Payson Sheets

PROVISIONING THE CEREN HOUSEHOLD

The Classic-period households of the Ceren village in the southeastern periphery of the Maya area provisioned themselves by one of three different economies. (1) Household members produced many items for intrahousehold use, including architecture, food, and some artifacts, with no input from outside. (2) Each household produced some commodity in excess of what they needed for their internal consumption, by means of part-time specialization, and they used this for exchange with other households within the village or nearby. This is termed the horizontal or village economy. The commodities included craft items such as groundstone tools and painted gourds as well as agricultural specialities such as agave for fiber. (3) Each household obtained distant exotic items, such as obsidian tools, jade axes, and polychrome serving ceramics, by exchanging their household surplus commodities in elite centers. In this paper, this is called the vertical economy. The choices available to commoner households in negotiating economic transactions in various elite centers gave them economic power and could have the effect of constraining the elite in setting exchange equivalencies. This is quite different from the view from the top of the pyramid which generally depicts commoners as the exploited class at the bottom of a powerful political and economic hierarchy.

Behavioral Analysis and the Structure of a Prehistoric Industry [and Comments and Reply]

Assuming that aboriginal behavior was recorded on chipped-stone implements and debitage, and assuming that the analyst can train himself to recognize and interpret that record, then a classification of lithic artifacts based on manufacturing behavior may be considered an inherent classification. Lithic behavioral classification is examined from the perspective of other archaeological classifications as well as from general taxonomic theory. Advantages of behavioral analysis in the examination of change, adaptation, process, systems theory, and the nature of artifact variability are explored. The artifacts of a core-blade reduction strategy excavated from Chalchuapa, El Salvador, a major Maya Highland site, are described to exemplify behavioral classification.

PRECISE CHARACTERIZATION OF GUATEMALAN OBSIDIAN SOURCES, AND SOURCE DETERMINATION OF ARTIFACTS FROM QUIRIGUA

LBL-12252 Revised Preprint eley L boratory ALIFORNIA Submitted to American Antiquity PRECISE CHARACTERIZATION OF GUATEMALAN OBSIDIAN SOURCES, AND SOURCE DETERMINATION OF ARTIFACTS FROM QUIRIGUA ... Fred H. Stross, Payson Sheets, Frank Asaro, and Helen V. Michel November 1981 TWO-WEEK LOAN COPY This is a Library Circulating Copy which may be borrowed for two weeks. For a personal retention copy, call Tech. Info. Diu is ion, Ext. 6782 Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-48

Soil Chemical Analysis of Ancient Activities in Cerén, El Salvador: A Case Study of a Rapidly Abandoned Site

Activities performed over long periods of time tend to leave soil chemical residues as evidence of those activities. Some of the questions studied in this paper deal with the interpretive capabilities provided by chemical patterns. Soil samples from Ceren, El Salvador, a well-preserved site, were analyzed for extractable phosphorus and heavy metals. We compared in situ artifacts collected from the site with chemical signatures that indicate activity areas. We found that elevated concentrations of phosphorus were associated with food preparation, consumption, and disposal. Heavy metals were associated with the interior of the structure where pigments and painted gourds were found. In this case, where well-preserved, in situ artifacts were available for analysis, we found that chemical analysis was effective in locating human activity areas. Our findings indicate that chemical analysis can be used to guide interpretation in areas of poor artifact preservation with reasonable accuracy, and in archaeological sites that underwent gradual abandonment.

Prehistory and Volcanism in the Arenal Area, Costa Rica

AbstractMultidisciplinary research conducted in the tropical rainforest of NW Costa Rica uncovered evidence of human occupation from Paleoindian and Archaic times through four sedentary phases to the Spanish Conquest. The village lifestyle, established by 2000 B.C., was remarkably stable and resilient in spite of the effects of at least nine prehistoric explosive eruptions of Arenal Volcano. Settlements maintained greater economic and political independence than Mesoamerican villages. Maize was cultivated by 2000 B.C., but it did not become a staple, as nondomesticated flora and fauna provided the bulk of the diet. A trend toward more elaborate funerary ritual, and toward greater distances between villages and cemeteries, occurred from 2000 B.C. to A.C. 1200. Optical (photographic) and digital remote sensing detected numerous linear anomalies, many of which have been confirmed as prehistoric footpaths that represent a system of human transportation and communication across the prehistoric landscape.

