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Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1. Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion: An Introduction by Rani T. Alexander
Chapter 2. Obsidian Production and Use in Central Mexico after the Spanish Invasion by Alejandro Pastrana Cruz, Patricia Fournier García, William, J. Parry, and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton
Chapter 3. Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions in Central Mexico by Patricia Fournier García and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton
Chapter 4. Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods of the Colonial Port of Veracruz, Mexico by Krista L. Eschbach
Chapter 5. New Materials—New Technologies? Postclassic and Early Colonial Technological Transitions in the Nejapa Region of Oaxaca, Mexico by Stacie M. King and Elizabeth Konwest
Chapter 6. Technology and Forest Transitions in the Soconusco Region of Chiapas, Mexico by Mario A. Castillo and Janine Gasco
Chapter 7. Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas: Changes in Yucatán’s Hydrogeologic Landscape after the Spanish Invasion by Rani. Alexander and Nina Williams
Chapter 8. Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines during Yucatán’s Gilded Age by Héctor Hernández Álvarez
Chapter 9. Cane and Consumerism: Nineteenth-Century Sugar Growing at Lamanai, Belize by Tracie Mayfield, Elizabeth Graham, and David Pendergast
Chapter 10. An Archaeology of Indigo: Changes in Labor and Technology in the Izalcos Region of Western El Salvador by Kathryn E. Sampeck
Chapter 11. Technological and Cultural Change during the Conquest Period at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador by Jeb J. Card and William R. Fowler Jr.
Chapter 12. European Technology and Native Traditions in Mesoamerican History: A Commentary by Anthony P. Andrews
References Cited
List of Contributors
Index
T E C H NOL O G Y A N D T R A DI T ION I N M E S OA M E R IC A A F T E R T H E SPA N I SH I N VA SION
Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica after the Spanish Invasion Archaeological Perspectives
Edited by
R a n i T. A l e x a n d e r
U n i v ersit y of N ew M e x ico Pr e ss · A l buqu erqu e
©2019 by the University of New Mexico Press All rights reserved. Published 2019 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Alexander, Rani T., 1962– editor. Title: Technology and tradition in Mesoamerica after the Spanish invasion: archaeological perspectives / edited by Rani T. Alexander. Description: Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed. Identifiers: LCCN 2018027854 (print) | LCCN 2018049732 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826360168 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826360151 (printed case: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Indians of Mexico—Antiquities. | Indians of Central America—Antiquities. | Mexico—Antiquities. | Central America—Antiquities. | Technology and civilization—History. | Latin America—Civilization—Spanish influences. | Diffusion of innovations—Latin America—History. | Material culture—Latin America—History. | Social change—Latin America—History. Classification: LCC F1219 (e-book) | LCC F1219. T26 2019 (print) | DDC 972/.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027854
Cover photograph by Tracie Mayfield
Contents
List of Illustrations
vii
Chapter One. Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion: An Introduction
1
R ani T. Alexander Chapter Two. Obsidian Production and Use in Central Mexico after the Spanish Invasion
15
Alejandro Pastr ana Cruz, Patricia Fournier García, William J. Parry, and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton Chapter Three. Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions in Central Mexico 35
Patricia Fournier García and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton Chapter Four. Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods of the Colonial Port of Veracruz, Mexico 53
Krista L. Eschbach Chapter Five. New Materials—New Technologies? Postclassic and Early Colonial Technological Transitions in the Nejapa Region of Oaxaca, Mexico 73
Stacie M. King and Elizabeth Kon west Chapter Six. Technology and Forest Transitions in the Soconusco Region of Chiapas, Mexico 93
Mario A. Castillo and Janine Gasco Chapter Seven. Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas: Changes in Yucatán’s Hydrogeologic Landscape after the Spanish Invasion 109
R ani T. Alexander and Nina Williams Chapter Eight. Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines during Yucatán’s Gilded Age 125
Héctor Hernández Álvarez
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Contents Chapter Nine. Cane and Consumerism: Nineteenth-Century Sugar Growing at Lamanai, Belize 147
Tr acie Mayfield, Elizabeth Gr aham, and David Pendergast Chapter Ten. An Archaeology of Indigo: Changes in Labor and Technology in the Izalcos Region of Western El Salvador 167
K athryn E. Sampeck Chapter Eleven. Technological and Cultural Change during the Conquest Period at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador 189
Jeb J. Card and William R. Fowler Jr. Chapter Twelve. European Technology and Native Traditions in Mesoamerican History: A Commentary
Anthon y P. Andrews References Cited 213 Contributors 261 Index
267
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Illustrations
Figu r es
Figure 5.1. Map of Oaxaca, showing the location of the Nejapa region and places mentioned in the text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Figure 5.2. Map of Greater La Amontonada, with an inset plan of the El Cucharital neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Figure 5.3. Map of Majaltepec, with an inset plan drawing of Siete Cuartos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Figure 5.4. Cut stone block platform wall at El Cucharital, Greater La Amontonada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Figure 5.5. Formal entrance connecting the atrium to the church (Siete Cuartos), Majaltepec . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 Figure 5.6. Drawing of the copper tweezers found at El Órgano, Greater La Amontonada . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Figure 5.7. A remaining casa de paja in Santa Ana Tavela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Figure 6.1. Location of the Soconusco region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Figure 6.2. J-shaped curve illustrating forest transition pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Figure 6.3. Location of the study area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Figure 6.4. Images of the study area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 Figure 6.5. Ground truth locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Figure 7.1. Cenote Nocac. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Figure 7.2. Noria at Hacienda Uxmal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Figure 7.3. Locations with norias in the study sample . . . . . . . . 111 Figure 7.4. Historic well at Chan Cruz, situated at the bottom of a rejollada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Figure 7.5. San Felipe aguada by the highway in Libre Unión, Yaxcabá municipio, Yucatán . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Figure 7.6. Noria at Hacienda Tabi, with windmill . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Figure 7.7. Box plots of the distribution in size of noria openings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Figure 7.8. Box plots of the distribution in size of the noria platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Figure 7.9. Tontzimín water source, well at bottom of a rejollada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Figure 7.10. Haltun at Mopilá. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122
Figure 1.1. Study area locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Figure 2.1. Map of central Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Figure 2.2. General map of the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Figure 2.3. Plan of the Franciscan chapel in the colonial sector of the Sierra de las Navajas source . . . . . . . .17 Figure 2.4. Iron and lithic tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Figure 2.5. Aztec lithic and colonial scrapers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Figure 2.6. Florentine Codex illustration of tools . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Figure 2.7. Franciscan chapel, reconstructed, Sierra de las Navajas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Figure 2.8. Map with sites mentioned in the eastern Teotihuacan Valley / Otumba area . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Figure 3.1. Map of the Basin of Mexico and environs. . . . . . . . . 36 Figure 3.2. Colonial Orange Wares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Figure 3.3. Colonial Red Wares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Figure 3.4. Colonial figurines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Figure 3.5. Binary plot illustrating the separation of compositional groups for the Basin of Mexico / Puebla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Figure 4.1. Map of central Veracruz indicating locations and clay samples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Figure 4.2. Map showing the locations of modern lots excavated by the CCP in 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Figure 4.3. Examples of colonial ceramics analyze. . . . . . . . . . . 63 Figure 4.4. Biplot of first two principal components showing the seven core groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Figure 4.5. Identifiable primary forming techniques for plain, lead-glazed, and painted / slipped sherds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Figure 4.6. Identifiable shaping and finishing techniques for plain, lead-glazed, and painted / slipped sherds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Figure 4.7. Identifiable firing atmosphere for plain, leadglazed, and painted / slipped sherds . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
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Illustrations
Figure 8.1. Payroll list from Hacienda San Pedro, 1909 . . . . . . .128 Figure 8.2. Decorticating machine benediction at Hacienda Sacapuc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129 Figure 8.3. Pakché, a manual device used by the indigenous population to decorticate henequen . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Figure 8.4. The Solís Wheel in use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Figure 8.5. La Vencedora (The Victor) working at Hacienda Sacapuc, circa 1913 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134 Figure 8.6. Decorticating machine with conveyor belt . . . . . . . 135 Figure 8.7. Torroella machine built in Mérida, Yucatán . . . . . . .136 Figure 8.8. A complex decorticating machine ready to be installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Figure 8.9. Processing capacity of different henequen decorticating machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139 Figure 8.10. San Pedro Cholul chimney.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Figure 8.11. Excavation at the interior of the machinery house of San Pedro Cholul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142 Figure 8.12. Machine metal pieces recovered during excavation at the machinery house . . . . . . . . . . . .143 Figure 9.1. The nineteenth-century sugar mill at Lamanai, Belize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150 Figure 9.2. Map of Lamanai, Belize, with highlighted areas of British occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Figure 9.3. Artifact categories by number of individual artifacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Figure 9.4. Yucatán, Bay of Honduras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Figure 10.1. Map of the area of contemporary El Salvador showing the Izalcos region and locations discussed in the text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168 Figure 10.2. Depictions of the labor, equipment, and facilities for processing indigo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168 Figure 10.3. Color swatch book with color dye recipes of Aguste Zindel, a nineteenth-century chemist in Alsace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 Figure 10.4. Frontispiece illustration of “Tinturaria Indigo,” depicting royal coat of arms of Portugal surrounded by indigo flowers and leaves . . . . . . . 171 Figure 10.5. Map of Central America showing leading indigo-producing departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172 Figure 10.6. Navigation map for Sonsonate from the late seventeenth-century William Hack atlas . . . . . . . 175 Figure 10.7. Map of the Pancota region showing the location of the indigo factory (obraje) . . . . . . . . .178 Figure 10.8. Drainage canal for dye soaking vats at Hacienda Pancota . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179 Figure 10.9. The dye soaking vats at Hacienda Pancota . . . . . . .179 Figure 10.10. Map of the region of El Bebedero showing the location of excavation units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Figure 11.1. Location of Ciudad Vieja and other early Spanish colonial settlements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Figure 11.2. Grid plan of Ciudad Vieja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Figure 11.3. Vara-wide foundation for tapia wall at Structure 6F4, Ciudad Vieja. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .194
Figure 11.4. European-style figurine fragments from Ciudad Vieja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198 Figure 11.5. Red-on-Buff designs on Italianate plates and cantaros, Ciudad Vieja. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199 Figure 11.6. Structure 6F4, Ciudad Vieja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Figure 11.7. Undrilled greenstone bead and fragments of greenstone, Structure 6F4, Ciudad Vieja . . . . . . .201
Ta bles Table 2.1. Estimated Dates for Colonial Period Rural Sites in the Otumba Area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Table 2.2. Obsidian Use in Colonial Period Rural Sites in the Otumba Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Table 3.1. Ceramic Subregions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Table 4.1. Ceramics Recovered by the CCP from Colonial Contexts with a Known TPQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Table 4.2. Technological Attributes Documented by Macroscopic Analysis and the Stages of Manufacture Elucidated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Table 4.3. Macroscopic Attributes for Inferring Primary Forming Techniques Based on Experimental Archaeology and Ethnographic Research . . . . . . 67 Table 5.1. AMS Radiocarbon Dates from Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Table 5.2. Archival Documents That Mention Majaltepec. . . . . 78 Table 5.3. Comparison of Site Size, Excavation Size, and Artifact Counts at Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Table 5.4. Comparison of Identified Ceramic Forms and Ceramic Pastes Represented at Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Table 5.5. Different Stages of Stone Bead Production Represented at El Órgano, Greater La Amontonada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 Table 6.1. Soconusco Population and Population Density (ca. 1520–2010). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Table 6.2. Data Used for Land-Cover Classification. . . . . . . . . . 101 Table 6.3. Results of Land-Cover Classification Analysis . . . . .102 Table 6.4. Description of Ground Truth Locations. . . . . . . . . . 104 Table 6.5. Deforestation Rates and Population Increases, 1964–2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 Table 7.1. Comparison of Performance Characteristics for Wells and Norias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Table 7.2. Comparison of Performance Characteristics for Norias and Windmills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Table 7.3. Size, Area, and Volume of Noria Openings and Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Table 8.1. Performance Matrix for Decorticating Machines (ca. 1855–1955) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Table 8.2. Performance Matrix of Three Decorticating Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Illustrations Table 8.3. Demographic Information from San Pedro Cholul during the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . 141 Table 9.1. Feature / Activity-Area Concentrations with Relative Occupation Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Table 10.1. Ceramic Ware Type Frequencies at Pancota Hilltop Settlements and Pancota Obraje by Minimum Vessel Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Table 10.2. Percentage Frequencies of Imported Refined White Earthenwares at Pancota Obraje by Minimum Vessel Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
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Table 10.3. Percentage Frequencies at Pancota Obraje of Unglazed Local Coarse Earthenware Forms by Minimum Vessel Count. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Table 10.4. Percentage Frequencies of Ware Types at El Bebedero by Minimum Vessel Count . . . . . . . . . . 183 Table 10.5. Percentage Frequencies of Ceramic Types at El Bebedero by Minimum Vessel Count . . . . . . . . . . 183
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion An Introduction
R a n i T. A l e x a n d e r
The contributors to this volume focus on explanations that place Mesoamerica’s indigenous technologies and the agency of the people who implemented them on equal footing with those that were introduced. We are interested in why some technologies were stable and persisted over centuries and how new innovations were transferred, hybridized, and repurposed. We examine how the technological configurations that existed in AD 1500 account for why some introductions spread rapidly and widely, while others never gained ground. Further, we consider how contemporary sociotechnical systems—the so-called modern networks of the machine and digital ages—differ from their preindustrial and prehistoric predecessors. While network scale and connection speed among actors are obvious differences between present-day technologies and those of the past, the enhanced connectivity of technologies such as radio and the internet often flattens interactions and disrupts established political structures that control flows of information (e.g., Friedman 2005). Further, although technological knowledge is cumulative, it is not strictly progressive. Countless innovations, sets of sociotechnic relations, and whole bodies of knowledge have been lost over time. The case studies in this volume offer in-depth evidence that sheds new light on these questions. Technological progress is intricately tied to the birth of modernity in the twentieth century (Pfaffenberger 1992). In today’s popular culture, traditional lifeways are
This book explores the archaeology of new technological systems introduced after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion in Mesoamerica. New mechanical inventions, sources of power and energy, glass and metal materials, and animals and plants became intertwined with established prehispanic technologies as never before. The adoption and redesign of new knowledge and skill sets over the last 500 years created radical changes in the archaeological record that have yet to be identified and explained. In this volume, we bring technology and innovation to the forefront of studies of change that occurred in the wake of the transoceanic colonization of Mesoamerica. The historical archaeology of Mesoamerica is a valuable proving ground for explaining why technological systems were adopted or rejected in different times and places. In this volume, we offer new information that dispels the idea that materials and technological systems introduced from Europe in the sixteenth century were innately superior to Native technologies. European technologies were not adopted wholesale, and they were introduced into vastly different biotic and physical settings (Crosby 1994, 2004). Moreover, they were not strictly Spanish or European. Transfers from Africa and Asia were just as important as those from Europe. The new technologies that were introduced after AD 1500 did not replace the knowledge systems that had grown up over the last two millennia around the materials, plants, and animals native to the Americas.
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distinguished from modern ones by the adoption and consumption of materials, machines, modes of transportation, and communication that were invented during the last century (e.g., Gallo 2005). With the growth of the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies, however, unilinear explanations for technical developments that were rooted in notions of necessity, progress, and social evolution were swept aside. Instead, technological change has been reconceptualized as multivalent shifts in sociotechnological systems (Callon 1987; Hughes 2004; Latour 1993, 2005; Law 1987). As Pfaffenberger (1992) explains, a sociotechnical system is a complex, purposive, and heterogeneous network of activities that links techniques and artifacts to the social coordination of labor. Social, individual, and material phenomena act to reproduce and reciprocally constitute knowledge, behavior, and practice, which break down the distinctions between human and nonhuman agents of change. Further, successful innovations occur when all social and material components of the system work together seamlessly and effectively. Sociotechnological networks are considered sustainable when they resist disassociation of their constituent elements, but cohesiveness is continually challenged by economic, social, and political competition. Archaeology is a useful lens for examining technological change. It is one of the few sources of evidence that demonstrates how a technology performed in a wide variety of real-life sociocultural and physical settings. Archaeologists recover the results of the successes and the failures. They can compare the working model or the technical schematics to the pieces left behind to understand how quickly an artifact wore out, why it broke, how it was repaired or repurposed, and how it was discarded. Archaeologists recover the artifacts that were reused, as well as the broken pieces that were provisionally stored in case they were needed for another purpose. They can detect innovations, hybridizations, patch ups, and substitutions and figure out what variants were adopted among different user groups. In addition, archaeologists study both the capital-intensive inventions designed in engineers’ laboratories and the material systems of everyday life. Further, archaeology reveals how the processes of innovation and technological differentiation unfolded over the entire course of human history. We study multiple and continuous trajectories of technological differentiation whether they involve 1.8-million-year-old hand axes (Dobres 2000:22) or the lunar landing sites of the space race (O’Leary 2009).
