Historical archeology of Costa Rica: the case of Ciudad del Lodo C-361CL, material evidences that prove the first colonial settlement in Cartago

Abstract

Carlos H. Aguilar P. has been a pioneer in different fields of Costa Rican archeology, one of these, perhaps the least known of his successful career, was historical archeology. In this essay I will specifically refer to Ciudad del Lodo. For this paper, was studied a manuscript or field diary of the author that is in the archives of the Carlos Humberto Aguilar Piedra Archeology Laboratory (Lacap), two papers, one published by the historian Carlos Meléndez, and the other by the archivist Miguel Angel Xirinach, the revision of the Licenciate Thesis of María Calzada which deals with the location of the colonial cities in the central part of our country, literature complementary and the analysis of material evidences that are in(Lacap). And as a conclusion that material evidence allows us to think that the materials analyzed show us a culinary context where, in addition to everyday activities from the eighteenth or nineteenth century. However, taking into account the anthropic and natural transformational processes of the last 500 years, we can not rule out that in this place there was the City of Lodo, given the presence of a Majolica fragment, which could be of the Sevilla Blue type. With a cronology of 1530 and 1650 AD, and that would be within the range of occupation of the city.