Archaeology, volcanism, and remote sensing in the Arenal region, Costa Rica

How humans adapt to life in an area prone to natural disasters is an intriguing study for the social sciences. In this volume, experts from several disciplines explore the adaptation process of prehistoric societies in the Arenal region of Costa Rica, an area that has experienced numerous volcanic eruptions during the last several millennia. The data in this volume come from a survey of the region conducted under the leadership of Payson Sheets. Using the latest remote sensing technology, including color infrared photography and the Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner, researchers have compiled a detailed record of human settlement patterns in the area from about 2000 BC to the Spanish Conquest at about AD 1500. Combining remote sensing technology with traditional techniques of archaeology, the researchers found dozens of previously unknown archaeological sites and a network of prehistoric footpaths that reveals patterns of human travel and communication across the region. They excavated numerous villages, some dating to before 2000 BC, around the shores of Lake Arenal, uncovering significant data about the food sources, sophisticated pottery, and stone-working techniques of the people. From these findings, the authors conclude that the Arenal peoples prospered in their precarious environment by taking advantage of diverse food and lithic resources, keeping population levels low, and avoiding environmental degradation. Indeed, their societies evidently maintained far greater social stability than did those in Mesoamerica or the Andes. This book will interest a wide interdisciplinary audience in anthropology and archaeology, earth sciences, technology, geography, and human ecology.Numerous line drawings, photographs, maps, and tables accompany the text.

ANCIENT MANIOC AGRICULTURE SOUTH OF THE CEREN VILLAGE, EL SALVADOR

The role of seed crops in the Maya diet is well understood. The role of root crops in the ancient Maya diet has been con troversial, with some scholars suggesting they were staples, and others arguing they were not cultivated at all. Research in the 1990s found occasional manioc plants in kitchen gardens within the Classic period Ceren village, leading to the inter pretation that manioc did contribute to the diet, but was not a staple. Recent research outside the village encountered sophis ticated raised-bed monocropping of manioc over an extensive area. This area was harvested essentially all at once, about a week prior to the eruption. An estimated ten tons of tubers were harvested. The various uses of manioc include consumption as food, exchange with other settlements, fermentation, drying and storage as a powder, and as an adhesive. It is possible that many or all these alternatives were being followed. At Ceren manioc was a staple, not just an occasional adjunct to the diet. Because Ceren is toward the wet end of the ideal range for manioc cultivation, other areas of the Neotropics that receive less than 1,700 mm of precipitation may be more suitable for manioc cultivation than Ceren. Es probable que en la zona maya el cultivo intensivo de maiz y su consumo se remonten al periodo Preclasico Medio. No obs tante, su importancia en la dieta maya esta bien determinada desde el periodo Clasico hasta hoy. En oposicion, la importan cia del cultivo de raices en la dieta de los antiguos mayas ha sido polemica. Dada la escasez de evidencia directa de su cultivo, proceso, y consumo, muchos arqueologos han expresado incertidumbre sobre su papel en la dieta maya. Algunos de ellos han sugerido que las raices no eran cultivadas en absoluto. En el otro extremo, hay quienes sugieren que su cultivo fue un com ponente dominante de la dieta. En el caso especifico de la mandioca, hay quienes piensan que fue introducida al area maya desde el Caribe por los espanoles. Durante nuestras investigaciones arqueologicas en el sitio de Ceren, en El Salvador, hemos contado con la ventaja del excepcional estado de preservacion de los elementos enterrados por la ceniza de la erupcion del volcan Loma Caldera, ocurrida cerca del ano 630 d.C. En nuestras primeras excavaciones encontramos algunas pocas plan tas de mandioca en los huertos de las casas del pueblo, lo que nos llevo a interpretar que sus tuberculos se cosechaban indi vidualmente para ser incorporados en la dieta de forma ocasional. En esta etapa nuestra comprension de la mandioca era escasa y pensamos que dicho tuberculo no era una parte importante de la dieta, y que solo contribuia con unas cuantas calo rias. En nuestras investigaciones mas recientes, realizadas unos 200 m al sur del asentamiento arqueologico, encontramos un sofisticado monocultivo de mandioca sobre un area extensa, practicado sobre un sistema de amplios camellones. En contraste con el estilo de cosechar en los huertos caseros dentro del pueblo, en esta area de monocultivo, la produccion completa de mandioca se cosecho en un solo evento, una semana antes de la erupcion del volcan Loma Caldera. Estimamos que se obtu vieron hasta diez toneladas de tuberculos con el procedimiento de arrancar la planta completa, jalandola por la base del tallo. Con esta tecnica la mayor parte de los tuberculos de cada planta habrian sido recogidos de un solo tiron, aunque algunas ramificaciones se habrian roto durante el proceso y permanecido enterradas en los camellones. Estos tuberculos desprendi dos se descompusieron en el campo, dejando impresos su forma y volumen en huecos que fueron preservados por el deposito de ceniza volcanica. Cuando encontramos dichas oquedades, las llenamos con yeso dental por lo que se conservaran perpe tuamente. Un tuberculo de mandioca se descompone en pocos dias despues de su cosecha. Por ello los agricultores de Ceren