Since the 1980s, archaeologists have severely critiqued functionalist approaches and the latent assumptions that equate industrial technologies with social advance (Dobres 2000:41; Silliman 2013, 2015). Archaeologists, sociologists, and historians of technology consistently have called for new research that moves beyond flawed progress narratives, diffusionist explanations, and cryptohistories of innovation that are so common in consumer societies (Schiffer 2011b:10–20). Archaeological and material culture research has offered new understandings of the reflexive relationships between technology, behavior, meaning, and practice and offered specific analytical frameworks to facilitate the interpretation of sociotechnological change, especially for preindustrial societies whose innovators and most skillful practitioners seldom made their mark in the written record (e.g., Card 2013a:3–4; Dobres 1999, 2000; Lemonnier 1986, 1993; Liebmann 2013, 2015; Schiffer 2001, 2002, 2005, 2011a; Schiffer et al. 1994; Silliman 2015; VanValkenburgh 2013). Even though connections among the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa became increasingly more globalized from the sixteenth century to the present, significant technological disparities persist among socioeconomic groups. Scholarly treatment of culture contact and colonialism in the Americas has shown that Native groups played central roles in mediating asymmetrical power relations following the European invasion, as did other groups of immigrants who came to the Americas involuntarily (Alexander 1998; Cusick 1998; Deagan 1998; Funari and Senatore 2015). The ensuing sociocultural transformations clearly are tied to big-picture variables such as drastic demographic decline, environmental and ecological change, the boom-and-bust cycles of world capitalism, and resistance to colonial and postcolonial hegemonies (Alexander and Kepecs 2018). Yet, the technological upheavals of the conquest, the longterm trajectories of technology transfer and redesign, and the social dialectics of technical practice are long overdue for explicit analysis. Technology is a key variable for explaining how Spain’s overseas colonies were yoked to the expanding world system from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The technological systems that grew out of new transoceanic networks were shaped by social, economic, and physical variables that include differences in the economic scale and political organization of the society in which it was invented and used, the availability of raw materials and labor, and changes in the cost and efficiency of production and distribution methods (e.g., Van Buren and
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion Cohen 2010). Both technical and organizational innovations were responsive to shifts in supply and demand, competition, and the scalar changes of global markets. Similarly, cycles of deindustrialization often rode along with economic booms and busts (Hugill 2003). Yet, technology also had a greater role in causing structural change within the world system (Modelski and Thompson 1988, 1996). In Mesoamerica, technological advances in transportation and communication provided competitive economic advantages that restructured the relationships among cores, semiperipheries, and peripheries and brought about long-term shifts in the hegemonic cycles of the world system (Kepecs and Fournier García 2018). Technological developments and infrastructural investment typically drive the accumulation of capital and surplus by elites (Gills and Frank 1996:90). Asymmetrical flows of resources and labor between cores and peripheries often are tied to technological disparities, especially the capacity to launch and maintain capitalized systems that support large-scale commodity production and distribution. In the sixteenth century, developments in transportation spurred a new wave of capital accumulation by displacing the production of critical commodities to Europe’s transatlantic colonies (Hornborg 2007). Yet, the pace of accumulation by core elites was counteracted by the extent to which social groups in the Americas could easily replicate and appropriate the technologies that supported the circulation of lucrative goods on the world market. Further, active resistance to new technology, especially in situations where it threatened to upend the social relations of production, often doomed the Crown’s efforts to expand economic hegemony. It is worth pointing out that the infrastructure of accumulation (Kepecs 2015) also included ideological concepts and ritual technologies that were wielded to gain compliance or to resist incorporation into European empires. Ultimately, however, the industrial technologies that spurred capitalist expansion in Latin America created ecological imbalances that set the stage for some of today’s thorniest problems. Unequal ecological exchange and environmental injustices pervade the contemporary world system, and there are no simple solutions (Hornborg 1998; Hornborg et al. 2007). Our goal is to examine multiscalar processes of technology transfer and technological differentiation using examples of both commonplace and capital-intensive material systems from AD 1450 to the present. The authors of this volume draw on a wide array of definitions of
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technology and analytical frameworks for studying sociotechnological change (Bijker et al. 1987; Card, ed. 2013; Dobres 2000; Latour 2005; Pfaffenberger 1992; Raab and Butler 2008; Schiffer 2011b:4–5). They all regard technology as an integral part of social life in which the patterns of human behavior, meanings, and practice stem from continuous interactions among people and their material culture.
Common Themes in Mesoa mer ican Sociotech n ica l Ch a nge Over the last 500 years in Mesoamerica, there have been two hinge points of rapid technological change where the archaeological record reveals a flurry of new materials, inventions, redesigns, and adoptions. The first occurred in the sixteenth century and coincides with the arrival of the first Europeans and Africans. Experimentation and redesign resulted in wholesale adoptions, rejections, and the hybridization (e.g., Card, ed. 2013; Raab and Butler 2008) of material systems to varying degrees. The second period of rapid change began in the nineteenth century as the technological innovations of the Industrial Revolution took root in Mexico and Central America. New ways of harnessing energy inspired shifts in geopolitical power, which upended the sociotechnological relations of production, distribution, and consumption at the local, regional, and macroregional scales. Yet, Mesoamerican archaeologists have encountered numerous examples of persistent or time-transgressive technologies that persisted with little change over the last 500 years. Earthenware and redware ceramics sold in today’s traditional markets strongly resemble those of the prehispanic period and sometimes are still made in the same way (Arnold 2014; Charlton and Fournier García 2010). Hydraulic features such as wells, cisterns, and reservoirs are still important elements of agrarian and domestic landscapes, even though modern water systems are widely available. Noncapital-intensive methods for producing food, drink, dyes, rope, cloth, metals, and construction materials persisted alongside enterprises that produced global commodities and distributed cheap, mass-produced consumables (e.g., Contreras Sánchez 1996; Fournier García 2007; Gasco 2006; Shugar and Simmons 2013; Terán and Rasmussen 2009). A profusion of architectural configurations and styles—running the gamut from neo-traditional to ultramodern forms—was
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created as new materials were combined with traditional construction techniques and as modern construction methods incorporated traditional materials. Technological persistence demands explanation just as much as technological change. The contributors to this volume address how new innovations spread, how they transformed indigenous technologies, and how prehispanic technologies were interwoven with new materials and technological systems. Archaeological evidence of these processes is drawn from the Basin of Mexico, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Yucatán, Belize, and El Salvador (Figure 1.1). The technological complexes examined herein include agroforestry; use of water lifting; mechanical and wheeled devices; preindustrial and industrial production methods for dyes, sugar, and henequen; the replacement of stone with metal tools; architecture; and technological styles of ceramic containers and serving
Figure 1.1. Study area locations. Map by Matthew DeFreese.
vessels. Collectively, the studies demonstrate how technological differentiation in the past underpins constructions of tradition and modernity in the present. In the chapters that follow, we address several key issues. • We explore the transition from stone to metal tools from the perspective of technological modification and innovation in lithic assemblages, particularly obsidian. Analysis of obsidian mines and workshops, ironworking, and residential contexts where stone, iron, and copper artifacts are found together reveal the nuances that underpin technology transfer and hybridity. Explanations delve into the complexities of social labor, administration and autonomy of production practices, and changes in marketing networks. The authors challenge the notion that widespread
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion adoption of metal tools constituted a single trajectory of change. • We compare variation in production, distribution, and consumption of ceramics from the prehispanic period into the colonial era. Pottery is one of the most sensitive indicators that archaeologists use to gauge shifts in transculturation, hybridization, and social identity. Detailed analyses of technological style, form, and decoration that draw on methods in analytical chemistry yield detailed information about workshops and their marketing niches, as well as the origins and denouement of specific microstyles in serving vessels and figurines. • The contributors challenge notions of hybridization by identifying the material signatures and contributions of immigrant groups who lived in plural communities through architecture, ornamentation, ceramics, and metalworking. The movement of Afromestizos, Europeans, Asians, and distinct Native groups created ambiguities in the material record that cannot be untangled by simple tallies of local and nonlocal artifacts. The studies illuminate the complexities of both consumption and production when local people and outsiders enter into social contexts that forge new relations and practices. • We consider how the introduction of new agricultural and hydrologic technologies altered landscapes from the prehispanic period to the present. The analyses explore the translation (sensu Latour 2005) of Old World agrarian technologies and their effects on spatial and temporal variation in deforestation and reforestation; the buildup, reuse, and destruction of landesque capital; and the reproduction of social labor. Our studies challenge the pristine myth (Denevan 1992) and narratives of environmental degradation. • Finally, we discuss why Spanish colonization effected great change in the technology to cultivate, harvest, and process some agricultural products and not others. Extractive industries in henequen, indigo, sugar, and African oil palm left distinctive sites and landscapes in their wake, which reveal vast socioeconomic disparities, notoriously oppressive labor conditions, and consumption patterns that still underpin constructions of social memory and identity in the
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present. Yet, heavily capitalized production methods existed side by side with intensive and noncapitalized “cottage” production (e.g., cacao). The persistence of so-called traditional technologies provided alternatives that inspired the subversion or rejection of industrialization. In the chapters that follow, authors bring to bear a variety of concepts and analytical frameworks on original data. They include new ideas about hybridity and acculturation (Card and Fowler; Pastrana Cruz et al., this vol.), analysis of technological styles of ceramics (Eschbach; Fournier García and Otis Charlton), variation in social practices involving capitalized and noncapitalized technologies (Hernández Álvarez; Sampeck), sustainability and persistence of traditional agricultural techniques and ecological knowledge (Alexander and Williams; Castillo and Gasco), technological transformation and reinterpretation of practice (King and Konwest), and the technological dialectics of consumption (Mayfield et al.). To address the issues listed above, authors work back and forth among a wide range of data classes, deploying several recent technological and analytical innovations in archaeology. The methods and evidence discussed in individual chapters include analysis of past and present environmental and vegetative conditions as revealed through remote sensing, the distribution of archaeological sites and artifacts recovered through systematic survey and excavation, and the chemical composition of ceramic artifacts revealed through petrography, spectrometry, and neutron activation analysis. Close readings of Spanish- and native-language primary documents against secondary historical sources, ethnographic sources, ethnoarchaeology, and oral histories also contextualize contemporary local knowledge systems and the social construction of historical memory. A wide variety of theoretical perspectives inform the interpretations presented in the following chapters to provide richly textured and multivocal explanations of technological change and persistence.
Approaches to Colon ia l a n d Postcolon i a l Technologica l Ch a nge The technological changes set in motion by the Spanish conquest initially were addressed as differences in the suites of culture traits and practices that characterized
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Native and European societies (Joyce 2004; Kirchhoff 1943). Mesoamerica was scrutinized in terms of what it lacked in the sixteenth century—the wheel; the plow; wheat, rice, sugar, and other Old World staples; viticulture; and large domesticates such as cattle, sheep, goats, and horses that could produce both meat and secondary products and provide animal traction. It also lacked gunpowder and firearms, metal and steel, glass, glazed and wheel-thrown pottery, and sail-powered ships (Epstein 1990; Foster 1960). How such items became part of the fabric of everyday life was explained through diffusion, migration, hybridization, acculturation, and transculturation (Card 2013a; Crosby 1994, 2004; Cusick 1998; Deagan 1998, 2013; Foster 1960; Ortiz 1995). Yet, because the flow of new knowledge at first was assumed to move one way, from Europe to the Americas, the study of technological replacement dominated the early acculturation literature. Archaeological evidence from the historic period was instrumental in dismantling flawed assumptions and models. Among the major formulations of acculturation theory, George Foster’s Culture and Conquest (1960) indicated that Spaniards brought a suite of trait complexes to the Americas, but adoption by Native groups was subject to a screening process proportionate to the coercive force marshaled against them during the conquest (Cusick 1998:133). The resulting “conquest culture” included traits that were either adopted or rejected by the “subordinate” Native culture based on political and economic pressures. Acculturation was classified into types depending on whether contact was direct or indirect (Deagan 1998, 2013). Models emphasized progressive evolutionary stages to explain why some contemporary Native groups retained “folk culture” while others were more modern (Beals 1952; Redfield 1941; Redfield et al. 1936; Spicer 1962). Meanwhile, archaeologists in the field were unearthing greater complexity that failed to show that the hybridized material assemblages matched the ethnic categories or cultural stages predicted by the acculturation literature (e.g., Charlton 1986; Charlton and Fournier García 1993; Gasco 1993; Rogers 1990). Urban and rural dimensions of change, the formation of cultural isolates and culturally plural communities, and the movement of materials from the Americas back to Europe and across the globe demanded more dynamic concepts of social interaction and cultural change (see Deagan 1998:27). In the decades leading up to the Columbus quincentenary, archaeologists turned to new explanations that tied the variation in the archaeological record to shifts
in the organization of economic, political, religious, and social systems. Latin America’s historical archaeologists marshalled their evidence to questions of colonialism, ecology, political economy, labor systems, resistance, world systems, and globalization that paralleled research domains in prehistoric archaeology and historical anthropology (Crosby 1994; Deagan 2001; Funari 1999; Gasco et al. 1997; Schávelzon 2002; Schuyler 1988; Van Buren 2009; Wallerstein 1974; Wolf 1982). The analysis of technological change became integral to studies of scalar shifts in markets and labor that drove the formation of global commodity chains for silver, cattle, textiles and dyes, precious hardwoods, sugar, ceramics, chocolate, salt, cordage, and other agricultural products. Acculturation gave way to transculturation, the idea that culture is a multidirectional and continuous encounter involving cultural destruction and cultural genesis among Native peoples, Africans, Europeans, and Asians (Deagan 1998:27; Ortiz 1995:98). In Mesoamerica, historic period sites and settlement patterns were recorded systematically on archaeological surveys, along with prehistoric remains (Alexander 2004; Andrews 1981; Andrews and Robles Castellanos 2009; Charlton 1986; Fournier-García and MirandaFlores 1992; Gallardo and Fowler 2002; Gasco 1992a; Kepecs 1999; Kowalewski 2003; Sanders et al. 1979). Quantitative methods and an understanding of site formation processes were brought to bear on historic period archaeological assemblages to improve classification systems, refine chronologies, and reveal sociotechnic variation in production, distribution, and consumption. New methods were deployed to explain how the Mesoamerican past was linked to the present. Ethnoarchaeological investigations of the behavioral, material, and spatial organization of households, communities, and craft and commodity workshops that began in the 1980s and 1990s became long-term research programs (e.g., Alexander 2004; Alexander and Andrade 2007; Andrews 1983; D. Arnold 2014; P. Arnold 1991; Deal 1998; Fournier García 2007; Hayden and Cannon 1984; Hernández Álvarez 2011; Killion 1990; Lee and Hayden 1988; Parsons 2001, 2006; Parsons and Parsons 1990; Williams 2015). As these studies explored the historical and material dimensions of contemporary communities, they became rich resources not only for refining the use of analogy in Mesoamerican archaeology but also for researching technology transfer and innovation, conservation or loss of traditional ecological knowledge, consumption, and the ongoing effects of globalization.
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion Archaeologists also kept abreast of historiographic controversies in ethnohistory, philology, and historical ethnography (Barber and Berdan 1998; Chance 1996; Farriss 1984; Hassig 2001; Jones 1989, 1998; Lockhart 1992; Quezada 1993; Restall 1997, 2009). Documentary evidence was treated systematically as an independent line of evidence, and interdisciplinary and comparative studies of archaeology and ethnohistory grew apace (Andrews 1981; Berdan et al. 1996; Charlton 1981; Fowler 2006; Rice and Rice 2009; Rogers and Wilson 1993). Historical archaeologists successfully forged a stereoscopic view of the past (Deagan and Cruxent 2002a, 2002b). The arbitrary scholarly divide between prehistoric and historical archaeology was ultimately wiped away in Mesoamerica (Alexander and Kepecs 2018; Kepecs and Alexander 2005; Lightfoot 1995). Yet, technology was rarely studied apart from the sweep of larger processes of change. With the advent of the social agency and practice school (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984), the style versus function debates of processual archaeology came under renewed scrutiny, and behavioral and agential approaches to artifact life histories and technological change expanded in new directions (Dobres 2000; Dobres and Hoffman 1999; Lechtman 1977, 1984; Lemonnier 1986; Pfaffenberger 1992; Schiffer 2001, 2011b; Schiffer and Skibo 1997; Schiffer et al. 1994). The school of science and technology studies broadened the notion of actor-networks to include both humans and natural phenomena. Actor-network approaches, for example, include the interactions among electrons, capacitors, catalysts, batteries, users, manufacturers, lawyers, and government agencies that regulate the technology (Callon 1987; Latour 2005). Explaining a technology’s development and obsolescence could no longer be attributed to the work of an individual genius. Relations among user groups and producers (not just inventors, scientists, and engineers) shaped technological change over the long term (e.g., Schiffer 2002). It is worth pointing out that technology is not necessarily a socio-material system that has been scientifically shown to work (Pfaffenberger 1992). As Schiffer (2011b:2) indicates, “There are technologies of religion and recreation, medicine and magic, social interaction and socialization, communication and economy, food-ways and trade, politics and travel, and science and art—to name but a few.” Technology is more than just the way raw materials are transformed into artifacts (Hoffman and Dobres 1999:211). It is historically contingent and meaningfully
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constituted. In addition, processes of social learning vary widely among sociotechnological settings and contribute to disparities in the way that technical knowledge, craftsmanship, and skills are acquired, which consequently affects the pace of innovation. Further, distinctions between high-tech and low-tech systems have been called into question. Heavily capitalized sociotechnological systems (high tech) tend to restrict access to the technology by participants and users. They undergo booms and busts, because they are susceptible to disassociation of the constituent elements of actornetworks. By contrast, noncapitalized and commonplace systems (low tech) tend to be broadly participatory and continuously reproduced. Yet, both capitalized and noncapitalized sociotechnological systems result from the reproduction of hybrid social and environmental learning among groups of social actors, a process that Glenn Stone (2007:72–73), writing about agricultural innovation, calls “skilling.” Skilling draws on deep, multilayered bodies of knowledge that arguably are just as high tech as the sociotechnological systems born in scientists’ laboratories. The difference between the home garden and the hydroponic farm, for example, is not just how new technologies (seed varieties, pest control, fertilizers) are transmitted. It is also about terroir—how farmers learn about the way innovations alter agrarian ecology under different environmental and social conditions. Skilling is not a one-way march toward modernity and progress. The forces of globalization frequently displace smallholders’ highly developed skill sets and the social processes of experimentation and evaluation that underpin them, which results in deskilling (Stone 2007:73). Consequently, transformations of sociotechnical knowledge depend on the degree that new technologies have penetrated the region in question, how different networks of social actors facilitate or exclude access to them, and how coordination of labor and technology have promoted or obstructed processes in which farmers (or craftsmen, or engineers) observe, learn, value, and participate in each other’s operations. As a result, archaeological notions about hybrid material culture have undergone a renaissance (Card, ed. 2013; Deagan 2013; Silliman 2013, 2015; van Pelt 2013; VanValkenburgh 2013). Investigators have delved deeper to consider how technical innovations and artistic creativity detected in operational chains altered the ways hybrid objects were produced, distributed, and consumed (e.g., VanValkenburgh et al. 2017). Multiple complementary and explanatory frameworks
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are now the common currency for studying human agency and sociotechnological change in archaeology. The chapters herein focus on applications of Schiffer’s (2011b) behavioral archaeology, Dobres’s (2000) social practice framework, and the most recent collective debates that refine understandings of hybridity, sociotechnical actor networks, materiality, and acculturation (e.g., Card, ed. 2013; Latour 2005; Liebmann 2015; Silliman 2013, 2015; VanValkenburgh 2013). These perspectives inform the conceptual and empirical advances presented in the following chapters. Michael Schiffer views change in human lifeways as emerging from continuous interactions between people and their technologies. A technology can be defined as “any type of artifact (e.g., stone axes, cave paintings, electric automobiles), material technology (e.g., ceramics, basketry, silicon), or technological system (e.g., cooking technology, weaving technology, ritual technology, electrical power systems)” (Schiffer 2002:1148–1149). His frameworks are designed to identify the material patterns and variability in a technology’s life cycle that stem from behaviors that arise from recurrent decisions made by individuals and social groups. Of particular importance to Schiffer’s tool kit are the performance characteristics of the technology. A performance characteristic is a capability, competence, or skill that may come into play in any given interaction (Schiffer 2011a:27). Arrays of performance characteristics can be compared to generate explanations of technological change in any society in all times and places. Behavioral chains and flow models reveal variation in the stages of technological differentiation—from the initial transfer of knowledge through experimentation, redesign, adoption, commercialization, and obsolescence. More recent work in behavioral archaeology has explored the limits of reflexivity among behaviors, activities, and objects. Behavior creates technological change, but it is also changed by the objects and organization of the technology itself (Walker and Skibo 2015). According to Marcia-Anne Dobres and Christopher Hoffman (1999:2–3), “Technology is a pervasive and powerful complex of mutually reinforcing socio-material practices structured by self- and group-interests, expressions of agency, identity and affiliation, cultural ways of comprehending and acting on the world, practical and esoteric knowledge, symbolic representations, and skill.” Dobres (1999, 2000) utilizes the framework known as chaîne opératoire (Lemonnier 1986) to identify the sequential and routine technical operations through
which people transform natural resources into objects and artifacts that are meaningfully constituted. Practice reflexively changes normative categories. Therefore, the reconstruction of operative chains can lead investigators to infer the cognitive processes and normative logic systems that structure technical acts. Further, the element of individual choice that comes into play as cultural products are transformed may ultimately reformulate the linguistic and behavioral categories of social identity and the life history of the technician. The details of production sequences and decision-making strategies feature prominently in the analyses of technological style and operative chains, but they are also tied to the sociopolitical relations of production and the construction of worldviews (Dobres 1999, 2000). More recently, archaeologists have set about updating the theory and methods that underpin the concept of hybrid material culture, defined as “the production of material objects incorporating elements of multiple existing stylistic or technological traditions” (Card 2013a:1). According to Deagan (2013:261), hybridity results from the amalgamation of forms, practices, genes, expressions, and symbols into new traditions. Interaction and negotiation give rise to new transcultural configurations, which can both infuse new meanings and create ambiguity within arenas of pluralistic cultural engagement. Other scholars drawing from Bhabha (1994) and Van Dommelen (2005) regard hybridization as a powerful and historically constituted process in which social actors both resolve and create cultural difference (Hayes 2013; Liebmann 2013; Tirpan 2013). Yet, as Liebmann (2013:30–31) points out, hybridity is a strategic process in colonial contexts, not a passive or politically neutral one. Inequitable power relations are brought to bear on the reflexive relationship between social practice and material culture. Changes to social practices and material culture frequently occur within ambiguous or ambivalent arenas that are related to tactics of anti-colonial resistance. As such, the study of hybridization has the potential to inject social agency and individual choice into explanations of creolization, ethnogenesis, syncretism, and materiality (Silliman 2013). In Latin America, additional concepts have long informed archaeological analyses of hybrid material culture, such as mestizaje, defined here as the process of cultural mixing that leads to creolization, religious syncretism, and ethnogenesis. It is worth pointing out that cultural mixing is never passive or bloodless in Latin America. For example, Davíd Carrasco’s (2008) ideas
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion about asymmetrical hybridity and hybrid spaces are especially relevant to colonial and borderland contexts where severe power imbalances limit the range of choices available to individuals and social groups (see also Shohat and Stam 1994:43). He emphasizes that colonial Mexican hybridities and the ways that people “pick and choose” are underpinned by “the legacy of protest against the devastating social, political, and economic exploitations and ideological abuses that founded and constructed relationships between Europeans and African and indigenous peoples” (Carrasco 2008:375). Likewise, John Watanabe’s (1990) concept of recombinant patterning is useful for parsing syncretism and materialized practice in Mesoamerica, particularly for understanding religious change (e.g., Zeitlin and Palka 2018). Recombinant patterning refers to the dialectical process of recombining multiple symbols, breaking apart their original spatial, behavioral, and contextual attributes, to reformulate the community’s worldview. New combinations, however, are not haphazard or passive. Instead, they strategically and forcefully express the structural principles that are pivotal to the community’s identity and survival. In Mesoamerica, one of the thorniest problems in studying hybrid material culture is establishing a spatio-temporal baseline from which to gauge sociotechnological change (Alexander and Kepecs 2005). As Ross Hassig (2001:54) observes in writing about the Aztecs, historical causes are only discovered by reasoning back from effects. Therefore, commonly accepted beliefs about the prehispanic period cannot be taken as given if they are not supported by empirical evidence. Except for a handful of codices produced in the fifteenth century, native-language written evidence of contact-era sociocultural change in Mesoamerica postdates the Spanish conquest by 25–50 years. The effects of linguistic acculturation and hybridization are already evident in the words and images of the earliest primary sources (Hanks 2011; Hassig 2001; Lockhart 1992). Since studies of the Americas after the Spanish invasion depend on careful analysis of precontact practices, archaeology is the crucial source of evidence for the analysis of cause and effect (Lightfoot 1995). Without careful historiographic study of multiple data sources and commensuration of the written and material records, interpretations collapse into a generic, timeless social past (Hassig 2001:164). Therefore, colonial written evidence of the indigenous past is not an adequate baseline from which postconquest change can be understood.
