Editors' Note Tikal Reports present the results of the University of Pennsylvania excavations from 1956-1969, largely in accord with the projected scheme set out by William R. Coe and William A. Haviland in Tikal Report 12. A great deal of research has taken place at Tikal since those investigations were completed with, in particular, several important projects undertaken by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala and the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional. Since their work has often enlarged upon that conducted by the University of Pennsylvania,--in some cases excavating the same structures--there is a clear opportunity to integrate recent and historical investigations to produce a synthetic treatment. This idea is undoubtedly appealing, but it is one we have resisted for the monograph series. The reasons are threefold. Firstly, consistency of scope and presentation was integral to the original scheme and has been implemented in all the reports published thus far.

Secondly, the Tikal Report authors do not have access to the newly produced data to anything like the extent necessary to do that work justice. Thirdly, to produce synthetic treatments of this kind would introduce very considerable delays in publishing future Tikal Reports, hampering the work of those scholars and students who could make immediate use of the data they contain. In acknowledgment of subsequent work, the introduction to each volume in the series will henceforth note where later work has taken place on the same structures and reference the relevant publications. Even without the addition of new data, the Tikal Report series provides needed information on things that can no longer be observed first hand, either because of excavation or continuing destruction by the elements. William A. Haviland Simon Martin Series Editors.