Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T05:00:41.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CHANGING APPROACHES TO MAIZE PREPARATION AT CERRO PORTEZUELO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2013

Martin Biskowski  and
Karen D. Watson
Martin Biskowski*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, 4010 Mendocino Hall, Sacramento, CA 95819-6106
Karen D. Watson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, 4010 Mendocino Hall, Sacramento, CA 95819-6106
*
Email correspondence to: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Analyses of grinding tools at Cerro Portezuelo provide an unusual opportunity to study changing subsistence priorities. Evidence in the Teotihuacan and Mezquital Valley indicates that established patterns of dependence on maize may have been interrupted during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic periods. Grinding tool collections in both locations contain unusually high frequencies of closed-surface grinding tools (trough metates and mortars), which are less efficient for intensive maize grinding than the open-surface tools commonly used during both the Classic and Late Postclassic periods. While analyzing the Cerro Portezuelo grinding tool collection presents many problems because of imprecise chronology, this collection also contains an unusually high frequency of closed-surface tools that can be attributed to its Epiclassic and Early Postclassic inhabitants. Thus, Cerro Portezuelo contributes to a growing picture of subsistence after the collapse of Teotihuacan in which maize was deemphasized and may have been replaced by amaranth and other foods.

Type
Special Section: Recent Research at Cerro Portezuelo
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , Spring 2013 , pp. 213 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, Jenny L. 1993 Toward Understanding the Technological Development of Manos and Metates. Kiva 58:331–344.Google Scholar
Adams, Jenny L. 1999 Refocusing the Role of Food-Grinding Tools as Correlates for Subsistence Strategies in the U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity 64:475–498.Google Scholar
Adams, Jenny L. 2002 Ground Stone Analysis: A Technological Approach. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Biskowski, Martin 1997 The Adaptive Origins of Prehispanic Markets in Central Mexico: The Role of Maize-Grinding Tools and Related Staple Products in Early State Economies. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Biskowski, Martin 2000 Maize Preparation and the Aztec Subsistence Economy. Ancient Mesoamerica 11:293–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biskowski, Martin 2008 Maize-Grinding Tools in Prehispanic Central Mexico. In New Approaches to Old Stones: Recent Studies of Ground Stone Artifacts, edited by Rowan, Yorke M. and Ebeling, Jennie R., pp. 144–155. Equinox Publishing, London.Google Scholar
Biskowski, Martin, and Watson, Karen D. 2007 The Changing Patterns of Maize Preparation in Central Mexico. Paper presented at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1994 Ethnic Groups and Political Development in Ancient Mexico. In Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, edited by Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. and Fox, John W., pp. 89–102. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Cecelski, Elizabeth 1985 The Rural Energy Crisis, Women's Work, and Basic Needs: Perspectives and Approaches to Action. International Labour Office, Geneva.Google Scholar
Cook, Scott 1970 Price and Output Variability in Peasant-Artisan Stoneworking Industry in Oaxaca, Mexico: An Analytical Essay in Economic Anthropology. American Anthropologist 72:776–801.Google Scholar
Cook, Scott 1982 Zapotec Stoneworkers: The Dynamics of Rural Simple Commodity Production in Modern Mexican Capitalism. University Press of America, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dobres, Marcia-Anne 2000 Technology and Social Agency. Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MA.Google Scholar
Diehl, Richard 1983 Tula: The Toltec Capital of Ancient Mesoamerica. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Evans, Margaret I. 1984 Firewood versus Alternatives: Domestic Fuel in Mexico. Commonwealth Forestry Institute Occasional Papers, No. 23. Department of Forestry, University of Oxford, Oxford.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M. 1986 The Emergence of Specialized Ceramic Production in Formative Oaxaca. In Economic Aspects of Prehispanic Highland Mexico, edited by Isaac, Barry L., pp. 347–373. Research in Economic Anthropology, Supplement 2. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.Google Scholar