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The study of contact-era hybridity in Mesoamerica, however, depends on not one fifteenth-century material baseline but several baselines on multiple continents: in the Americas, in Africa, in Asia, and on the Iberian Peninsula. Yet, each location constituted its own dynamic sociotechnological milieu—in essence, a “shifting” baseline (Eschbach, this vol.; King and Konwest, this vol.; Silliman 2012). Mesoamerica’s fourteenth- and fifteenth-century empires and city-states were culturally and linguistically plural entities integrated within a thriving world system (Smith and Berdan 2003). Card and Fowler (this vol.; see also Parsons 2015) raise the critical issue of temporal baselines for sites that represent the earliest European contact, like Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador. They argue that refined chronologies and the ability to distinguish early colonial period materials from contact period materials that date before the implementation of the New Laws in 1542 are pivotal to the analysis of technology transfer and transculturation. On the other side of the pond, baselines are just as difficult to pinpoint in time and space. For example, the so-called Spanish waterwheels first built in Hispaniola and later imported to Yucatán were panMediterranean in origin (Alexander and Williams, this vol.). Another example documented by Mary Van Buren and Claire Cohen (2010) shows that the reverberatory furnaces introduced to process silver in Potosí, Bolivia, had their origins in central Europe, not Spain. Further, as Patricia Fournier García explains, the Iberian Peninsula was a sixteenth-century melting pot within the Holy Roman Empire that attracted people from all over Europe (Beard 2005). As a result, the Seville majolica industry drew on colors and forms introduced by potters all over Europe, including at least one craftsman from Pisa (Gestoso y Pérez 1903), which partly explains how “Italianate” forms eventually made their way to Puebla, Mexico City, and El Salvador in the sixteenth century (Card 2007, 2013b; Card and Fowler, this vol.; Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.). Further, as Krista Eschbach (this vol.) notes, comparative “baseline” technological data from relevant times and places in West and Central Africa are inadequate for recognizing technological transfer from Africa to the Caribbean and to Veracruz. Her discussion echoes Pedro Paulo Funari’s (2006) findings that demonstrate how the culture, language, and mode of life of global citizens in Quilombo, Brazil, were shaped by the forces and historical contingencies of the world system that linked Africa, the Holy Roman Empire, Portugal, and Spain to their American colonies. These ongoing
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studies call into question whether artifacts can be reasonably assigned to specific categories that supposedly epitomize Spanish, African, or indigenous donor cultures. Yet, on the other hand, the challenges of defining robust baselines that aid the historical analysis of cause and effect has raised exciting new questions and inspired innovative research designs. More recently, archaeologists have expressed dissatisfaction with the concept of hybridity in the context of postcolonial and posthumanist theory, particularly its inevitability, lack of specificity, dependence on classificatory schemes, and lack of explanatory power for illuminating the emergence of new cultural forms (Silliman 2015; VanValkenburgh 2013). Spirited debate about its application and cognate theoretical formulations currently prevails in the literature, but no consensus is forthcoming (e.g., Card, ed. 2013; van Pelt 2013; VanValkenburgh 2013; VanValkenburgh et al. 2017). Parker VanValkenburgh (2013) suggests archaeologists should not shy away from words like mestizaje that carry powerful, conflicted, and contradictory meanings. Stephen Silliman (2015) provocatively claims that the concept of hybridity has become neutralized and disempowered, and therefore is better left for dead. Nevertheless, the contributors to this volume are not ready to sing a requiem for hybridity just yet. Below I provide a brief preview of the contributions.
The Orga n ization of the Volume This book is based on extended and revised papers originally presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, April 23–27, 2014, in Austin, Texas. The contributors each selected a technology and examined how technological change played out in their respective regions following the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion. The first two chapters unravel technical change in two of the most important Aztec material complexes—the manufacture of obsidian tools and commonplace ceramics— in the sixteenth-century Basin of Mexico. First, Alejandro Pastrana Cruz, Patricia Fournier García, William J. Parry, and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton examine the changes created by the intersection of a Native world of stone tools with a European one that used iron and steel. They discuss the transformation in the production and use of obsidian from the Late Postclassic period (AD 1350–1521) through the early colonial period (AD 1521–1620) using
ethnohistoric and archaeological perspectives. The mining of obsidian and the manufacture of stone tools survived the crisis of the conquest, and obsidian tools continued to be employed in new production processes introduced by the Spaniards, such as cattle production and silver mining. Their findings show that new production processes spurred the development of technical innovations in lithic artifacts and later brought about the modification and invention of some European tools. In the following chapter, Patricia Fournier García and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton argue that Spanish conquest brought about a gradual hybridization of indigenous and Spanish ceramic traditions that was commensurate with the complexities of Spanish contact in the Basin of Mexico. Their model is based on the comparison of the Black-onOrange wares, Red Ware, and figurines of the Late Postclassic (AD 1350–1521) and early colonial (AD 1521–1620) periods with tin- and lead-glazed ceramics introduced by the Spaniards. The authors’ findings are further informed by the results of instrumental neutron activation analysis for both indigenous earthenwares and Spanish introductions produced locally or imported. Indigenous ceramics demonstrated considerable persistence and stability in the face of changing workshop and market organization. The two traditions remained distinct, especially in rural areas, until 100 years after the conquest. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, changing aesthetics and display of differential social status were reflected in a hybridized ceramic tradition. The next chapter by Krista L. Eschbach takes up questions of the cultural hybridity of people and traditions manifest through variation in the chaînes opératoires for pottery assemblages of the port of Veracruz. She examines the potential European, Native, and African contributions to ceramic technology found at two culturally plural seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Afromestizo neighborhoods (places occupied by individuals of mixed African, European, and indigenous heritage) as a way of discerning the activities of Africans and their descendants. Her analysis employs proton-induced X-ray emission spectrometry to approximate the origin of manufacture of the vessels and a technological style analysis to reveal the choices made at different stage of manufacture. These methods lend nuance to the analysis of material remains that go beyond ascribed social categories and provide insights into the ways people used or altered technologies and traditions within pluralistic neighborhoods. Eschbach’s results indicate that the cultural integration
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion of Afromestizos into Spanish colonial society is revealed through their consumption of European and indigenous vessel forms and ceramic technology. The following contribution by Stacie M. King and Elizabeth Konwest explores technological change in architecture and building materials, cutting tools, and costume ornaments through the lens of practice theory for Postclassic and early colonial sites in the Nejapa region of Oaxaca. Although raw materials were replaced (metal vs. stone cutting tools, adobe vs. stone fill construction, imported glass beads vs. locally made stone beads), lifeways show continuities. Further, some technologies remained largely unchanged, such as ceramic paste production and the use of stucco in construction. Their analysis indicates that colonial politico-economic structures simultaneously placed restrictions on some sociotechnological choices but opened the door to others. This led to the selective adoption of new materials and technologies, as well as the continued use of Native expertise and tools. Contemporary issues of land-use and land-cover change in the Soconusco region of Chiapas are addressed in the chapter by Mario A. Castillo and Janine Gasco. They evaluate contemporary forest transition models against Latour’s (2005:107) notion of technological translation and consider how agricultural and agropastoral technology has intersected the biophysical features of the tropical forest. Demography and shifts in the global economy also contributed to changes in forest cover from the prehispanic period to the present. After reviewing both archaeological and historical information to reconstruct the historical trajectory of change for Soconusco’s forests, they turn to a detailed analysis of land-cover change over the past 50 years using satellite image classification and systematic field checking. They find that widespread forest reduction occurred after World War II because of the use of mechanized technologies, such as gasoline-powered chainsaws and tractors, nitrogen-based fertilizer, commercial pesticides, and mass-produced seed products. Debates about the impact of traditional and industrialized farming technologies on forest conservation, biodiversity, forest reduction, and regeneration have acquired new urgency with the expanded cultivation of African oil palm in Soconusco. The next three chapters examine technological change in the Maya Lowlands of Yucatán and Belize. Nina Williams and I show how the introduction of the noria (waterwheel) after the Spanish invasion revolutionized
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the use of karst hydrogeologic solution features that were the primary sources of water on the Yucatán Peninsula. We draw on Michael Schiffer’s (2005) framework for studying technological differentiation to analyze changes in the design of water-lifting devices from the sixteenth century to the present. We consider how adoption of the noria shaped changes in agroecology, animal husbandry, and the production of cash crops, such as dyes, sugar, and henequen. Our findings also reveal how the architectural and spatial contexts in which norias were embedded reflect variation in aesthetics and power relations among technological communities. In the following chapter, Héctor Hernández Álvarez examines the social processes and consequences that resulted from the industrial exploitation of henequen agave in Yucatán, based on archaeological evidence recovered from Hacienda San Pedro Cholul, a henequen plantation whose peak production period spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on Michael Schiffer’s and James Skibo’s (1997) frameworks for studying technological differentiation, he analyzes the processes of invention, adoption, and obsolescence of the henequen processing machines based on written documents, photographs, and archaeological evidence. The adoption and spread of the desfibradora (decortication machine) influenced the growth of henequen production on haciendas and paved the way for other technological developments during Yucatán’s Gilded Age (1873– 1925). His findings reveal how the technology adopted by Yucatán’s hacienda owners contributed to the construction of modernity and the social memory of the Gilded Age. The chapter by Tracie Mayfield, Elizabeth Graham, and David Pendergast examines how life at the nineteenthcentury British sugar plantation at Lamanai, Belize, was structured materially, spatially, and socioeconomically during the 1800s. In the nineteenth century, the increased commodification of labor rapidly altered power relationships in Belize, as foreign entrepreneurs hunted for natural resources not yet exploited by industrial enterprises on the open frontier. Because of the often-clandestine nature of British activities in Belize, little is known about shifts in technology and consumption in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The analysis centers on the concept of the technological dialectics of consumption to highlight how technology and tradition, both local and colonial, affected sociotechnic organization and performance. This research provides clues regarding the day-to-day
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experience of different socioeconomic groups in residential and industrial settings who occupied the site during the 1800s. The next two chapters by Kathryn E. Sampeck and by Jeb J. Card and William R. Fowler Jr. examine, respectively, technological change in indigo dye mills and ceramics in El Salvador, a colony best known for its production of cacao. Sampeck’s chapter examines the multiscalar and multidirectional technology transfer in manufacturing indigo dye in Central America from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. She evaluates the sociotechnological environment of indigo dye production using information from notarial documents and archaeological evidence from two indigo production areas and compares it to cacao production in the same region. Her results indicate that indigo was one of the first commodities in Central America to be produced in venues using capitalized technology and industrialized, factory labor. Indigo production shifted from the intimate, small-scale product with multiple uses in the prehispanic period to a colonial era commodity destined for world markets. These changes involved elements of standardization, mechanization, labor control, racialization, and violence. Card and Fowler examine the lack of a substantial transfer of European technologies and technological styles at Ciudad Vieja (AD 1528–1545), the first permanent Spanish colonial settlement in El Salvador. Architectural techniques and designs constitute the strongest evidence for the adoption of European technologies. Yet, even though the systemic social impact of colonialism can be detected in indigenous crafting practices, European technological practice at Ciudad Vieja occurred at an individual scale (site-unit intrusion), best described in terms of imported goods, foodways, or as individual colonists practicing lapidary and metalworking crafts. Their findings suggest that Eurasian ceramic production technology was not practiced at Ciudad Vieja, but ceramic formal styles did influence indigenous potters at the site, likely signaling a generational change in social identity. Their results mirror the archaeological patterns and models from the Basin of Mexico (Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.) and contrast with patterns from Oaxaca (King and Konwest, this vol.) that emphasize indigenous continuity and limited technological change, depending on the intensity of contact with Spaniards and their institutions. In the final chapter of the volume, Anthony P. Andrews presents a brief and insightful discussion of the broad
patterns of technological change illuminated by the examples discussed in the individual contributions. He untangles chronological and geographic patterning to parse variation in rates of technology transfer and spread, conditions affecting the hybridization of different classes of material culture, and the stability and persistence of time-transgressive technologies. He also outlines fruitful new avenues for the study of technological change in historic period Mesoamerica.
Fina l Consider ations The cultural upheavals occasioned by the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion in Mesoamerica have been scrutinized from multiple angles, scales, and perspectives. Yet, while the clash of dissimilar European and indigenous technological complexes was a key element in early studies of postconquest change, technology has not played a central role in current research until recently. The studies presented in this book provide more nuanced treatment of the role of technology in postconquest developments in Mesoamerica using contemporary theoretical perspectives and frameworks in archaeology. Several currents that run through this volume are significant for advancing the study of technological change. To begin, the studies bridge the arbitrary scholarly divide between prehispanic and historic period archaeology (Lightfoot 1995). The authors recognize that technological change in the wake of the Spanish invasion was contingent on the sociotechnic organization of the Postclassic period. They are careful to situate their analyses within the Native sociocultural milieu, which creates a balance and helps to refine notions of hybridity, materiality, and consumption. Further, the studies show that postconquest technological development is not unidirectional, and does not advance always forward in pursuit of the modern global ideal of technological progress. Native technologies were not wiped away or reduced to isolated pockets of underdevelopment, even though the Spanish administration radically altered political and economic organization and power relations. The studies also show that capital-intensive and noncapital-intensive production of commodities ebbed and flowed and as distinct regions were connected to, disconnected from, and reconnected to the world system. Time-transgressive technologies also persisted side by side with capital-intensive commodity
Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion production, resulting in the conservation and continual modification of traditional technical knowledge systems down to the present day. The results of these investigations provide additional information that informs the critique of tradition versus modernity. It is worth pointing out that this book unites multiscalar perspectives and interdisciplinary methods to advance understanding of the archaeology of technological change. Contributors’ analyses move from the level of technical choice and individual site-unit intrusions to the sweep of large-scale world system processes. They focus on the contexts of individual objects as well as widespread landscape change. They draw on recent advances in materials science and ceramic compositional analysis and join these methods to established formal and typological
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analysis of archaeological artifacts. Archaeological evidence is compared to data drawn from the fields of engineering, geography, history, and linguistics. Treatments range from short-term explanations for specific technical shifts to efforts that trace longue durée trajectories that link history’s infrastructure to events and historical cycles (Braudel 1980, 1992). The chapters show how trajectories of technological change connect the past to the present. Finally, this volume demonstrates that the study of technological change over the last 500 years in Mesoamerica has enormous potential for future investigation. It illuminates productive avenues for continued research and suggests ways that archaeological and anthropological perspectives on technology can contribute to resolving today’s social, economic, and ecological problems.
