Rastrojón is a Maya archaeological site in western Honduras. It appears to be associated with the major Classical period city of Copán―the capital of a Maya kingdom that existed from 5th to 9th centuries CE―situated just two kilometres away. Rastrojón was abandoned following the collapse of the Copán kingdom in 822; the site was constructed on top of a geological fault that made building difficult, so it may be that the inhabitants judged the location not worth the effort after the fall of the nearby royal centre. [1]
Rastrojón was discovered in 1979, during a survey of the area around Copán. From 2007 to 2013, the Rastrojón Archaeological Project ( Spanish: El Proyecto Arqueológico Rastrojón Copán, PARACOPAN), sponsored by Harvard University and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History undertook a programme of rescue archaeology and conservation at the site. [1] The project was led by archaeologists William Fash and Jorge Ramos, and conservator Antonia Martínez, and resulted in the site being turned into a protected archaeological park. [2]
The program was discontinued and nobody is working on it. (feb, 2022) [3]