Nicaraguas newly elected president, Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo, has appointed University of Colorado at Boulder Associate Professor Frederick Lange to be an adviser to the Nicaraguan Institute of Culture.
Lange, curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum, is in Managua this semester, and next summer will conduct archaeological excavations with about 10 CU-Boulder students.
Lange will advise the cultural institute on a variety of issues ranging from helping native people protect their heritage to completing an exhibit program in the National Palace of Culture. He will train Nicaraguan archaeologists and museum specialists.
In the summer Lange will conduct the third field season of the Managua Metropolitan Area archaeological project, which in 1995 found the earliest ceramics known from Nicaragua, dating to 1400 B.C. In 1996 his project found the earliest domestic architectural remains, dating to 70 A.D., and the largest cemetery of scientifically excavated shoe-shaped burial urns.
Earliest in this case is still a relative term, given the lack of research in the country, said Lange. This summer we will focus on the largest area of remains recently encountered by one of the national universities during construction of a sports complex, and conduct a survey of sites in danger of damage or destruction by a project to modernize Managuas waste water system.