Obsidian Production and Use in Central Mexico after the Spanish Invasion A l e j a n d r o Pa s t r a n a C ru z , Pat r i c i a F o u r n i e r G a r c í a , W i l l i a m J . Pa r r y, a n d C y n t h i a L . O t i s C h a r lt o n
by the conquest and even continued to be employed in new production processes introduced by the conquerors, such as cattle production, silver mining, and new agricultural practices. New production processes spurred the development of technical innovations in lithic artifacts, and in turn they brought about the modification or, later, invention of some European tools. The exploitation of green obsidian at the Sierra de las Navajas (Pachuca) source is particularly relevant for demonstrating the sequence of changes and interruptions from circa AD 1428–1720 in the Basin of Mexico (Figure 2.1). The archaeological study of the materials, structures, and landscape properties of obsidian mining at this source has revealed various habitation areas and their sizes as well as the processes of extraction, working, and transport of obsidian (Figure 2.2). The archaeological information from this research is based on analysis of the lithic and ceramic materials recovered in the excavations of an architectural complex located among the Aztec encampments, workshops, and mines, including a Franciscan chapel (AD 1528) and several associated indigenous housing units (Figure 2.3). Exploitation of the gray obsidian source located near Otumba in the eastern Teotihuacan Valley offers a clear contrast for understanding the trajectory of technological change in obsidian tools. Unlike the massive Sierra de las Navajas obsidian source that came under the direct authority of the Aztec Triple Alliance during the Late
The first contact between Mesoamerica and the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth century was an encounter between two distant cultures with what would appear to be vastly differing levels of technological development. The contrast between a world of stone tools intersecting with one using iron and steel is reflected in the technology and organization of basic production and extraction processes in such areas as mining and agriculture. During the early colonial period between AD 1521 and 1620 (Charlton 1986), the new regime brought a new worldview to the broad geographical and multicultural area of Mesoamerica. During this period of imposition, assimilation, and survival, the basic raw materials, tools, use, and expertise of both worlds underwent adaptation, and original inventions arose in the new viceroyalty of New Spain. Our goal here is to discuss the historical process of technological transformation from the Late Postclassic period (AD 1350–1521) through the early colonial period (AD 1521–1620) using ethnohistoric and archaeological perspectives, focusing on the production and use of obsidian in the central Mexican highlands. During the early colonial period, the Spaniards introduced a limited number of steel and iron tools to the New World, but these were scarce and expensive commodities. The mining, knapping, distribution, and use of obsidian tools continued for basic subsistence activities among the indigenous population. In general, the production of stone tools survived the crisis of the change brought about
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Figure 2.1. Map of central Mexico with obsidian sources and locations mentioned in the text. Drawing by Cynthia L. Otis Charlton.
Postclassic period (AD 1428–1521), the Otumba obsidian source fell within the boundaries and jurisdiction of the city-state of Otompan (renamed Otumba after the conquest; see Figure 2.1). While the conquest changed the scale and complexity of the market distribution system of the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian as well as the intensity of exploitation in the mines, there were few apparent changes at the Otumba source. The changes that took place at the workshops and the townsites near Otumba
reflected an increasing use of the local gray obsidian as a replacement for the prized green obsidian from Sierra de las Navajas that became increasingly unavailable after the European invasion. In this chapter, we first compare obsidian use and production between the Late Postclassic and the early colonial periods in the Basin of Mexico, as described by ethnohistorical accounts (Pastrana and Carballo 2017; Pastrana and Fournier García 1998). While both the
Figure 2.2. General map of the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian source with exploitation areas and eras noted. Drawing by Alejandro Pastrana Cruz.
Figure 2.3. Plan of the Franciscan chapel in the colonial sector of the Sierra de las Navajas source. Drawing by Alejandro Pastrana Cruz.
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Sierra de las Navajas and Otumba obsidian sources were heavily exploited during the Late Postclassic period, differing political controls created variations in procurement and obsidian working at the two sources, as well as at their workshops after the Spanish invasion. Loss of state-controlled production at the Sierra de las Navajas source opened up new and more localized opportunities for production for Spanish uses in mining, livestock production, and farming. In the Otumba area, the disconnection from Aztec political authority cut off the supply of green obsidian used in the lapidary workshops and coreblade workshops. In its place, Otumba obsidian workers founded at least one new core-blade workshop that used gray obsidian from the Otumba source. Lapidary production ceased. We present data from excavations in the Sierra de las Navajas area and from sites in the Otumba city-state that extensively expand our knowledge of the effect of the Spanish invasion on the obsidian industry. Our evidence leads to some perhaps unexpected conclusions, especially that stone tools were not quickly replaced by metal after the conquest. In fact, multiple factors were at work in the Basin of Mexico, which over time produced a blending and adoption of two separate technologies instead of the replacement of one with the other.
Obsidia n Use at Contact (1521) in Centr a l Mex ico Archaeological evidence shows that obsidian was used as a raw material, for tools, and to produce numerous flaked and polished objects for over 10,000 years in Mesoamerica. Here, we focus on the perceptions of the Aztec obsidian industries in written accounts produced shortly after Spanish contact. Obsidian objects produced during the Late Postclassic period can be classified based on their distribution and their function as tools, weapons, religious objects, or as jewelry or adornment. Obsidian tools were used in both domestic and craft activities and were also part of offerings in religious contexts. As weaponry, obsidian tools were used to manufacture weapons (such as carving wood for shafts and handles) and served as the cutting edges of the weapons. These included the sharp blades embedded along the edges of the macuahuitl (a sword-like weapon consisting of a flat wooden paddle with rows of prismatic blade fragments fitted along the edges), as well as knives, and the tips of spears, darts, and
arrows. Adornments and religious objects were made mostly by flaking and polishing to produce such objects as mirrors, urns, and scepters, as well as lip plugs, ear spools, beads, and earrings (Otis Charlton and Pastrana 2017). Their designs formed part of a symbolic complex and a conceptual mythology as reflected in the objects found in the offerings at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan (Athie 2006). The importance of obsidian in the prehispanic world as a strategic resource, based on its unique physical characteristics as a raw material and as a tool, is illustrated by one of the conquerors: Motecusuma [sic] had . . . arsenals filled with arms. . . . These arms consisted of shields of different sizes, sabers, and a species of broadsword, which is wielded with both hands, the edge fitted with flint [sic, obsidian] stones, so extremely sharp that they cut much better than our Spanish swords: further, lances of greater length than ours, with spikes at their end, full one fathom in length, likewise fitted with several sharp flint stones. The pikes are so very sharp and hard that they will pierce the strongest shield, and cut like a razor; so that the Mexicans even shave themselves with these stones. Then there were excellent bows and arrows, pikes with single and double points, and the proper thongs to throw them with. . . . There were always artisans at work, who continually augmented this store of arms; and the arsenals were under the care of particular personages, who also superintended the work (Díaz del Castillo 2010:XCI:231–232). Francisco Hernández (1615) listed obsidian, or iztli, as a mineral in his Four Books of the Nature and Virtues of Plants and Animals for Medicinal Purposes in New Spain, based on his studies in the 1570s. He stated, The knives, blades, swords and daggers that the Indians used, and all the cutting instruments they employed in past times (before they knew of the use of iron), were fabricated out of the stone which is called Iztli in the vernacular language. These stones are of different colors . . . but always translucent. . . . Taken from the mines, of which there are many in Mexico, they are divided into medium-sized pieces and sharp corners [are removed] and they are rubbed with small but very rough stones and later with a
Obsidian Production and Use stick which has a projecting hook like that of a pixide [sic, pyx] or that of a harquebus. Grasping the stone with the big toes, and arching laterally the legs, the artisans pull off small thick flakes with an admirably precise skill; these have a prominent central ridge on each side, two backs and two cutting edges. They are more or less a span long and little more than a finger wide, the point is so keen that it can’t be made any sharper but it is fragile, it quite easily becomes dull and with a blow breaks into small pieces (Hernández 1615:Book 4, Part 2, XIII, translation by Feldman 1971:214; see also Pastrana and Athie 2014:79.). These comments demonstrate an appreciation in the eyes of sixteenth-century Spaniards for the physical characteristics and the diverse uses of volcanic glass, both for its practical qualities and as polished ornaments. Written descriptions of the effectiveness of Spanish steel compared to the weapons with obsidian blades and obsidian arrow points note the sharpness and the fragility of the obsidian edges, as well as the skills of indigenous peoples in the development and use of weapons. The general distribution of obsidian artifacts within the Aztec Empire was organized to meet the demand of different sectors of the population. Specialized and multifunctional tools were used in many of the activities of everyday life (Pastrana 2007). Before the conquest, the distribution of artisan products through the market system and regional and interregional trade (Charlton 1978) exhibited a structure organized around producer artisans of various types, merchants, and the state. After the conquest, commercial and state-sponsored production and distribution networks broke down. The government no longer influenced many aspects of the distribution of obsidian. For instance, state-regulated production was no longer mandated for military use, for religious artifacts, or for adornments that signified different hierarchical status in the government, the military, or the priesthood (Pastrana 1998). After the conquest, artisans, tradesmen, and agriculturalists did continue to rely on volcanic glass for tools. The continued production and circulation of obsidian objects meant survival and adaptation for the work of the miners at the sources, craftsmen, merchants, and possibly some of the long-distance traders. New entrepreneurs may have emerged in the wake of the conquest. According to Hirth’s (1996) hypothesis, when large-scale production and distribution networks broke down at the
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principal obsidian sources (and to a lesser extent at the smaller sources), local entrepreneurs rose to fill the gap at these locations, introducing new systems of distribution (e.g., Millhauser et al. 2011:3150).
Obsidia n Use du r ing the Ear ly Colon ia l Per iod After the Spanish conquest, economic and technological changes in the three branches of the central highland colonial economy—namely, agriculture, livestock production, and mining—effected changes to indigenous life. These changes included raising European livestock (horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and poultry), growing European cultigens such as wheat, and mining of precious (in the eyes of the Spaniards) metals such as silver. Iron tools were introduced for use in these occupations. Further, in an ordinance issued in 1601 by King Felipe III referring to the personal services rendered by the repartimiento (draft labor) of the indigenous subjects, it was decreed that laborers were to be paid reasonable wages for these activities (e.g., Torquemada 1977b:Book XVII, Chapter XX:393). During the early colonial period, under the systems of encomienda (grant of tribute-paying subjects) and repartimiento, the indigenous population gradually became familiar with new production techniques and the use of tools that were brought from Europe and subsequently produced in New Spain. Some European tools were adopted in indigenous work practices. For the most part, however, metal tools were used to perform introduced practices while obsidian tools were used for customary indigenous production. The substitution of tools of iron or steel for indigenous lithic tools was a gradual process. Metals were scarce and costly. In some cases, the same conquerors who introduced new production systems and technology were sometimes compelled to make use of the same stone tools used by Natives. Colonial silver and gold mining required the use of iron tools and mechanical engineering processes of European origin. Native and African laborers needed to employ these devices to extract ores and to refine metals (e.g., Bakewell 1984). Indigenous craftsmen manufactured many different items required in other mining activities, such as cordage; porters’ straps and sacks made with agave fibers; palm, tule, or reed baskets; and leather bags using lithic instruments and artifacts of preconquest origin. These
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objects were used for packing and transporting different raw materials. Expediency may have played a large role in choices of tools. We will provide further details about colonial mining in the next sections of this chapter. Only a few existing ethnohistoric records provide information about the types of tools that were used in prehispanic agriculture (cf. Sahagún 1961:Book 10, Chapter 12:Figures 72, 74). Rojas Raviela (1991) lists stone and wooden tools, mainly the coa (huictli), or digging stick, which, depending on the region and the type of soil, had different formal characteristics and sizes, although these variations are on a basic form. In some places, a sheet of copper was attached to this tool for use as a shovel or hoe. The coa was apparently an all-around tool, used to dig in the plots and plant seeds, as well as to open canals for irrigation. Spaniards introduced the iron axe with a wooden handle as a replacement for the prehispanic copper or stone-headed axe with wooden handle (Figure 2.4). Prehispanic axes, however, were retained in colonial agricultural practices, probably because iron axes were too costly and / or scarce (Rojas Raviela 1991; Romero Frizzi 1991). It is widely noted that metal tools may be more efficient than stone due to their density, malleability, and hardness. More artifact forms may be fashioned from metal than from stone. Metal objects are characterized by their durability and may be reutilized more efficiently for several activities (see Castillo and Gasco, this vol.). Steel axes are far more efficient than stone ones and universally preferred whenever they are available. There is a vast body of both experimental and ethnographic literature on this
topic (e.g., Carneiro 1979; Saraydar and Shimada 1971; Sillitoe 1979). There is also evidence that Native copper workers were employed by Spaniards to produce imitations of European iron tools; for example, copper points for crossbow bolts. Examples have been recovered from sites in the southern United States from the Coronado expedition (1540) and the De Luna expedition (1559) (see Bratten [2009:111– 112] and references cited therein). Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1961:Book 10:87), writing in the 1570s, mentions that copper casters sold “copper crossbow bolts” and other tools that are not known from preconquest contexts, including copper adzes, fish hooks, and chisels, as well as traditional forms such as copper bells, needles, awls, and axes. Sahagún (1963:Book 11:235) also mentions new metal alloys that were introduced by the Spaniards: “Some copper is red; it is called, it is given the name ‘chilired copper.’ Here in New Spain, there used to exist, there used to be, only the chili-red. The Castilian copper is the yellow [brass], the black [bronze]. I cast copper. I spread it. I alloy it. I solder it. I add tin to it. I harden it.” Likewise, “In times past . . . silver was not yet in use, though it existed. . . . But today, on the other hand, all is silver; they want gold . . . the gold casters and beaters who work now also require copper, though only a little [as an alloy in gold and silver]” (Sahagún 1959:Book 9:75–76). The Spaniards also introduced the use of the plow and the hoe, a coa with an iron tip, and other tools (Rojas Raviela 1991; Romero Frizzi 1991; Semo 1973:35; StresserPean 1988). Also used in agricultural work were baskets,
Figure 2.4. Iron and lithic tools. Upper row: contemporary iron tools in the sixteenth-century technological tradition. Lower row: lithic tools from excavations of the workshops in the area of the colonial chapel. Photo by Alejandro Pastrana Cruz.
Obsidian Production and Use crates, ayates (agave fiber cloth), backpacks, and mecapales (tumplines) of prehispanic origin, all employed for transportation of grain after harvest. Backpacks and tumplines were made of agave fiber, which was worked with bone, wood, basalt, and obsidian tools. Grain storage bins, known as trojes and cuescomates, presumably were also made using lithic tools, including obsidian (Rojas Raviela 1991; Romero Frizzi 1991). Tools of Hispanic origin used in agricultural activities in the sixteenth century were mainly employed in orchards and on the farms of the Spaniards (Romero Frizzi 1991). Among those tools were sickles, shovels, picks, hoes, crowbars, rakes, and pruners (Gómez de Orozco 1983:37). Interestingly, an illustration appears in the Codex Osuna (1973:Folio 500rv) of indigenous workers using a hoe and what appears to be a coa in an orchard as part of the tribute paid to a Spaniard in 1565. Even when indigenous workers used European tools on Spanish farms, they continued using prehispanic tools in plots where they grew corn and beans (Baudot 1992:176). In some cases, they preferred to use traditional tools when they provided services to the Spanish (Semo 1973:37). Horses, donkeys, mules, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry were all imported from Spain. In the Basin of Mexico, as in many other areas, livestock breeding proliferated by the end of the sixteenth century (Ciudad Real 1976:57). According to Ciudad Real, “There were men who branded up to 30,000 calves per year” and “there is hardly any Indian city without a slaughterhouse in the charge of the Spaniards, where a large number of head of cattle [as well as pigs] are butchered for meat consumption by the natives, and everything is very cheap; the fleets sailing to Spain were loaded with leather” (1976:57; translation by the authors). Products derived from livestock were primarily leather but also included cheese, salted pork, lard, feed, and wool. Small livestock breeding (sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry) proliferated among indigenous groups, while large animals (cattle and horses) were of greater interest to the Europeans (Romero Frizzi 1991). Sahagún (1989:Book 10, Chapter 22:619; see also Sahagún 1961:80) writes that meat sellers hunted game such as deer and eagles and raised European animals including cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. For hunting and butchering any kind of meat, the meat sellers still used traditional lithic tools during the sixteenth century, while the Europeans used iron tools. Leather was a basic necessity in the daily life of the Spaniards and their descendants, and large volumes of leather
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were exported to Spain during the early colonial period. In 1578, for example, 64,500 tanned hides were shipped to Spain (Crosby 1994:88). Obsidian tools were probably employed for skinning and tanning, and indigenous craftsmen produced leather sandals worn mostly by Europeans (Sahagún 1989:Book 10, Chapter 20:615; see also Sahagún 1961:73–74). Moreover, Sahagún (1989:Book 10, Chapter 24:621) notes that obsidian blades were used to clean the bristles from pigskins that had been singed in preparation. In Spanish mining operations, iron tools employed during the sixteenth century were mallets, picks, crowbars, chisels, hammers, sledge hammers, shovels, and wedges. Indigenous porters carried the minerals on their backs in baskets or packs with leather back straps, and they used leather water bottles, also with back straps (Baudot 1992:209–210; Semo 1973:39). In each mine, there was a blacksmith shop for sharpening and repairing tools (Semo 1973:39).
