Los Angeles is an important cemetery site in the Ometepe islands of lake Nicaragua, Nicaragua. The site is characterized by various levels separated by layers of volcanic material, called tephra. Artifacts collected during the excavations included ceramic, lithic, bone implements, and portable stone sculptures.
Occupation at this Greater Nicoya site spanned between 2000 BC and AD 1520. Among its most important features, we can include Nicaragua’s earliest known ceramics from the site’s earliest phase, called Dinarte (ca 2000-500 BC), and the largest human skeletal collection excavated so far in Nicaragua.
Along with other sites on Ometepe island, Los Angeles was excavated by the German archaeologist Wolfgang Haberland, in the 1960s. Assisted by his student Peter Schmidt, Haberland discovered a graveyard with more than 60 graves. The graves contained many primary burials, instead of funerary urns or secondary burials, which were generally thought to be the common burial pattern for this region.
Among the skeletons found in the cemetery at Los Angeles, some showed evidence of cranial deformation and dental mutilation, characteristics usually linked with high social status.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Greater Nicoya Region, the guide to Ancient Mesoamerica and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Lange F.W. and D. Stone (eds.), The Archaeology of Lower Central America, School of American Research Book, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.