Landscape Archaeology and Remote Sensing of a Spanish-Conquest Town: Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador

The villa de San Salvador, founded in 1525 and refounded in 1528 as a Spanish-conquest town, had a resident indigenous (Pipil and Tlaxcallan) population that was perhaps twenty times greater in number than its Spanish population. The town was abandoned in 1545, and its 17-year permanent occupation spans the crucial years of the Conquest period in Central America. The well preserved ruins of this town, known today as the site of Ciudad Vieja, afford a rare opportunity for archaeological study of the dynamics of early Spanish-Indian culture contact. Archaeological research at the site emphasizes spatial study of the town, viewing it as a cultural landscape, and focusing on the mutual interaction of the different cultural groups that shared the terrain. Approximately two dozen Spanish cities were founded in Central America during the Conquest period. Very few of them have been investigated archaeologically, and Ciudad Vieja is unique among them for its exposure, preservation, and ease of access. The cultural landscapes of these settlements formed the spatial matrix within which social and physical relations were enacted. These relations are amenable to archaeological investigation because they were the product of the behavior enacted within a social space which is in turn reflected in the material remains of the site. Geophysical surveys, conducted at the site in November–December 2002 and in March 2003, have formed a critical part of the investigation of the cultural landscape of Ciudad Vieja. Instruments used in these surveys were the Geometrics G858 cesium gradiometer and the Geonics EM38/EM38B electromagnetic induction meter. Initial results obtained in the fall of 2002 indicated that the latter, operating in in-phase or magnetic-susceptibility mode, provided the most interpretable results. The 2003 survey concentrated on widespread magnetic susceptibility coverage of the site. The results of the remote sensing survey depict the locations of probable buried stone foundations because of the high iron-oxide content of volcanic stones used in the built environment.