M esoa m er ica n a n d Hispa n ic Cr afts a nd Gu ilds Ethnohistoric information on the prehispanic crafts of central Mexico provides some insight into the different specialties, their organization, and the type of equipment used in the transformation of a wide variety of organic and mineral raw materials to finished products. In the professions at the center of New Spain, the series of successive stages in the production of distinct products incorporated traditional organization and division of labor. Work and learning in a prehispanic craft guild was organized hierarchically and based on knowledge, skill, and family affiliation. The indigenous craft guild structure was easily integrated with the new work processes after the conquest. Between 1529 and 1590, Sahagún (1989; see also Sahagún 1961) listed various trades, products, and services that at the end of the Late Postclassic had used obsidian as a tool and as raw material. Throughout his work on New Spain, Sahagún noted numerous specialized crafts and services, sometimes mentioning the European tools, work processes, and techniques employed. Some trades were indigenous in origin but were already using European tools and mechanisms. In others, craftsmen continued to use indigenous tools and materials. Some trades were entirely Hispanic introductions. Sahagún’s list of trades provides evidence of the level of expertise required for different
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work processes and the distribution of certain products. The trades using obsidian as raw material were Itzchihuque Itznamaca Tlatecqui Chalchiuhnamacac
maker of knives obsidian seller he who works emery (esmerila), polishes precious stones seller of precious stones or lapidary possibly including obsidian (Sahagún 1961:26, 60, 85)
Petlanamacac
Tolcuechchiuhque Tlacuechchiuhque Necunamacac
Sahagún also notes the elaboration and sale of polished obsidian objects by lapidary workers, who were part of a broader group of indigenous artisans of this important guild: Ainamacac The mirror stone-seller . . . [is the one who makes them], a lapidary, a polisher. He abrades . . . [with] abrasive sand; he cuts; he carves; he uses glue . . . ; polishes with a fine cane, makes it shiny. He sells mirror-stones—round, circular; pierced on both sides . . . [translucent]; two-faced, single-faced, concave. . . . Mirrors are seldom used nowadays (Sahagún 1989:Book 10, Chapter 24:621–622; see also Sahagún 1961:87). Besides these, another trade in which obsidian tools were possibly used is Nacanamacac
meat sellers who also hunted wild animals and raised domestic indigenous and European animals; they sold fresh or cooked meat (e.g., Sahagún 1961:80)
Obsidian weapons may have been employed for hunting, and obsidian likely was used for cutting carcasses as well; for example, in this trade: Tlayamanilique
tanners who used obsidian scrapers for preparing hides
Occupations using plants or fibers as raw material and tools of obsidian include Cacnamacac
sandal seller and maker who cut the soles placed the cords and
sewed all the leather and fiber parts; he also sold sandals made of agave fiber (e.g., Sahagún 1961:73–74) weaver of mats (petates) and armchairs (icpales) (Sahagún 1961:86, 1989:Book 1, Chapter 20:59) weaver of mats of reeds weaver of runner mats agave sap seller and maker who owned agaves and scraped them to extract the sap; he sold agave syrup and pulque (e.g., Sahagún 1961:86) seller and maker of agave fiber textiles (ayate) or capes; dressed the leaves to scrape and extract the fibers (e.g., Sahagún 1961:73)
Sahagún also refers to the work of the feather worker: Amantecah
feather seller who owned birds; originally the craftswoman cut the feathers with obsidian blades and she used agave threads to weave the feathers
The craft of “feather design” continued after the Spanish invasion for the production of ornaments (Sahagún 1959:Book 9, Chapter 19:90, 1989:Book 10, Chapter 25:625; see also Sahagún 1961:91–92). Sahagún also wrote about the abilities and understanding of indigenous workers in a wide range of trades after the conquest: “Any official started as an apprentice of a given craft and later he would become master of many crafts” (Sahagún 1989:Book 10, Chapter 7:595). He also notes that the Natives “were skilled in learning and use of mechanical crafts just like the Spaniards, including masonry, carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, and silk spinning” (Sahagún 1989:Book 10, Chapter 27:626). Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta (1993:403) records that the indigenous inhabitants were extremely adept and easily learned or copied any craft, becoming rapidly skilled. Moreover, Fray Pedro de Gante laid the basis for young Natives to learn Spanish crafts and arts, and to improve traditional and prehispanic ones, including painting, weaving, carpentry, masonry, and building arches and
Obsidian Production and Use
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Figure 2.5. Aztec lithic scrapers (left) and colonial scrapers (right). Photo by Alejandro Pastrana Cruz.
vaults (with or without metal tools), among other skilled trades (Mendieta 1993:408–410). These references provide an overview of the diversity of trades, raw materials, types of labor, and tool assemblages that were integrated in New Spain. In several trades carried out by indigenous workers, tools and techniques of both worlds were combined. Hispanic metal as well as lithic tools were distributed, at least partially, by indigenous market systems, mainly through the tianguiztli, or periodic markets, where different types of products and materials were sold to the general population in local towns (Figures 2.4 and 2.5). Some of the pochtecayotl (pochteca; long-distance trade network and traders), which had been an important part of the strategy of trade and imperial penetration into other cultures in various regions of Mesoamerica in the prehispanic period, apparently continued operations to some extent as independent traders after the Spanish conquest until the late 1500s (Garibay K. 1995:7). The pochteca as a political arm of the Aztec Empire in long-distance interregional trade fell away, and merchants and their tlameme (human burden bearers) continued local and regional transport, though theoretically they were regulated by Spanish
authorities. Bearer transport was soon augmented by pack animals and ultimately expanded with arrieros (muleteers) as roads began to be developed over the difficult highland terrain (Hassig 1985:187–219; see also Alcalá 2000; Fournier García 2006; Rees 1975). Though longdistance trade of luxury items associated with status of indigenous elites and specialized crafts made of jade, silver, and gold probably disappeared soon after the Spanish invasion, some specialized goods like feather crafts, delicate textiles, and polished obsidian objects that were attractive to the Europeans were still produced at least until the late 1600s. Additional evidence of the widespread use of obsidian blades during the early colonial period comes from the Emanuel Point shipwrecks, at Pensacola, Florida. These ships were part of the Tristán de Luna expedition, which sailed from Veracruz in 1559, and were sunk by a hurricane in Florida the same year. One ship yielded six early colonial period burnished Red Ware sherds (type Cuauhtitlán Burnished Graphite Black-on-Red; see Charlton et al. 1995:147) and two segments of obsidian prismatic blades (Bratten 2009). The blades were made of obsidian from the Zaragoza and Paredón sources (Bratten
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2009:110). The Paredón blade may well have been manufactured in a workshop at the town of Tepeapulco (see Charlton 1978; Glascock et al. 1999; Parry 2001). This indicates that obsidian blades were still being exchanged in regional networks 40 years after the conquest. Mendieta (1993:406–407), writing around 1580, noted that “Spaniards, secular, and religious, were shaved many times” with obsidian blades. When Torquemada quoted this passage, more than 20 years later, he added that this was true “especially at the beginning of the peopling of these realms, when there was no abundance of the necessary [metal] instruments and the craftsmen who today engage in making them” (Fletcher 1970:210). This suggests that in 1580, iron razors may have been in short supply, but in the early seventeenth century, iron tools had now become readily available to Spaniards in Mexico (although perhaps not yet to rural indigenous populations).
The Integr ation of Pr ehispa n ic Cr aft Gu ilds a nd Serv ices w ith the Gu ilds of N ew Spain While we do not have direct evidence for guilds as such in Late Postclassic Aztec society, the information we do have, primarily from Sahagún, would seem to indicate guild-like structures organizing both craft production and the means of transportation that supported and distributed that production. In Book 9, Sahagún (1959:1–67) devotes the first 14 chapters to the pochteca trader merchants and their gods, feasts, and rituals. Such detailed organization would certainly seem to describe a guild-like structure to this group. Chapters 15–21 note similar rules for some of the craftworkers (Sahagún 1959:69–97). Chapter 17 pertains to lapidary workers and their specific gods and proper work ethic (Sahagún 1959:79–82; see Fournier García and Otis Charlton [this vol.] for discussion of a similar organization and standardization in the ceramics craft industry). Groups of craftspeople in cities were also organized into barrios of households involved in the production of similar crafts as recounted by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, describing the Spaniards walking through one area of economic specialization after another in Tenochtitlan (Díaz del Castillo 1955:189). Such an organization is also described as a specialized calpulli, a unit of area or the families occupying it, for the Triple Alliance city of Texcoco (Hicks 1982). The households in these units specialized primarily in a particular occupation. Though these
areas have not been verified archaeologically in Texcoco, they have been found in the Aztec city-state of Otumba, a subject city to Texcoco (Charlton et al. 2000:247–265). The site contains obsidian core-blade as well as lapidary workshop areas (Charlton et al. 1991; Otis Charlton et al. 1993), and was said to contain one of the 12 branches of pochteca traders located in the Basin of Mexico (Sahagún 1959:48–49). After the conquest, indigenous craftwork continued to be essential in many aspects of daily life and was encouraged by Spanish authorities. Indigenous craftsmen were apparently quick to learn the skills of production of Spanish craftsmen, however, and this competition was not always welcomed. Spanish craftsmen tried various methods to end or circumvent the problem (Gibson 1964:399– 402). Ultimately, as noted by Gibson (1964:399), they found “they could meet the rivalry as their predecessors in Spain had met the rivalry of Jews, Moors, and other classes—by organizing craft guilds. . . . The formation of craft guilds was the most effective and organized reaction and the one that earned the most durable position in the economy of the city.” The success, failure, or reorganization of these guilds varied greatly by craft, but ultimately, by the late colonial period (AD 1721–1820; see Charlton 1986), they had become the norm (Gibson 1964:399–402). Among the Native crafts that remained important to the economy of the early colonial period were basketry and cordage ( jarciería) made of agave fiber worked with stone tools, which continued to develop using conventional methods and materials (see Hernández Álvarez, this vol.). By 1550, ordinances were issued establishing that cordage was to be made exclusively with agave fiber or hemp (Carrera Stampa 1954:170). These products were part of everyday life in New Spain and integrated into agriculture, livestock production, mining, and construction, as described by Miguel Othón de Mendizábal: First, both for exploiting mines and for extracting metals, and then for packaging silver bars and all kinds of merchandise, the use of . . . different manufactured articles of hard fibers was required. They twisted thick cables, used with winches, to extract ore [and rock] blocks and large leather buckets to extract water from the shafts; the flexible cords held together tools to lower them down the shafts . . . ; woven ayate [agave fiber] sacks were consumed in huge quantities as a result of their rapid destruction; the harness . . . required for teams of mules or horses used for
Obsidian Production and Use transportation: all gave productive occupation to the Otomi, encouraging domestic industries, whose production was increasing steadily during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (1947:119–120; translation by the authors). From the early 1500s on, the Crown issued orders establishing the monopoly of the Spanish government to ship provisions to the Americas exclusively on Spanish vessels. Therefore, metal tools and weapons were costly in New Spain, even after the mid-sixteenth century when Basin of Mexico communities such as Azcapotzalco began to produce specialized items such as bells, nails, and door hinges. Texcoco also had blacksmiths, and in Xochimilco, craftsmen produced locks, nails, latches, and other hardware (Gibson 1964:350–352). Nevertheless, from the outset, the conquerors strove to have every ship arriving from Spain carry plants, animals, and iron or steel tools. Each ship potentially could carry 200 large and 200 small hoes, 200 bits, and 200 plowshares, in addition to files and pliers (Romero Frizzi 1991:148, 153, 166). All tools were expensive and difficult to attain by local residents. For example, in 1551, Native residents of Tacubaya possessed only three augers of different sizes, three bolts, and three rings, all of iron (Carrasco and Monjarás-Ruiz 1976:64). In sixteenth-century Culhuacán, testaments and estate inventories show that local caciques bequeathed prized possessions such as metal knives, broken swords, chisels, jointers, axes, and saws to their descendants (Cline 1986:104). Similarly, in 1599 in Querétaro, a Spaniard bequeathed a sword that cost 29 pesos, a clear indicator of the importance of this weapon and its high price. Also in Querétaro, a Native resident from Cuauhtitlán recorded a butcher knife in his will of 1598 (Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro 1984:126–127, 215). For comparison, between 1560 and 1575, unskilled workers such as carpenters and masons earned 12 maravedis (34 maravedis = 1 real; 8 reales = 1 peso) per day (Urquiola Permisan 1995:205). Between 1576 and 1606, the annual salary of repartimiento workers associated with obraje workshops in Querétaro, Cholula, and Tlaxcala was between 22 ½ pesos and 44 pesos (Viqueira and Urquiola 1990:216, 219). This means that a Native worker would have had to invest nearly all of his annual salary to acquire a sword. In fact, most iron tools were beyond the financial reach of Natives, who were not allowed to trade in weapons (Gibson 1964:359).
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Consequently, lithic tools remained indispensable for daily use. At the time of the conquest, obsidian artifacts were exchanged or sold in the main markets, such as Tlatelolco, as were copper tools (e.g., Díaz del Castillo 2010:XCII:237). These practices continued through the early colonial period. By the mid-sixteenth century, obsidian and metals appear in listings of taxable business transactions that took place in the market of Coyoacán, which registered both makers of obsidian blades (ytzcopeuhqui) and blacksmiths (tepozpitzqui) (A. Anderson et al. 1976:139–149). Similarly, between 1540 and 1550 in Mexico City and Tlaxcala markets, iron and copper items were for sale (Lockhart 1992:187). Mendieta (1993:407) noted that during the early colonial period, 20 obsidian blades sold for one real in New Spain and were cheap, which was reiterated by Torquemada (1977a:Book 13, Chapter XXXIV:257; Fletcher 1970). Mendieta (1993:407) also noted that it was common for Spaniards to shave and cut their hair with obsidian blades. These references indicate that during the early colonial period, consumption of obsidian tools remained common among the population of New Spain, especially among the indigenous population. Ritual uses of obsidian also persisted, even in the face of the Inquisition’s extirpation of idolatry (e.g., González Obregón 1912:6–7, 141). Objects that before the conquest were used only by the elite, such as feather crafts and obsidian mirrors, continued to be produced during the early colonial period as well (Sahagún 1989:62). Having reviewed the ethnohistorical evidence for changes in obsidian technology and the introduction of metal tools, we now turn to the archaeological evidence from the Sierra de las Navajas and Otumba.
Colon i a l Obsidia n Ex ploitation a nd Wor k ing at the Sier r a de l as Navajas The obsidian mines of the Sierra de las Navajas are located in the state of Hidalgo in the central Mexican highlands, between Pachuca and Tulancingo to the east and Huasca de Ocampo to the north (Figures 2.1 and 2.2). The source is part of the south slope of an old volcanic caldera characterized by rhyolitic domes from the Tertiary period, surrounded by basaltic lavas (Pastrana 1998). In the 1580s, most inhabitants of this region were Otomí (Ballesteros 2006:15) who were part of the indigenous population in the Late Postclassic (e.g., Acuña 1985:84).
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Archaeological materials are found at the obsidian source at the Sierra de las Navajas that are derived from the exploitation of the source by multiple sequential cultures including Teotihuacan, Toltec, Aztec, and, finally, during the early colonial period (Figure 2.2). The Aztec exploitation of the mines employed both deep and openpit mining techniques. The growing demand for green obsidian was met by coordinated direction of mining activities, which included the expansion of the scale of the mines, maintenance of workers, and the transport of the products to population centers. Obsidian mining was fundamental to the military expansion of the Triple Alliance. The last intensive exploitation of the mines dates from around 1521 to 1540; however, there is additional evidence of less intensive exploitation and residence in the area until the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. Archaeological information from the Sierra de las Navajas has permitted the identification of the general processes of Aztec exploitation of the source and the changes that occurred during the early colonial period. During the Late Postclassic period, the green obsidian tools in demand were prismatic core blades and several types of scrapers for the general population, while religious and high-status artifacts, blades, and bifaces were produced for the state institutions of the Triple Alliance. During the early colonial period, prismatic blade cores continued to be the principal product, along with scrapers, including a new type of “macro-scraper” with straight or convex edges (Figure 2.6). This new type of tool may have been produced in response to the changing needs of colonial society, integrated into the work of processing the hides of numerous cattle and sheep, as well as for the extraction and processing of the large quantities of plant fibers necessary for production of
Figure 2.6. Florentine Codex illustration of tools: (a) Spanish steel blade, (b) obsidian scraper, (c) tool for removing prismatic blades from an obsidian blade core, (d) obsidian prismatic blade and prismatic blade core (Sahagún 1963:Book 11, fol. 208rv. Used courtesy of the University of Utah Press, The Florentine Codex, Anderson and Dibble eds. 2002.).
various items needed in daily life. Obsidian scrapers and blades continued to be used as basic tools for the exploitation of agave in the prehispanic tradition. In the Late Postclassic workshops at the Sierra de las Navajas source, the spatial organization of the workshop debitage from the different types of products was organized by consecutive stages of the lithic reduction processes. After the conquest, the workshops were a mix of debris from the working of various types of artifacts all in the same area. Tool morphology and the resulting debitage were rather more varied, all of which indicate that the organization of the workshops was no longer the same as in the prehispanic period. In the early colonial period, the exploitation of the source is indicated by a concentration and diversity of buildings and camps around a sixteenth-century Franciscan chapel (Figure 2.3). The area also contains Late Aztec and early colonial indigenous ceramic ware (Late Aztec III Black-on-Orange, Texcoco Burnished Red-onBuff, Aztec IV Black-on-Orange, Cuauhtitlán Burnished Red-on-Buff, Granular Ware, Transitional Burnished or Polished Orange or Red, and regional smoothed colonial ware) and glazed ware among the workshops and the mine openings (Fournier García et al. 1998). The colonial chapel at Sierra de las Navajas (Figure 2.7) is associated with the evangelization of the miners. That it existed at this location demonstrates the importance and continued necessity of obsidian tools for the economy and subsistence of the local population and other communities in the Basin of Mexico, for which much of the production was destined, as it had been before the conquest. The Franciscan chapel at the site was built around 1528, functioning as a center for evangelization as well as for organization of the exploitation of the local obsidian for about 12 to 15 years. The Augustinians arrived in the region at the end of 1540 (Reyes-Valerio 1978:195), displacing the Franciscans from Epazoyuca (their local center) and the region (Figures 2.1 and 2.2). Secondary objectives related to the evangelization of the obsidian workers at the site were to assure a supply of obsidian tools for multiple tasks and an experienced workforce for mining. The colonial settlement was strategically located near the Spanish mining centers of Real de Pachuca and Real del Monte, at 16 and 14 km, respectively, from Epazoyuca (Figure 2.1). Silver was mined beginning in 1534 at Real de Pachuca and in 1552 at Real del Monte (Oviedo Gámez and Hernández Badillo 2011). The Sierra de las Navajas obsidian source supplied material to aid in the extraction
Obsidian Production and Use
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Figure 2.7. Franciscan chapel, reconstructed, Sierra de las Navajas. Photo by Alejandro Pastrana Cruz.
of precious metals from the silver mines in the sixteenth century (Pastrana 1998). In fact, the Relación geográfica de Epazoyuca for 1580 lists the indigenous population of the area as commonly working in Hispanic mining (Acuña 1985:88). In Oaxaca, at the La Amontonada and Majaltepec sites, a small sample of colonial lithic materials includes gray obsidian and green obsidian blades from Sierra de las Navajas as well as material from at least two other sources; however, no metal tools or artifacts were found at these sites (see King and Konwest, this vol.). Mining, workshop, housing, and religious activities all took place in the colonial sector of the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian source. The workshops were composed of debitage derived primarily from core-blade and scraper production and included both complete rhyolite hammerstones and those fragmented by intense use. Points, blades, and religious artifacts were no longer produced after the Spanish invasion (Pastrana 1998). The prehispanic mining and workshop materials are overlain by those of the colonial period in the colonial sector. The superposition of the colonial workshops over the prehispanic ones indicates that mining and working of the obsidian were still simultaneous activities. Stratigraphically, there are also assemblages of lithic materials that cover structures that were built under the direction of the Franciscans. This pattern indicates that they were deposited after the arrival of the Augustinians in the region in 1541 (e.g., Ballesteros 2006:19; Reyes-Valerio 1978:195). Both the obsidian and the archaeological ceramics
marked the close links between Epazoyuca and the hegemonic powers of the Basin of Mexico by the end of the Late Postclassic period. Postconquest ceramic materials show that these links were maintained in the early colonial period.