Copan and Ceren

The volcanic eruption that buried Ceren, El Salvador, at a.d. 590 preserved an extraordinary array of artifacts and features in or near their original positions. Household inventories are virtually complete, and activities can be reconstructed in almost ethnographic detail. It is therefore tempting to think that Ceren will automatically make less-well-preserved contexts at similar sites more explicable. This proposition is tested by comparing Ceren with a well-excavated set of household remains from seven small rural sites in the Copan Valley, Honduras, which have been much more heavily transformed by cultural and natural processes. Comparison is especially attractive because both the Ceren and Copan sites were small domestic places with similar social, residential, and economic functions. Both sets of sites also share a common basic cultural tradition on the southern periphery of Mesoamerica, and are in reasonably similar upland environmental settings.

MANIOC CULTIVATION AT CEREN, EL SALVADOR: OCCASIONAL KITCHEN GARDEN PLANT OR STAPLE CROP?

Abstract Many scholars have thought the Classic period Maya did not cultivate the root crop manioc, while others have suggested it may have been an occasional cultigen in kitchen gardens. For many decades there was no reliable evidence that the ancient Maya cultivated manioc, but in the 1990s manioc pollen from the late Archaic was found in Belize, and somewhat older pollen was found in Tabasco. At about the same time of those discoveries, research within the Ceren village, El Salvador, encountered occasional scattered manioc plants that had grown in mounded ridges in kitchen gardens. These finds adjacent to households indicated manioc was not a staple crop, and vastly inferior to maize and beans in food volume produced. However, 2007 research in an agricultural area 200 m south of the Ceren village encountered intensive formal manioc planting beds. If manioc was widely cultivated in ancient times, its impressive productivity, ease of cultivation even in poor soils, and drought resistance suggest it might have been a staple crop helping to support dense Maya populations in the southeast periphery and elsewhere.

The Effects of Explosive Volcanism on Simple to Complex Societies in Ancient Middle America

Publisher Summary The ancient societies of Middle America (Mexico and Central America) were not equally vulnerable to the sudden stresses of explosive volcanic eruptions. Although the sample size of known cases is small, the simple egalitarian societies apparently were more resilient to sudden massive stress, in the long run, than were more complex chiefdoms or states. The simpler societies often repeatedly reoccupied the recovering landscapes, taking advantage of the short-term benefits of the volcanically active environments, with little or no detectable culture change that can be traced to the volcanic impacts. The more complex societies in this sample had greater difficulties in coping with sudden, massive stresses, apparently because of their greater reliance on the built environment, staple cultigens, long-range trade networks, greater population density, competitive to hostile political landscapes, redistributive economies, and other centralized institutions. An unanticipated result of this study in this chapter is the realization of the importance of the political context of a society prior to a sudden stress.