Field investigations were conducted at the site of El Rayo during the summer of 2009. El Rayo (GR39) is located at the tip of the Asese peninsula in Lake Nicaragua, just south of the modern city of Granada (Figure 1). Investigations were funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as the second year of the Proyecto Arqueologico Granada, Nicaragua.
El Rayo had been identified as a Sapoa and Ometepe period site during Salgado's Granada regional survey (Salgado 1996). The area was formed by volcanic activity that produced numerous natural hills of basalt boulders; the peninsula is surrounded by hundreds of small islands that were created by the same process. Low lying areas of the site also featured light color soil that may be the result of volcanic mudflows (lahars) that occured about 500 CE. Since the archaeological deposits rest on top of this layer the occupation post-dated the lahar deposits (Figure 2).
Excavations took place in three loci: Locus 1 was a cemetery that had been exposed by recent road construction; Locus 2 was a residential area with high concentrations of domestic refuse; and Locus 3 was a second cemetery.
Figure 1: Map of Asese peninsula indicating location of El Rayo
Fiugure 2: Locus 1 roadcut showing possible lahar deposit beneath cultural level