The exploratation of the settlement began in 1994 and to date some of the most important buildings that make up the core of the settlement have been intervened and consolidated, which extends over an area of ​​approximately 70 hectares where sets of structures of different ranges are distributed among the The groups called Gran Basamento, Las Vías and Group II stand out, which includes the tallest building in the settlement. The character of the architectural groups corresponds fundamentally to the civic and religious, functions that are confirmed by the large number of late censers recovered in the upper part of the Great Basamento and in the two main buildings that crown it, which correspond to temples.

It is very probable that the first inhabitants of the region settled during the Late Preclassic period (200 BC), in small hamlets around perennial bodies of water, such as Laguna del Ocho and Laguna de Chacchoben; however, it is not until the Early Classic, when the site developed monumentally and the main public buildings were erected. Despite the fact that during the subsequent periods, established by archeology, the settlement continued to be inhabited, the major construction activity seems to have decreased around the year 700 after Christ, culminating later with its virtual abandonment, to be populated again, although partially, during the Late Postclassic period, date to which corresponds the large number of fragments of effigy censers that have been recovered.

Currently only two stelae with hieroglyphic inscriptions have been found, but both present eroded and illegible texts, so there is the assumption that Chacchobén was a larger site linked to some regional capital of the Petén area, an idea that is reinforced by the style of the site architecture.

This presents tucked corners of the panels in the earliest buildings and rounded in those of later construction with the typical plinth arrangement, between street and apron slope, as well as the materials recovered to date, which present a clear similarity to those documented in sites in northern Belize rather than in northern Yucatan.