Colon i a l Obsidia n Ex ploitation a nd Wor k ing at Otumba During the Late Postclassic period, Otumba was an important city-state subject to the Triple Alliance center of Texcoco (Figure 2.1). The residents were engaged in five major craft industries: obsidian core-blade production, obsidian lapidary jewelry production, fiber production and spinning, basalt tool production, and ceramic production, primarily of figurines, spindle whorls, and some ceramic vessels including incense burners. Of these industries, three were organized into distinct barrios in the Otumba urban townsite: obsidian core-blade production, ixtle (agave) fiber production and spinning, and ceramic production. Obsidian lapidary workshops and basalt workshops were located in multiple individual urban locations outside the nucleated core of the site. Obsidian biface production primarily took place at rural settlement locations, while cotton-fiber spinning seems to have taken place in all households, urban and rural (Charlton et al. 1991, 2000; Otis Charlton et al. 1993). Production of fiber and fermented agave sap (pulque) used both obsidian and basalt tools, likely produced at the
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Otumba workshops (Biskowski 2000; Parry 2001). Prehispanic metal from the Otumba townsite consisted of some rare copper objects. The only metal artifacts found were small copper tweezers, probably for removing cactus spines, and copper sewing needles. There were also some small copper bells for ritual or decorative use. Otumba as a production center was also the location of a regional market, a larger market than a main city market (Hassig 1985:110–111). Regional markets dealt in exotic goods as well as ordinary wares and produce. They were staging areas for concentrating goods and tribute from surrounding zones prior to their movement into the central markets of the empire. Otumba is also located on the primary easterly trade route in and out of the Basin of Mexico. Its importance may also be indicated by it being one of 12 towns in the Basin of Mexico that was home to a group of pochteca traders (Sahagún 1959:48–49) of the type whose travel was restricted to within the empire boundaries (Hassig 1985:121, 132). The pochteca would have been key to bringing in raw materials as well as carrying out finished products. Otumba attracted the immediate attention of the Spaniards after the conquest probably due to its large production of the cochineal insect used for red dye. Cochineal was one of the few materials considered valuable enough to be exported back to Europe in the early colonial period, along with the silver and hides produced in the Sierra de las Navajas area. Cortés assigned Otumba in encomienda to himself, probably for this reason, though lawsuits from his enemies within 10 years caused Otumba to be declared a Crown province (Gibson 1964:60). Its trade sphere, as well as exotic market products, was no doubt much curtailed. Pochteca traders’ routes were likely reduced to transporting material to and from Mexico City. Several projects directed by Thomas H. Charlton and
his colleagues have provided important evidence of the changing production and distribution of obsidian tools during the colonial period in the eastern Basin of Mexico (Table 2.1). These included systematic surface collections from the Aztec city-state center of Otumba (TA-80) and some of its nearby rural dependencies (Figure 2.8), representing a mixture of prehispanic and postconquest occupations, spanning about AD 1470–1570 (Charlton and Otis Charlton 1994, 1998; Charlton et al. 1991; Otis Charlton et al. 1993; Parry 1990, 2001). In addition, a number of small-scale excavations at TA-80 can be more precisely dated, including a preconquest deposit in an elite residence (Op-10), a postconquest (early colonial) deposit in another elite residence (Op-9), an early colonial obsidian blade workshop (Op-2), and an obsidian lapidary workshop (Op-11) (Charlton 1990a; Healan et al. 1990; Otis Charlton 1993; Parry 2002). Earlier work by Charlton focused on colonial rural sites within the same region, including small-scale excavations at several sites located in or near San Sebastian Molango (TA-247), about 6 km north of TA-80 (Charlton 1972b), an area that was originally a part of the Otumba city-state (Figure 2.8). Obsidian artifacts from several of the excavations were previously analyzed by Pamela Cressey (1974, 1975). Unfortunately, most of the contexts selected by Cressey turned out to be mixed, with substantial quantities of preconquest (Late Postclassic and Classic) ceramics (and obsidian) intermixed with the colonial period deposits. Subsequently, Parry reanalyzed samples from a selection of contexts believed by Charlton (personal communication 1989) to be largely unmixed and datable. Dates were assigned based primarily on ceramics from the excavations, generally backed with documentary resources. These localities were situated near a major source of
Table 2.1. Estimated Dates for Colonial Period Rural Sites in the Otumba Area SITE TA-80, Op-10 TA-80, Op-9
TA-247, CA-33 TA-247, CA-15 Rancho Coroneles Rancho San José
DESCRIPTION
DATE ESTIMATES AD
Monumental elite residence (palace?) near the center of the Otumba townsite, with levels of sealed fill—entirely preconquest Monumental elite residence, adjacent to Op-10; built and occupied prior to the conquest, continued occupation afterward; artifacts include components of a jaguar knight headdress Rural house compound in San Sebastian Molongo; long occupation, perhaps beginning prior to the conquest; seriation suggests this is the earliest postconquest sample Colonial-era rancho in San Sebastian Molongo Colonial-era rancho at the eastern edge of San Sebastian Molongo Republican-era rancho southwest of TA-80
1470–1520 1520–1560
1520–1560 1575–1650 1750–1800 1820–1900
Figure 2.8. Map with sites mentioned in the eastern Teotihuacan Valley / Otumba area. Drawing by Thomas H. Charlton and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton.
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Table 2.2. Obsidian Use in Colonial Period Rural Sites in the Otumba Area PROVENIENCE
DATE ESTIMATES AD
GR AY IN TOTAL OBSIDIAN %
PRISMATIC BL ADES IN TOTAL OBSIDIAN %
GR AY IN OBSIDIAN BL ADES %
TA-80, Op-10 TA-80, Op-9 TA-247, CA-33 TA-247, CA-15 Rancho Coroneles Rancho San José
1470–1520 1520–1560 1520–1560 1575–1650 1750–1800 1820–1900
9 12 5 35 60 76
55 54 82 54 33 16
0 1 2 10 13 19
gray obsidian, the Otumba source (TA-79), located about 8 km east of the Otumba (TA-80) townsite, and 10 km southeast of TA-247 (Charlton and Spence 1982). Cobbles of gray obsidian, up to 10 cm in maximum dimension, can be collected from barrancas near TA-80 and about 2.5 km south of TA-247 (Figure 2.8). Despite the ready availability of gray obsidian, most surface collections from Otumba (TA-80) and neighboring rural sites were 75–85 green obsidian, imported from the Sierra de las Navajas source, located about 50 km north. The green obsidian was not imported in the form of finished tools. Rather, minimally shaped blocks (or macrocores) were imported and then reduced to blades within the Otumba (TA-80) townsite. The surface survey identified seven loci in TA-80 with substantial deposits of workshop debris from blade production; in six of these, 90 of the obsidian was green. Only one blade workshop was dominated by gray obsidian (98) from the Otumba source (Glascock et al. 1999; Parry 2001). Surface collections in the area of the gray core-blade workshop do contain Aztec IV Black-on-Orange (early colonial) ceramics, but no excavations were carried out at that location. Many of the tools in domestic contexts were green obsidian prismatic blades, but other byproducts of blade production (e.g., large flakes, percussion blades, platform preparation flakes) were also distributed within TA-80 (and, to a much lesser degree, to rural sites) and used as cutting tools, or as preforms for large endscrapers. Cores likewise were distributed and consumed, smashed to produce flakes (Parry 2001). Some cores were recycled in lapidary workshops and served as blanks for the manufacture of ear spools, lip plugs, and lapidary tools (Otis Charlton 1993). Only two excavated contexts had some intact, unrecycled cores; these both dated to the early colonial period (Parry 2002). Since obsidian ear spool production seems to have ceased shortly after the conquest, it may be that cores were less frequently distributed and recycled in later
times. However, blade production persisted, at least on an ad hoc basis, for many decades, possibly even centuries. The excavated samples, summarized in Table 2.2, indicate a gradual change over time in the composition of the obsidian assemblage throughout the colonial period, even continuing into the republican period after 1821. Though the emphasis of this chapter is on the early colonial period, later site totals are included to provide an idea of the rate of change over the long run. First, the percentage of gray obsidian increased. Much of this gray obsidian was in the form of expedient flake tools, casually struck from locally available cobbles. Over time, the access to imported green obsidian decreased (along with the specialized skills for producing blades) and was replaced by flake instruments made by unskilled persons from local obsidian (see King and Konwest, this vol.). Even those people who could still make blades were increasingly using local gray Otumba obsidian, which suggests that distribution of material from the Sierra de las Navajas source was gradually breaking down. At some point (probably before 1800 and likely prior to 1700 or earlier, given the extreme demographic decline in the local population due to frequent epidemics in the sixteenth century that depleted any population with this skill set), the production of prismatic blades and the distribution of green obsidian entirely ceased. Yet, green obsidian blades were still being used—undoubtedly representing found specimens that were scavenged from the abundant preconquest midden deposits at TA-80 and TA247 and reused. Blades from the later sites seem to exhibit relatively heavy use-wear, consistent with multiple uses and recycling. The continued use of obsidian, even after the breakdown of specialist production and regional distribution, was probably forced in part by the shortage of iron tools. Very few metal objects were present in the excavated samples dating before 1800 (see Card and Fowler, this vol.). Metal that does appear comes in the form of nails,
Obsidian Production and Use keys, chain links, and some eating utensils such as spoons and table knives. All are rare. A few small, poured-lead votive fragments also appear, as do a very few copper jewelry objects such as rings. For example, TA-247, CA15 (early seventeenth century) had only 15 fragments of metal (9 iron horse shoe nails and 6 unidentified fragments), compared to 438 lithic (obsidian) artifacts and 20,625 ceramic sherds. One hundred and fifty years later, Rancho Coroneles (late eighteenth century) had 12 metal objects (3 fork or spoon fragments, 2 keys, 1 fragment of chain, 1 iron bolt, 1 copper ring, 1 lead cross, and 3 unidentified fragments), compared to 166 lithics and 12,026 sherds.
Compa r ison of the Ex ploitation a nd Use of Obsidia n from the Sier r a de l as Navajas a nd Otumba Sou rces in the Sixteenth Centu ry In the zone of the Sierra de las Navajas, the relationship between the exploitation of obsidian and the mining of precious metals in the sixteenth century is mainly based on the geographic proximity of the sources of the ores and the sources of volcanic glass. The human and animal labor force transported and distributed raw materials, tools, and food based on prehispanic tradition. This may be seen in the location of the chapel at the obsidian source that, based on ethnohistoric information, was operated by the Franciscans from approximately 1528 until 1541, though it continued in use under the Augustinians who then took charge of the Christian evangelization of the laborers who worked in the mines. The exploitation and working of obsidian continued at the source until possibly the beginning the eighteenth century, though on an intermittent basis as is reflected in the stratigraphy of the more recent workshops (Pastrana and Fournier García 1998). Franciscans had moved into the town of Otumba by 1527, and the church construction was begun there in 1540 and completed in 1570. It is located north of the Aztec town center, however, rather than on the remains of the Otumba pyramid, which was situated at the confluence of two barrancas and prone to flooding. The Hispanic population in the town itself was probably limited to a few necessary religious and governmental officials (Evans 2001:97). At Otumba the consequences of the changes brought about by the conquest may be seen at several levels. In the prehispanic period, Otumba would have been one of
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the prime centers in the manufacture and distribution of Sierra de las Navajas obsidian tools and objects and probably redistributed the raw material and addedvalue green obsidian products. Postconquest disruptions and changes at the Sierra de las Navajas mines, in the major trade networks, and in the production and distribution of at least the more exotic items from the obsidian lapidary workshops impacted access to and use of green obsidian. Lack of major change in the technological needs of the local, largely rural and indigenous population of the Otumba area meant a more intensive and expedient use of gray local obsidian for prismatic blade production. Whereas at the Sierra de las Navajas source tool production changed or expanded to meet Spanish needs, at Otumba tool needs remained much the same and were met with local obsidian and basalt materials. As noted earlier, Hispanic metal was scarce, or at least valuable enough so that it was not discarded often in archaeological contexts, and limited to objects of introduced use such as nails or small votives. In fact, metal does not appear in any appreciable quantities in the archaeological record in the Otumba area until after independence in the nineteenth century when supply, distribution, and / or affordability greatly increased its frequency. The Sierra de las Navajas and Otumba mines were important centers of obsidian extraction and production under the control of the Aztec Triple Alliance. After the Spanish invasion, with the fall of the indigenous states of Texcoco and Tenochtitlan, obsidian craftsmen who were artisans under government control became entrepreneurs under Spanish rule. They met the market demand of obsidian tools and luxury objects that were part of new colonial lifeways (e.g., Hirth 1996). In the wake of the conquest, craftspersons reorganized to adapt to new situations.
Fina l Comments Before the conquest, obsidian was exploited in various forms in craft activities, in the production of other materials, for military use, and in religious activities. Its distribution was based on a broad and regular network involving mining, distribution of raw material, and the distribution of the various finished artifacts through different channels, assuring a continuous supply to all sectors of the population. Wider distribution of obsidian tools was carried out through local and regional trade, but raw material and tools for the craft trades whose products
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Pa st r a na Cruz , Fou r n i er Ga rcí a, Pa r ry, a n d Otis Ch a r lton
were of interest to the ruling elites, such as religious objects, objects symbolic of power or status, or objects for military use, were under the control of the institutions of the state. The indigenous tool set before the conquest was based mainly on lithics (obsidian and basalt), relatively soft metals (copper; see Card and Fowler, this vol.), and organic plant and animal materials. Metals such as gold and silver were basically used for the elaboration of a range of items from adornments for attire and offerings for the gods to objects for the use of people of high rank in the prehispanic social hierarchy. After the Spanish invasion, the introduction of iron and steel tools and weapons, noteworthy for their hardness, resistance, and malleability compared to indigenous instruments made of copper and other alloys, upended the labor processes of daily life. Metal tools were used; for example, in mills (including sugar and cloth production mills), mining winches, burden animal harnesses, plows, and wheels for wagons, carts, or wheelbarrows. Yet, obsidian instruments were multifunctional, employed for cutting, scraping, drilling, sawing, and impact penetration in the case of arrows and darts. Moreover, obsidian cutting edges were sharper than those of European metal tools, but volcanic glass was fragile and instruments had to be retouched or replaced continually. Therefore, a continuous supply of obsidian instruments was required, and quarrying, knapping, and distribution to the indigenous population survived for decades after the Spanish invasion, as seen archaeologically at the Sierra de las Navajas and Otumba sources. In general, prehispanic handicrafts that had a recognized artistic merit or economic interest for the Spaniards continued to be produced during the early colonial period. Obsidian tools were originally used in feather art and textile production, which were greatly admired both in New Spain and Europe. Obsidian tools were also used in fur working and producing baggage supplies and basketry, products that were used in storage and transport based on both human and animal labor. Many prehispanic craft and service guilds survived, adapted, and integrated into the new requirements of the early colonial way of life. Some of the traditional lithic tools were replaced by those of European iron and steel less by the initiative of Hispanics than by that of the indigenous and mestizo (persons of mixed European and indigenous descent) artisans who appreciated the hardness, malleability, and the recyclability of metals. Some of
the most immediate replacements following the conquest probably included stone and copper axes and knives with those of iron and steel, as well as single- and double-sided hammers and chisels for stone cutting. Other tools were new, such as scissors for tailoring and saws and wedges employed by carpenters and woodcutters, as well as iron plows and sickle blades. Based on the archaeological evidence and radiocarbon dates from excavated contexts at the Sierra de las Navajas source, obsidian discoidal and elliptical scrapers used to extract agave sap were replaced by convex-curved iron scrapers with wooden, bone, or horn handles, probably by the early 1700s. However, use of the obsidian blade continued at least until the seventeenth century, prized for its sharp edge and diversified use in tasks including surgical and ritual acts of sacrifice and magical and religious healing and protection properties (Pastrana and Athie 2014). The distribution of agricultural tools and weapons imported into New Spain was sparse and controlled by the trade monopoly of the Crown for fear of indigenous uprisings: “There was a standing prohibition against giving arms . . . to the natives. Only their . . . [stone] weapons were allowed to them for purposes of hunting” (Lietz 1940:13). The early colonial period archaeological material present at the obsidian sources reflects the continued distribution of obsidian tools used in many food production and artisanal activities. These activities persisted because some market systems continued, exploitation of the Sierra de las Navajas and Otumba obsidian deposits were regionally specialized, and some miners’ and woodcarvers’ guilds survived. The indigenous and mestizo population of New Spain adopted the use of such novel materials as steel, lead, tanned leather, and various types of lubricants for machinery such as lard, grease, and oils. Medieval and Renaissance knowledge of those new materials impacted construction systems and mechanical arts. Different types of mills, looms, mining winches, levers, crossbow levers, ironworks, and pulleys for ships became more common, in addition to instruments of torture for the Inquisition. Based on written evidence and analysis of archaeological materials, we observe that in the early colonial period, abandonment of the Mesoamerican lithic tools and replacement by metal tools was not a uniform process in central Mexico. Control of weapons and tools and the push for more efficient production by the conquerors and the clergy sometimes forcibly integrated the indigenous population in metal tool use. The rapid and successful
Obsidian Production and Use adaptation of the indigenous artisans to new technologies when they became available was due in large part to the high organizational level and specialization of many traditional indigenous craft guilds.
Ack now ledgments Alejandro Pastrana’s geoarchaeological research at Sierra de las Navajas has been supported since 1980 by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. His projects continue under academic objectives defined by Thomas H. Charlton in the 1970s. Thomas H. Charlton’s Colonial Project (Post-Conquest Developments in the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico) was funded in part by the National Science Foundation, and benefited from earlier surveys by William T. Sanders and Jeffrey R. Parsons and their students. The Otumba Project (Early State Formation Processes: The Aztec City-State of Otumba, Mexico) was funded in part by the National
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Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Permits for all aspects of the work were provided by the Consejo of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. Thanks to Rani Alexander for the invitation to participate in this volume and the constructive comments on this chapter. This chapter is dedicated to Thomas Charlton from his grateful students. His early work on obsidian sources and his pioneering work on the colonial period in the Basin of Mexico are fundamental to the work we continue to pursue.