Fournier, Patricia, and Bolaños, Victor H. 2007 The Epiclassic in the Tula Region beyond Tula Chico. In Twin Tollans: Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Epiclassic to Early Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Kowalski, Jeff Karl and Kristin-Graham, Cynthia, pp. 481–530. Dumbarton Oaks and Harvard University Press, Washington, DC, and Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Good, Kenneth, and Obermeyer, Gerald 1986 Excavation at Oxtotipac (TT82). In The Toltec Period Occupation of the Valley. Part 1: Excavations and Ceramics, edited by Sanders, William T., pp. 195–265. Teotihuacan Valley Project Final Report, Vol. 4. Occasional Papers in Anthropology, No. 13, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Hayden, Brian 1987a Past to Present Uses of Stone Tools and Their Effects on Assemblage Characteristics in the Maya Highlands. In Lithic Studies among the Contemporary Highland Maya, edited by Hayden, Brian, pp. 160–234. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hayden, Brian 1987b Traditional Metate Manufacturing in Guatemala Using Chipped Stone Tools. In Lithic Studies among the Contemporary Highland Maya, edited by Hayden, Brian, pp. 8–119. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hicks, Frederic 2013 The Architectural Features of Cerro Portezuelo. Ancient Mesoamerica 24:73–85.Google Scholar
Hicks, Frederic, and Nicholson, Henry B. 1964 The Transition from Classic to Postclassic at Cerro Portezuelo, Valley of Mexico. Actas y Memorias del XXXV Congreso Intenacional de Americanistas 3:493–505.Google Scholar
Horsfall, Gayel A. 1987 A Design Theory Perspective on Variability in Grinding Stones. In Lithic Studies among the Contemporary Highland Maya, edited by Hayden, Brian, pp. 332–377. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Isaac, Barry L. 1986 Introduction. In Economic Aspects of Prehispanic Highland Mexico, edited by Isaac, Barry L., pp. 1–19. Research in Economic Anthropology, Supplement 2. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.Google Scholar
Krause, Vivian M., Tucker, Katherine L., Kuhnlein, Harriet V., Lopez-Palacios, C.Y., Ruz, M., and Solomons, Noel W. 1992 Rural-Urban Variation in Limed Maize Use and Tortilla Consumption by Women in Guatemala. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 28:279–288.Google Scholar
Masera, Omar Raul 1995 Socioeconomic and Environmental Implications of Fuelwood Use Dynamics and Fuel Switching in Rural Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Energy and Resources, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Mastache, Alba Guadalupe, and Cobean, Robert H. 1999 Áreas de actividad. In Tepetitlan: Un espacio doméstico rural en el área de Tula, edited by Cobean, Robert H. and Mastache, Alba Guadalupe, pp. 241–293. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and the University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Mastache, Alba Guadalupe, Cobean, Robert H., and Healen, Dan 2002 Ancient Tollan: Tula and the Toltec Heartland. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Millon, Rene 1973 Urbanization at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Vol. 1: The Teotihuacan Map. Part I: Text. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Nichols, Deborah L., and McCullough, John 1986 Excavations at Xometla (TT21). In Teotihuacan Valley Project: Final Report, Vol. 4. The Toltec Period Occupation of the Valley, Part I: Excavations and Ceramics, edited by Sanders, William T., pp. 53–193. Occasional Papers in Anthropology, No. 13, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T., Parsons, Jeffrey R., and Santley, Robert S. 1979 The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Searcy, Michael T. 2011 The Life-Giving Stone: Ethnoarchaeology of Maya Metates. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Serna-Saldivar, S.O., Knabe, D.A., Rooney, L.W., and Tanksley, T.D. Jr. 1987 Effects of Lime Cooking on Energy and Protein Digestibilities of Maize and Sorghum. Cereal Chemistry 64(4):247–252.Google Scholar
Spence, Michael W., White, Christine D., and Longstaffe, Fred J. 2013 An Archaeology of Cerro Portezuelo Bioarchaeology: Burial Analysis and the (re)Excavation of Contexts from a 1950s Project. Ancient Mesoamerica 24:185–199.Google Scholar
Spink, Mary 1984 Metates as Socioeconomic Indicators During the Classic Period at Copan, Honduras. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Stahle, David W., Diaz, José Villanueva, Burnette, Dorian J., Paredes, Julian Cerano, Heim, R.R. Jr., Fye, Falko K., Soto, R. Acuna, Therrell, M.D., Cleaveland, Malcom K., and Stahle, Daniel K. 2011 Major Mesoamerican Droughts of the Past Millenium. Geophysical Research Letters 38(5):1–4.Google Scholar
Stein, Patricia H. 1974 Central Mexican Folk Rock: An Ethnography of Grinding Stones in the Tehuacan Valley. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.Google Scholar
Stroh, Edward G. Jr. 1975 The Ground Stone of Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico: Description and Distributional Analysis. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tusculoosa.Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Paul, and Fish, Suzanne K. 1975 Surface and Subsurface Evidence for Community Size at Coapexco, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 2:97–104.Google Scholar
Turuk, Janais Yvonne 2007 More Grist for the Mill: An Analysis of the Grinding Tools Recovered from the Ancient Maya Site of Minanha, Belize. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.Google Scholar