombian Area” and the importance of focusing on phylogenetic models to understand the native peoples.
The second section offers five original research projects that present his multiple investigation sides. Patricia Hansell explains how the La Mula Sarigua project —a fundamental settlement to comprehend a large history of occupation that goes back to the Paleo-Indian— has been channeled. It is also considered one of the first and biggest villages that blossomed in the Central Pacific region of Panama, and the collections she has made reveal technological indicators of specialization and social complexity. Because of that, she presents how they have created a digital photographic 3D file of each artefact to be able to exhibit it on a virtual platform of open consultation and professional use for the current and future generations.
La Mula Sarigua is an essential settlement in the socio-political development of the Parita River basin, which is the location of Mikael Haller’s study, who confronts decades-old research data with the data he collected in the regional exploration in the following essay. In his discussion, Haller highlights how persistent the cultural and socio-economic patterns were in the first ceramic periods, according to Richard’s defended statements.
There was another parallel project supported by Ilean Isaza that was developed in La Villa river. The formulation of this project was mainly due to her professional expertise in Cerro Juan Díaz, under Richard’s tutoring. In her essay, Ilean describes some remarkable characteristics of her research line, from the problem statement, the field sampling design, and the final interpretations, always funded on substantial data of regional context. This same effect is present in a project that took place in Coiba Island —archaeologically unknown in that moment—, in which Richard’s mentoring was essential.
Yajaira Núñez takes up a topic that has always been present in Richard’s repertory: the study of the variability of the ceramic and its relation to the cultural chronology and geography of the Panamanian Isthmus. To characterize the local and foreign styles of Las Perlas Archipelago, Núñez complements her detailed study not only with a morpho-stylistic analysis, but also with compositional variables of clay through instrumental analysis.
Finally, Álvaro Brizuela, Carlos Fitzgerald, and Gloria Biffano compile the most relevant information regarding the project they direct in Panama’s Central Caribbean.
With a large inventory of archeological sites, these researchers test Richard’s thesis about the trans-range link of the Gran Coclé community located in the Pacific and the Caribbean. Radiometric dating consistently locates most of the settlements in the late part; however, they do not seem to reflect a hierarchical model as the expected for the Cubiga chiefdom, hypothetically ubiquitous in the area of study.
Besides the contributions mentioned in this volume, there were other five lectures in the symposium that took place in San José in 2017. In the lecture Richard Cooke’s Contributions to Archaeozoology, Máximo Jiménez talked about one of Richard’s main legacies to regional archeology: to build a really complete reference collection of the tropical American fauna. Ruth Dickau’s The Other Half of the Plate: Diet Diversity Beyond Corn in Central America and Colombia registered the pre-Columbian dietary diversity that other products offered besides corn, such as tubers, nuts, and seeds. Fumie Iizuka presented the most recent results of her investigation regarding the production processes of Monagrillo ceramic (ca. 4500-3200 14C a.C.) in her lecture Cooking, Exchange, and Environment: Technical Decisions of the First Panamanian Potters. Recent analysis of human remains in Cerro Juan Díaz reveal demographic, diet and health data and cultural practices which were presented by Nicole Smith-Guzmán, Leslie Naranjo, Vanessa Sánchez and Laura Schells in the lecture Early Burials in Cerro Juan Díaz: Old Bones, New Discoveries and Reviewed Interpretations. John Hoopes also presented a lecture titled Coclé Heritage in Ancient Costa Rica, where he reflected about the Gran Coclé tradition meaning in supra-regional terms.
The compilation of this volume was possible thanks to Cuadernos de Antropología, of the University of Costa Rica, its editorial committee and the XI Central American Anthropology Network Congress organizers’ efforts, who recognized Richard and other colleagues’ contributions as the main pillars in the Central American archeology. As Isaac Newton said: “If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants”.
We are forever thankful not only to them, but also to each one of the speakers that gathered to join Richard in one legitimate sign of affection, respect, and admiration. With this number, we celebrate a person that has dedicated his whole career to the development of Central American archeology, and that has made a lasting difference regarding the knowledge and heritage of the native peoples.
Thank you, Richard, and may your life always be successful!
Yajaira Núñez-Cortés y Luis A. Sánchez
Compilers