Notes 1. The Aztec empire was ruled by an alliance of three states: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. 2. Unless otherwise noted, all Sahagún quotes have been translated by the authors.
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions in Central Mexico Pat r i c i a F o u r n i e r G a r c í a a n d C y n t h i a L . O t i s C h a r lt o n
and their adoption and spread in New Spain. The advent of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of clays has made it possible to identify workshop areas without the actual workshop remains. INAA analyses pinpoint production zones and foreign imports and additionally suggest trade routes and markets for these same materials. The ceramics on which we base our analyses come from excavations at a number of sites with which we have been associated to varying degrees: La Traza, in the center of Mexico City / Tenochtitlan that the colonial administration designated as a Spanish-only residential zone; Tlatelolco, the city designated by the Spaniards as an indigenous residential zone; Otumba, a rural site on the eastern edge of the Basin of Mexico that was a city-state prior to the conquest and contained a ceramics workshop barrio; and two more remote sites near the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian source to the northeast of the Basin, the Pachuca-Zempoala and Santa Inés sites (Figure 3.1; see Pastrana Cruz et al., this vol.). This group of excavations provides a good sample for comparison of ceramic change and effect between the core of Spanish contact and residence in the middle of Mexico City / Tenochtitlan and sites at increasingly greater distances from that early Spanish occupation and direct contact. Our analyses have also included postcontact documentary sources where relevant. Our studies provide insight into the extent and rapidity
The Aztec Empire came to an abrupt end on August 13, 1521, when the last ruler of Tenochtitlan surrendered to Hernán Cortés at Tlatelolco. Thus, 500 or so Spaniards (and several thousand of their indigenous allies) toppled an empire that included some 1.2 million people in the Basin of Mexico alone. While the most obvious outward sign of the domination of the new culture over the old was the destruction of the pyramids in Aztec ceremonial centers and the construction of churches on the ruins of most of them, the actual effects in the daily lives of ordinary people, both the conquerors and the conquered, was a much more nuanced reality. One of the most sensitive indicators that archaeologists use to measure these changes in the Basin of Mexico is ceramics. The vibrant and extensive tradition of Aztec ceramics maintained a well-ordered and defined set of use forms and regular design elements that varied only within a set standard throughout the Basin. In this chapter, we examine the two most common types of Aztec utilitarian ceramics, Orange Wares and Red Wares, as well as ceramic figurines that were ubiquitous household ritual objects. The typology of these Late Postclassic (AD 1450–1521) materials—their forms, functions, and designs—has been well studied. Their longevity, innovation, and change during the early colonial period (AD 1521–1620) varies, in part due to proximity and level of interaction with the new occupiers and in part for economic reasons. We also examine tinand lead-glazed ceramics introduced by the Spaniards,
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Figure 3.1. Map of the Basin of Mexico and environs indicating locations mentioned in the text. Drawing by Cynthia L. Otis Charlton.
with which ceramic change actually took place after the conquest. Indigenous ceramic traditions displayed a great persistence and stability. They experienced differing changes, and changes at differing rates, depending on physical proximity to the new Spanish culture. Both stability and change are related to an economic scenario of increasing demand for new forms for use with introduced
foodways and for designs from Spanish homelands that were more familiar to new immigrants. New demands drove changes to workshops and markets. Yet, there was neither a complete change nor complete persistence. The two scenarios existed side by side, with preconquest consumption habits lasting for at least a century after the conquest among indigenous communities. Subsequent
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions developments were not a homogenization of the two traditions but a gradual hybridization, in the sense of a mixture of the most useful parts of each and connecting those different parts to create new functionalities, practices, and meanings (Raab and Butler 2008:1; Zapf 1999:302–305). We discuss where and when the hybridity of the Basin of Mexico’s ceramic traditions occurred. In fact, true hybridization, or mestizaje, of European and indigenous traditions did not occur until disease decimated the indigenous population, shrinking it to less than 10 of its original size in the 100 years following the fall of Tenochtitlan (Gibson 1964:136–43, Appendix IV; Prem 1992). The new hybrid tradition reflected changing aesthetics, a striving for perceived higher status through visible material culture, and the pragmatic maintenance of basic utilitarian designs used for common foodways (see also Card and Fowler, this vol.; Eschbach, this vol.; King and Konwest, this vol.). Ceramics used in household ritual, such as ceramic figurines, briefly showed adaptations following the conquest but were soon repressed by the conquering religion. Icons of the new religion were generally produced from other materials.
The R esea rch Setting, M ater ia l s, a nd Methods The Basin of Mexico is located in the central part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, covering more than 9,500 km, and is characterized by a predominantly flat lacustrine plain with five interconnected lakes: Zumpango, Xaltocan, Texcoco, Xochimilco, and Chalco (e.g., Díaz-Rodríguez et al. 1998; Figure 3.1). This endorheic basin is surrounded by several mountain ranges developed by volcanic and tectonic activity during the Pleistocene. It encompasses an area rich in fluvial and lacustrine sediments and volcanic deposits, with particle sizes varying from gravel, sand, and silts to clays, with abundant calcium carbonates present. Fine clay particles are composed of different materials—mostly smectites such as montmorillonite—including crystallized and amorphous minerals derived from the weathering of volcanic ash (e.g., Carreón-Freyre and Cerca 2006; Carreón-Freyre et al. 2003; Frederick et al. 2005). Consequently, raw materials were widely available to manufacture pottery that could withstand firing under varying conditions and temperatures.
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Ceramic production in the Late Postclassic was multicentric, displaying apparent economic regionalism (Hodge and Minc 1990; Nichols et al. 2002). Though only one Late Postclassic ceramic production center in the Basin of Mexico has been located and excavated (Charlton et al. 1991; Otis Charlton et al. 1993), ceramic production and technology have been inferred from the ceramics themselves. Analysis of clays and ceramics by way of INAA from a broad area of the Basin has expanded our understanding of production organization areas in a broad sense and of marketing and trade between areas. The organization of workshop areas is inferred from documentary data (Hicks 1982) and, in the case of the ceramic workshop barrio at Otumba, is deduced from archaeological evidence (Otis Charlton 1994; Otis Charlton and Charlton 2011; Otis Charlton et al. 1993). Whereas workshop organization within ceramic production sites may have varied somewhat, the ceramic ware types produced were generally indistinguishable among workshops in the Basin, though final decorative elements may have varied slightly by region and possibly by workshop area. For this reason, INAA has been an invaluable tool.
Cer a mic Production a nd Technology at Contact (1521) Documentary information from the early colonial period lists six subregions in the Basin of Mexico that continued producing ceramics during the early colonial period (Table 3.1). These were Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Cuauhtitlán, Huitzilopochco, Azcapotzalco, and Xochimilco (Hodge and Minc 1990:418). INAA testing of clays, as well as pottery, that has been undertaken from the early 1990s to the present has defined six distinct source areas in the Basin—Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Cuauhtitlán, Chalco, Otumba, Cerro Portezuelo—and probably a seventh one in the Xaltocan region (Charlton et al. 1999; Crider et al. 2017; Hodge et al. 1993; Millhauser 2012:407; Neff and Glascock 2000; Neff et al. 2000; Nichols et al. 2002; Rodríguez-Alegría et al. 2013:404–406; see Figure 3.1). The names of these sources are selected for convenience to indicate general areas and do not necessarily refer to specific sites within those areas. Many outliers remain, as well as areas that still have not been adequately tested. Therefore, this number does not yet include all the subregions, such as Tepetlaoztoc, Xochimilco, Ixtapalapa, areas north of Xaltocan, or some parts of the Teotihuacan Valley,
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Table 3.1. Ceramic Subregions EARLY COLONIAL CER AMIC SUBREGIONS BASED ON DOCUMENTARY SOURCES Tenochtitlan / Tlatelolco Texcoco Cuauhtitlán Huitzilopochco Azcapotzalco Xochimilco
CER AMIC SUBREGIONS BASED ON INA A Tenochtitlan Texcoco Cuauhtitlán Chalco Otumba Cerro Portezuelo Xaltocan Tepeapulco Tulancingo Coyoacán
OTHER POSSIBLE CER AMIC SUBREGIONS BASED ON INA A (Tenochtitlan / Culhuacán; Tenochtitlan / Ixtapalapa) Tepetlaoztoc Xochimilco Ixtapalapa North of Xaltocan Teotihuacan Valley
among others, that appear to have possibly produced ceramics at some periods according to initial INAA results (Charlton et al. 1999; Hodge et al. 1993:151; Minc 2006:110, 2009:360; Neff et al. 2000; Nichols et al. 2002). Comparisons of design elements for both Black-on-Orange Ware and the variants of Black-on-Red Ware seem to be more sensitive indicators of what were probably subdivisions of workshops within larger source regions (Charlton et al. 2007; Hodge and Minc 1990; Nichols et al. 2002). Use of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) in combination with petrographic studies of these ceramics may hold promise for greater distinctions within these areas. Fray Diego Durán, writing in 1581, labeled potters, or olleros, as “officers” in his records, referring to those who contributed the product of their craft to the special celebration of festivities associated with the dedication of the temple of Huitzilopochtli in Tenochtitlan by the Huey Tlatoani Ahuitzotl (the Aztec emperor) in 1487, although the chronicle refers to officers both from the capital of the
Aztec Triple Alliance (formed by Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan) and to “foreigners” (Durán 1984:346–347). Based on this ethnohistorical source, it may be inferred that there were workshops specializing in pottery production, although their organization is not clear. While there is no argument that craft specialists resided in urban areas such as Tenochtitlan and Texcoco, there is no direct archaeological evidence found to date of pottery manufacture at any of the possible urban ceramic production sites. The most thorough discussion of townsite organization based on documentary sources is for Texcoco as discussed by Hicks (1982). Although the sources do not specifically mention the craft of pottery making, the discussion of barrios of craft specialists (Hicks 1982:241–242) mirrors rather precisely the situation of the archaeologically investigated site of Otumba, which was an Aztec city-state subject to Texcoco (Charlton et al. 1991, 2000; Otis Charlton et al. 1993). While the household-based ceramic workshops at Otumba were clustered in a barrio neighborhood, this is not in itself sufficient evidence to conclude that the organization of the ceramics industry had a guild-type structure (Otis Charlton et al. 1993:165). It did put the workshops in a good situation to respond rapidly to demand, and oversight of the group could conceivably keep the design and quality consistent. Yet, we do not know if demand was generated by tribute obligations or market forces, or likely some of both. While the organization of production may also have varied somewhat from one site to the next, the wares themselves are relatively uniform across the Aztec region. Here, we consider the technical aspects of these ceramics.
Orange and Red Wares In general, Late Postclassic Aztec wares are well made and finely finished. Whether undecorated, modestly decorated, or richly patterned, both the Orange and Red Wares are products of similar raw materials, preparation, and firing. Though no kilns have been found anywhere in the Basin, firing appears to have been well controlled in terms of temperature and atmosphere, although occasionally the surfaces of some vessels exhibit fire clouds (e.g., Charlton et al. 2005). For the most part, poorly made vessels do not seem to have reached the marketplace. Late Aztec Black-on-Orange (Aztec III Black-onOrange) is the most common Late Postclassic decorated pottery. Its production involved relatively simple basic
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions molding techniques, though decoration required a certain skill. Suitable clays for ceramics were undoubtedly one of the criteria for the location of ceramic workshop areas. Without pack animals, clay sources would not be at a great distance from the use area (within approximately 5 km for modern-day traditional potters [Arnold 1991:20–24]). Pastes are fine and the surfaces are well burnished, with the exception of the interior of jars, which are simply smoothed. Vessels used for food service (bowls, flatbottom or tripod dishes, and plates), for food preparation (tripod molcajetes, or grinding bowls, and basins), and for water transport and storage (jars, occasionally with incised lines) are characteristic of Aztec III Black-on-Orange pottery. There is also a high frequency of Plain Orange vessels that are part of this same ceramic complex, such as ollas (jars) and comales (griddles) as well as bowls. The Plain Orange bowls in some instances are gadrooned or fluted (Cervantes et al. 2007; Charlton et al. 2005, 2007). Comales are smoothed rather than highly burnished. Late Aztec Red Wares (Texcoco Black-on-Red, Whiteon-Red, Black-and-White-on-Red, and Black-and-Whiteand-Yellow-on-Red) also have a fine paste but one that appears somewhat more porous than Orange Ware. Vessels are red slipped when leather hard, and the designs are painted over the dried slip. Vessels were mostly used for food service (bowls and copas, a goblet shaped cup) and for water storage and service (ollas and jars) (Cervantes et al. 2007; Charlton et al. 2005, 2007). Although no preconquest kilns have been located in the Basin of Mexico, it can be inferred that the firing of the Orange Ware was well controlled to obtain the consistent bright orange fired color that is the hallmark of the type. Red Wares, on the other hand, have an applied red slip to produce their surface color, and the common gray to black core visible within the clay body after firing indicates a lower firing temperature and, commonly, an oxidizing firing atmosphere. There appears to be a spatial and temporal overlap in production between the Orange and Red Wares, although there were possibly subregions either in the Basin of Mexico or in the neighboring areas where one or the other ware was made in greater quantity (Charlton et al. 2005). Hodge and Minc (1990:433) seemed to find two distinct ceramic production and exchange systems in the southern Basin based on design elements, with the more common Black-on-Orange and Black-on-Red ceramics being distributed throughout the valley while a subset
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of the Red Ware, Black-and-White-on-Red, appeared to be more plentiful only in the southern region. Whereas design elements may vary somewhat in style and complexity between the urban and the more rural production areas, other than quantities found, there do not appear to be major differences in available types between the areas.
Small Ceramic Figurines Figurines are ubiquitous in Late Postclassic Aztec sites in the Basin as well as in more outlying parts of the empire. Late Aztec ceramic figurines were of four primary types: (1) a molded, hollow, rattle-bodied figure with female or monkey attributes; (2) a flat molded figure with articulated arms and legs, generally female; (3) flat molded figures (by far the most common) with a wide variety of types and attributes including females, males, animals and birds, and objects such as flowers and skulls; and (4) handmodeled or part-molded and part hand-modeled figures, usually animals, birds, and plants. The hollow rattle figurines were generally made in two-piece molds, one half to create the basic figurine and the back half to create a plain curved section that could be sealed to the front, a small clay ball placed inside, and the bottom sealed, leaving a small hole so the chamber could breathe during firing. These figurines were generally red slipped and usually burnished and well finished, sometimes with incised line retouch to define some of the decorative elements. The articulated figurines are flat figurines made in open-back molds but with holes pressed through the four corners of the shoulders and base, front to back, so that small, handmodeled appendages could be tied on. The appendages are short and cylindrical and not very anatomically specific, though fingers are often incised in the hand area. Partly hand-modeled figures such as animals, birds, and flowers may have a more detailed molded head attached to a generalized hand-modeled body or stem. The most common and varied figurine type is the flat form made by pressing a well-worked lump of clay into the back of an open-backed mold. Extraneous clay was trimmed off flat against the back of the mold, possibly with a maguey fiber string, and the piece was removed from the mold and left to dry. Though these figures sometimes have additional retouch done with a pointed object, and they often are pierced through the shoulder area, final decoration was not done until after firing. A white, rather chalky paint was applied across the front, and details were sometimes picked out with black lines, or small areas were enhanced
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with colored paint. Remnants of pigments in pink, blue, black, white, and yellow were found in sherd fragments in the workshop excavations. Figurines from the Otumba workshops are small, generally 10 cm in height or less, and could be fired in small, non-permanent kilns. Dark cores in the figurines indicate they were not highly fired, and they do break relatively easily (Otis Charlton 1994; Otis Charlton and Charlton 2011). Aztec figurines are rarely found in situ, leaving us to grasp at their use and relevance based on speculation, in contrast to other times or places with more data, or in comparison with ethnographic examples. For the most part in the Late Postclassic, they appear in general household debris. Figurines were employed differently, however, at the center of the empire. The Aztec Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan contained no small ceramic figurines in any of its offerings or caches discovered to date, though some figures fashioned from copal, a tree resin, do appear there (Klein and Lona 2009). Tlatelolco commonly had ceramic figurines in caches and offerings around the temples in its main ceremonial center (Cook 1950; Guilliem Arroyo 1997, 1999; Otis Charlton 1995). The figurine caches at Tlatelolco primarily contained the third figurine type, standing or seated flat-molded figurines, and most were female, sometimes with a single male component (Guilliem Arroyo 1997, 1999; Otis Charlton 1995). A single cache containing a number of hollow rattle figurines was salvaged from a trenching project and reported by Cook (1950) but had no provenience data available for comparison to other later excavated materials. Both the hollow rattle and the articulated figurines are seldom more than a small percentage of figurines recovered. They were probably a part of a particular ritual due to their noise-making and movement abilities. They constitute a very small percentage of the figurine debris at the Otumba workshops as well, and the single hollow-rattle mold that has been identified there came from the elite core of the townsite rather than the workshop area. INAA testing has indicated that all four figurine types were being produced at Otumba (Neff et al. 2000; Otis Charlton 1999). The copal figures at the Templo Mayor are primarily male, and that and their material probably indicate a completely different ritual use (Klein and Lona 2009).
