97 LONG DISTANCE CERAMIC EXCHANGE INCOTZUMALGUAPA: RESULTS OF NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS Oswaldo Chinchilla Ronald L. Bishop M. James Blackman Erin L. Sears José Vicente Genovez Regina Moraga Keywords: Maya archaeology, Guatemala, Escuintla, South Coast, Pacific Coast, Cotzumalguapa, ceramics, neutron activation, trade, exchange Since the XIX century, Cotzumalguapa has been focus of attention due to the seemingly intense relationships it maintained with other parts of Mesoamerica, initially perceptible in sculptural art. As a result of the investigations conducted in recent years, Cotzumalguapa has revealed itself like a large urban center that includes several groups of monumental architecture and wide settlements integrated through a system of causeways and bridges. During the extraordinary boom it experienced in the Late Classic period, Cotzumalguapa represented one of the main cities in southern Mesoamerica, seat of an important political organization, and a generating center of cultural innovations that were echoed in a wide region of the Altiplano and the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. It does not come as a surprise that this city had maintained commercial relationships with other Mesoamerican regions, though this aspect has not been much investigated so far. The iconography of sculptures reveals the full participation of Cotzumalguapa in the cultural fabric of Mesoamerica, but it is only through field archaeology that the external contacts of the inhabitants of this city will be revealed, by examining the long distance exchange of artifacts. In his pioneer investigations, Eric Thompson (1948) and Lee A. Parsons (1967) reported small assemblages of foreign materials at El Baul and Bilbao. The recent efforts of the Cotzumalguapa Archaeological Project have produced new collections of imported artifacts, some of which were accurately identified through visual observation and comparisons with materials from other regions. The method of Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) was used, in an attempt to identify the origin of a set of materials with a style that suggested a stylistic affiliation with the pottery of the Maya Lowlands, but whose poor preservation did not allow for their full identification through visual methods. This article describes the results of the study of imported ceramic materials in Cotzumalguapa, including macroscopic observations and stylistic comparisons, as well as the results of the chemical analysis of pastes. 1