Monte Alto culture

Monte Alto is an archaeological site on the Pacific Coast in what is now Guatemala.

Located 20 km southeast from Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa in Escuintla, Monte Alto was occupied as early as 1800 BC, but has a fairly light presence – less than either El Bálsamo or Los Cerritos Sur located about 10 km west and east of Monte Alto respectively. During the Late Preclassic (400 BC to AD 200), Monte Alto became a regional center.

The site has 45 major structures, the tallest being a 20 m high pyramid. The Monte Alto Culture is one of the oldest in Mesoamerica and perhaps predating the Olmec.

There is also a substantial Early Classic occupation but it is largely localized at Structure 6, a large platform located well to the northeast.

Although Monte Alto is noted for its sculptures (heads and potbellies), more than a dozen tabular shaped stone stelae were found as well as three stone altars.

Two general styles of sculpture are found at the Monte Alto site, one representing a human head, and the other, a human body. Since both the heads and the bodies are rather crudely shaped from large, rounded basaltic boulders, the subjects have a decidedly corpulent appearance. Because they seem to be male figures, they have been termed "potbellies" in the archaeological literature.

Fifteen plain stelas were recorded at Monte Alto and one alignment of three large plain stelae erected in a north–south line could have served astronomical purposes as a means for recording days and the position of the sun for agricultural purposes. In fact, the azimuth from the principal pyramid to the south stela marked the winter solstice on December 21. The sun rose over the central stela on February 19: February 19 at midnight marked the eastern elongation of the Eta Draconis star in the Pleiades during the Late Preclassic period.

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