Description: In describing what was, in effect, a lost Maya city, the book highlights the many important research findings to date of long-term field research at the city, including a very early, yet extraordinarily sophisticated ancient water control system, and evidence for cacao arboriculture, to explain its rise to wealth and power as a "kingdom of chocolate"; also detailed are the ancient city's sculpture and ceramics and the ethnohistory of the modern Maya community lying atop it.
Brief description: Jonathan Kaplan, director of the Chocolá Project, is coeditor of The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic: The Rise and Fall of an Early Mesoamerican Civilization.
Review Quotes: "A welcome addition to the literature on the rise of complex societies on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. The comprehensive review chapters will make it a useful reference source for both students and professional researchers working in the Southern Maya Region, while the detailed methodological discussions will make it of general interest for archaeologists working elsewhere in the world."--Anthropology Book Forum