Late Postclassic Trade The economic system in the Basin of Mexico underwent substantial changes after the formation of the Triple
Alliance. Archaeological data suggest a core-periphery dichotomy focused on Tenochtitlan and probably also Texcoco (Nichols et al. 2002:30; see also Offner 2014). Excepting these two cities, city-states within a radius of 30–35 km from the center of Lake Texcoco in the central and southern lake system intensified agricultural production at the expense of craft production to satisfy growing population needs in the cities and central Basin. Economic relations between city-state centers and the hinterlands became reoriented and redefined with reference to the major imperial cities that were also the largest market centers (Charlton 1994). Locally produced utilitarian and elite goods that entered the market system came in at the city center markets along with similar goods obtained from tribute and pochteca (trader) long-distance merchants’ commerce. At the same time, as population increased in the agriculturally more marginal north-central and northeastern basin, city-states in the hinterlands coped in part with intensification of agricultural production through xerophytic cultivation and terracing (Evans 1990; Parsons and Parsons 1990) as well as the elaboration of floodwater irrigation systems (Charlton 1990b, 1994). The Otumba city-state also intensified production of utilitarian craft items such as those produced by the ceramic workshops, including Otumba Polished Tan Ware (a variant of Orange Ware) and figurines (Charlton et al. 2000:251). Ceramic production in the Late Postclassic was multicentric with the development of an integrated regional market system. Marketing patterns show that economic regionalism and exchange between the imperial core and the hinterlands increased after the establishment of the Triple Alliance (Hodge and Minc 1990; Nichols et al. 2002). As a result of the macroregional reach of Aztec rule, a diversity of goods produced both within and outside the dominion of the empire was widely available in the tributary provinces. Most settlements held organized tianguis (tianquiztli in Nahuatl), or markets, where luxury and utilitarian items were sold by producer-sellers or by itinerant retailers and wholesalers acting as middlemen (Garraty 2006:59). The majority of trade activities appear to have been independent of the state (e.g., Smith 1998:115–117). Exchange patterns were complex, and there were subregional market systems in the Basin of Mexico as well (Minc 2009:366) that encouraged innovation and the diversity of goods. Based on the data from compositional analyses (INAA), Aztec III Black-on-Orange vessels appear to
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions have been produced in a number of different zones in the Basin of Mexico (Tenochtitlan / Culhuacán, Texcoco, Cuauhtitlán, and Chalco; Table 3.1) and were distributed close to their production subregion as well as to other zones (Hodge et al. 1993:151; Nichols et al. 2002). INAA data identified the Late Postclassic Red Ware production centers as being associated with Tenochtitlan / Ixtapalapa, Texcoco, Cuauhtitlán, and Chalco, and the possible subregions of Xochimilco and Tepetlaoztoc (Minc 2006:110, 2009:360; Figure 3.1). With the emergence of Tenochtitlan and Texcoco as centers of imperial power, marketing and production systems were restructured and appear to have remained flexible. While local manufacturing supplied many local needs, the concentration of wealth and power at the Triple Alliance centers seems to have given merchants operating in the zones containing these cities an advantage in the regional trade in decorated serving wares (Nichols et al. 2002:71–72). The INAA testing of Otumba ceramic workshop merchandise such as figurines and Otumba Polished Tan ceramics indicated that the products seemed to be primarily distributed in the Otumba city-state with some figurines traded to the east into the Tulancingo and Tepeapulco city-state areas (Neff and Glascock 2000; Neff et al. 2000). Otumba Polished Tan seems to be particular to the Otumba city-state and so far has not been identified outside its environs. Aztec figurines from other manufacturing areas, however, do not seem to be traded or carried into the Otumba area in any great numbers, perhaps indicating that figurine trade may have followed a more solar market system with multiple smaller production areas rather than longer distance trade, despite their small size and ease of transport. Other production areas seem to be indicated by INAA for the Tulancingo and Tepeapulco zones to the east (Neff et al. 2000). Since other figurine production areas have not been identified, this has yet to be tested. Testing of Orange Ware and Red Ware pieces from the Otumba area continues.
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stylistic modifications that contributed to an efflorescence of decoration, particularly in Black-on-Orange Ware, incorporating some new Spanish-influenced design motifs and some technological changes with the addition of some new forms (Figure 3.2). This was then followed by formal modifications to Native ceramic traditions, suggesting a partial loss of skill or demand over time. Paralleling this, between 1521 and 1620 other more traditional European wares began to appear. Early on, Spanish serving vessels were imported from Spain and to a lesser degree from Italy, but these were expensive and beyond the means of many residents. By the 1550s, a majolica industry had developed in Mexico City that provided the bulk of the majolica found there during the early colonial period (Charlton 1987; Gómez et al. 2001). This included both fine grade and common grade vessels (Lister and Lister 1982), providing inexpensive substitutes for the imported wares (Charlton and Fournier García 1993). Aztec Black-on-Orange pottery, which appeared around AD 1300 in the Basin of Mexico, appears to have persisted to some extent until 1620 in rural areas. Spanish influence on it is relatively minor. Aztec IV (early colonial) Black-on-Orange, a variant of Aztec III (Late Postclassic) Black-on-Orange with Spanish introduced design motifs, probably was produced into the early 1600s as well. Aztec V glazed ware consists basically of Aztec IV Black-on-Orange designs with a glaze added in place of burnishing to produce a similar shiny surface. The chronology of Aztec V glazed ware is uncertain, but it was produced in the Basin of Mexico and consumed in Mexico City-Tlatelolco during the early colonial period, though it appears to be relatively rare (Charlton 1968, 1972a, 1972b, 1996, 2000; Charlton et al. 2005:59, 62, 2007:433, 439, 485–486). It has seldom been observed in the rural areas (Millhauser 2012; Rodríguez-Alegría et al. 2013).
Orange and Red Wares Mexico City-Tlatelolco
Postconqu est Contin u ities a nd Dev elopments The effects of the Spanish presence on craft production were varied and unequal, at once both accelerated and gradual, depending on location and access. Two parallel effects of Spanish contact are evident in the ceramics. Indigenous ceramic types at first persisted, but with
Based on the study of archaeological collections, early colonial period Aztec Orange Wares were made with the same clays and in the same manner as Late Postclassic Orange Wares (Charlton et al. 2005). Thus, much of this ceramic technology remained the same, though exposure to Spanish ceramic techniques brought about several other innovations to indigenous ceramics. INAA by Garraty (2013:164) of a small number of
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Figure 3.2. Colonial Orange Wares: (a) Aztec IV Black-on-Orange tripod bowls and molcajetes, (b) Aztec IV Black-on-Orange molcajete molded feet, (c) Aztec IV or glazed feet of Aztec IV Black-on-Orange molcajetes, (d) Tlalpan White, early colonial period majolica. Illustration by Patricia Fournier García.
Aztec IV (early colonial) Black-on-Orange sherds show that this type was produced in the vicinity of Lake Texcoco and Lake Xochimilco, at centers such as Tenochtitlan, Coyoacán, and Culhuacán (Table 3.1; Figure 3.1). This colonial ware, for the most part, is compositionally equivalent to the Red Ware pastes originating from Late Postclassic Texcoco and colonial Cuauhtitlán production centers (Nichols et al. 2002:41–49). Colonial Red Ware samples excavated in La Traza (in the center of Mexico City), however, belong compositionally to the Late Postclassic Tenochtitlan group, indicating continuity to some extent with preconquest potting traditions and market systems at the core of the Aztec empire (RodríguezAlegría 2002:367–368). Nevertheless, Texcoco and Cuauhtitlán became the major production centers for decorated ceramics in the early colonial period, supplying eastern and western consumers, respectively, in the Basin of Mexico (Garraty 2006:43, 2013). Whereas these two
production centers are not new, they became dominant, and the other Late Postclassic centers either lost production share or ceased production altogether. The impact of Spanish firing techniques on indigenous ceramics remains an open question. Recent archaeometric studies indicate that Aztec IV Black-on-Orange pottery was exposed to low oxidation with high control of air circulation (Jiménez-Pérez et al. 2006). These results suggest that large updraft kilns were used to fire Aztec IV Black-on-Orange vessels. The Florentine Codex (Sahagún 1961:Figure 136), dating to the early colonial period, depicts an indigenous potter engaged in the process of firing pots in a large cylindrical masonry updraft kiln with an open top similar to Spanish-style kilns. In this illustration, the depiction of the set of vessels consists of monochrome bowls, jars, pitchers, copas, and typical Aztec IV Black-on-Orange tripod plates (also shown in other sections of this codex) as well as molcajete grinding bowls,
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions thus a mix of pre- and postcontact forms. The updraft kiln technology was not necessarily first brought to New Spain by the Spanish, since a few prehispanic kilns possibly of this type have been excavated in different Mesoamerican regions dating to various periods (Abascal 1976:190–193, 195; Arnold et al. 1993:182–184; Balkansky et al. 1997; Carrillo Ruíz 2011; Castanzo 2009:134–137; Ciudad Ruiz and Beaudry-Corbett 2002; Healan 1989:254–255; Hernández et al. 1999; Krotser and Rattray 1989; Matos and Müller 1975:21; Müller 1990:239; Pool 1997; Rattray 1988:250, 256, 259, 262; Rodríguez 1982:60; Stark 1985:168–171; Winter and Payne 1976:37–40). They have not been found in the preconquest Basin of Mexico, however. The large substantial structure illustrated by Sahagún was probably a Spanish introduction here. Aztec IV Black-on-Orange, the postcontact continuation of Aztec III Black-on-Orange with the addition of new design elements, continued at least until the mid-1500s in Mexico City and Tlatelolco (González Rul 1988:94). Initially, the designs became much more elaborate and complex. The stimulation of new design elements created a new Black-on-Orange development within the stylistic canons of preconquest ceramics (Charlton 1986; Parsons 2015; Figure 3.2). The addition of cattail fluff to the paste as a temper to lighten the clay body appears to be a Spanish introduction to Aztec ceramics, though it is possible that this technique may have been used in ceramics in other areas of Mexico. Indigenous vessel forms were still used for food service and preparation and for water transport and storage. Primarily, the same forms were being used that were used prior to the conquest, with the addition of some hybrid forms such as gadrooned bowls, plates, and large basins with flared sides (Charlton et al. 2007; González Rul 1988). In addition to a few new forms, some decorative elements are Spanish inspired. Indigenous molcajete grinding bowls continue, usually exhibiting complex interior decoration and a wide variety of support forms (Figure 3.2). The bowls have distinctive painted patterns on the interior walls, such as thick and thin lines or bands, or naturalistic and figurative motifs mostly based on Spanish designs, sometimes inside vertical or elliptical panels, and including plants, flowers, fish, and eagles and other birds. Molded supports depict eagle heads, whole lions or just their paws, monkey heads, and faces of bearded men, among other designs. Flat or “butterfly antennae” shaped supports are exclusively decorated with thick lines or bands (Charlton et al. 2005, 2007).
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Red Ware ceramics continued with the development of a fine polished red that resembles fine wares from the Iberian Extremadura region, which may explain some of its popularity. The Red Wares showed the most innovation in both form and design in the early colonial period (Figure 3.3). The whole tradition is discussed in much greater detail elsewhere (Charlton and Fournier García 2010). Red Wares most likely produced in Cuauhtitlán are frequent in archaeological collections from Mexico City dating from 1521 to 1720 (Charlton and Fournier García 2010; Charlton et al. 1995, 2007). The incentive for the development of this colonial ceramic tradition was probably economic, encouraging craftsmanship among the locals (Gibson 1964:398) but also coming from market demand. The potters incorporated formal and stylistic characteristics into their products that were desired by Spaniards or criollos (mixed race) as well as the indigenous local population. In Mexico City, the use of similar ceramics has been suggested to indicate a developing bond between the two groups (Rodríguez-Alegría 2005a). A comingling of forms that served different purposes were essential to food and water storage as well as to the serving process (Charlton and Fournier García 2010).
Rural Areas The Spanish presence in Otumba and the surrounding rural areas is marked by the presence of a church and convent complex, capillas (chapels), and cemeteries, as well as a few possible estancias (farms) or ranches. Extremely limited numbers of Spanish artifacts occur in association with these areas (Charlton 1979, 1986). Nevertheless, there is some evidence for the stimulation and elaboration of aspects of Aztec ceramics as in the presence of Aztec IV Black-on-Orange ceramics (Figure 3.2). Some modifications in Black-on-Red forms and designs under the influence of Spanish ceramics incorporated high polish and some Hispanic motifs. Whereas these designs may become extremely elaborate in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, at Otumba they are generally not as elaborate and slowly begin to decline in numbers (Charlton et al. 2005). In stratigraphic excavations, the old Aztec III Black-on-Orange designs coexist with the newer Aztec IV Black-on-Orange designs. In the Otumba region and Xaltocan, Cuauhtitlán (colonial) Red Wares were either not favored by indigenous consumers or not readily available to them (Charlton 1996; Charlton and Fournier García
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Figure 3.3. Colonial Red Wares: (a) Black-onRed plates and bowls, (b) molded eagle head support from a tripod plate, (c) Black-on-Red incurved rim cup. Photos by Patricia Fournier García.
2010; Charlton et al. 1995, 2007; Rodríguez-Alegría et al. 2013). Postconquest Plain Orange Wares were produced somewhere in the Teotihuacan area and do not show any changes compared to late Postclassic Aztec decorated wares. Vessel forms include ollas, jars, and hemispherical bowls (Carrillo Ruíz 2011), which provide evidence of conservative trends in rural areas for undecorated ceramics for domestic use. In other rural areas, in excavations at the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian mines near Pachuca-Zempoala, Aztec III Black-on-Orange vessels persist into the early colonial period mixed with low percentages of Aztec IV Black-onOrange pots and a limited number of plain glazed sherds (Pastrana and Fournier García 1998; Pastrana Cruz et al., this vol.). Moreover, in the Santa Inés site in the Zempoala
area, early colonial Red Wares are uncommon and only Aztec III Black-on-Orange pots have been identified so far, but that study is still in progress.
Small Ceramic Figurines Tlatelolco Tlatelolco was originally designated to be the residential area for the indigenous population of Mexico City, just as La Traza, built on the ruins of the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan, was the designated residential area for Spaniards. The figurines in the preconquest caches and offerings in the ceremonial area of Tlatelolco, however, were not the last to be placed there. Sometime between the final battle with the Aztecs won by the Spanish at
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions Tlatelolco in August 1521, the destruction of the pyramids there, and the erection of the Church of Santiago de Tlatelolco on the site by around 1524 (Gerhard 1986:186), additional offerings of figurines were made. They varied in subtle ways from their predecessors (Figure 3.4). The figurines in the offerings were made in open-back molds that were identical to the style used previously, but after removal from the molds, the figures were modified with the addition of hand-modeled arms attached to the molded shoulders and reaching forward rather than molded at the sides and waist of the body of the figure. Twisted fillets of clay were added across the backs of the
Figure 3.4. Colonial figurines: (a) molded head with hand-modeled hair addition— Tlatelolco, (b) Spanish male in armor— Otumba, (c) male with Spanish cap but lip plug and ear spools—Otumba, (d) males in Spanish attire—Otumba, (e) female in Spanish attire—Otumba, (f ) hand-modeled stick figure torso—Otumba. Photos by Cynthia L. Otis Charlton.
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heads to indicate hair that could be seen not only from the front but from behind. This more three-dimensional and fully round form did not exist with flat-molded Aztec figurines prior to the conquest (Otis Charlton and Charlton 2010:154). Other figurines with fully Hispanic features and clothing also occur and come from fill not associated with offerings, indicating that figurine production and use continued at the site for some time into the early colonial period. Many of these figures were molded from very white bentonitic clay that is particular to the Tlatelolco local figurines, though some figures from the Juárez 70 site (a few meters south of the Alameda district in Mexico
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City) appear to be made from the same clay. The same clay was also used for tripartite cockspurs (e.g., Lister and Lister 1982:93), employed during the second firing glazing process to separate stacked vessels and prevent them from sticking together. These come from the same fill as the figurines, though the location of a ceramic workshop has not been found. The figurines are made in open-back molds in the same manner as the precontact figures but are dressed as Hispanic males with flat hats and short pants, females with mantillas or cowls, and as figures in robes like judges, scholars, or priests (Figure 3.4). The finish and detail of the figures appears to deteriorate rather rapidly to molded heads with little or no facial detail and hand-modeled bodies (Otis Charlton 1995). There would have been a very short window of opportunity for changes to be observed and produced. The Franciscans had established the Colegio de Santa Cruz on the site by 1536, and it is rather unlikely that figurines were produced in this area beyond that point. Tlatelolco itself suffered a long, slow decline throughout the sixteenth century as its market lost importance, freshwater became scarce, and epidemics ensued.
Otumba Much as figurines continued at Tlatelolco, they also persisted in production for some time after the conquest at the Otumba ceramic workshops. Further, the inhabitants of Otumba had an early look at the Spaniards, who were run out of Tenochtitlan and were met by Aztec troops in battle in the plains below Otumba on July 14, 1520 (Charlton and Otis Charlton 1994). The ceramic workshops began producing figurines with features and clothing that matched that of the Spaniards they had seen, apparently almost at once. One figurine depicts a Spaniard in full armor. Another figurine head shows a male with Hispanic features and a flat beret-style hat with a feather but wearing the lip plug and ear spools of an elite Aztec male. Many of the male figurines are shown wearing the high lace collar, short puffed-sleeve jacket, flat hat, and short breeches of the Spanish male (Otis Charlton and Charlton 2007; Figure 3.4). Only the solid molded figurines and innocuous hand-modeled animals or flowers were made in the colonial period, since the rituals that used rattle and articulated figures ended. The colonial figures are made in open-back molds with no change in the style of manufacture. Clothing styles on the figurines, both male and female, did not change into
new European styles over time. This suggests a relatively short time period in which the figurines continued to be produced. As well as molded figures, hand-modeled or partly hand-modeled horses (which look a lot like previous hand-modeled dogs except for the angle of the tails), cattle, and sheep appear. Colonial figurine molds appear only in the workshop area, and there are not a great variety of colonial figurine types there, comparatively speaking. The number of copies of the same figures from the same molds would seem to indicate that the pieces remained at the workshops and were not distributed (Otis Charlton and Charlton 2011). After showing a remarkable ability to model the new power figures, suppression of ritual and use of figurines, along with subsequent loss of market, no doubt ended figurine making in the workshops within a relatively short time after the conquest. Figurines gradually lost detail and disappeared. Finally, only plain, undecorated heads were still moldmade, while the necks were tenoned into hand-modeled, stick-figure-like bodies that may have been clothed with other materials. Production of figurines was no doubt frowned upon and suppressed by the church. In addition, the series of devastating epidemics that decimated the population probably ended figurine production at least by the mid-sixteenth century, and without a doubt before the century’s end. Other products of the workshops that included spindle whorls and the Otumba Polished Tan ceramics may have continued for some time.
Glazed Wares Mexico City As would be expected, the center of the Spanish occupation showed the first evidence of technological change in ceramic production. The Hispanic ceramic tradition included wheel-thrown vessel forms and glazing technologies previously unknown to Aztec potters (see Eschbach, this vol.), as well as a set of new forms most likely produced by Spanish and criollo (people of European descent born in the Americas) potters with the potter’s wheel, including glazed candle holders, small jars (orzas), and chamber pots (Charlton et al. 2007:485–487). The earliest historical records of European potters in Mexico City date to the late 1530s, when one tornero (potter using a wheel) and one ollero were registered (Altman 1991:431) who probably produced wheel-thrown plain glazed wares. Up to the 1550s there are no known
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions additional documents with information about pottery workshops in the capital city (Gómez et al. 2001). The Count of Santiago, Luis de Velasco, viceroy of New Spain from 1550 to 1564, reputedly paid Spanish craftsmen to teach different crafts and trades to Natives (Hanke and Rodríguez 1976:79). The indigenous population in the Basin of Mexico was extremely poor and on the verge of starvation in the mid-1500s as they lost access to lands and had to earn their living by manual wage labor. Under the encomienda (tribute) and repartimiento (draft labor) systems, they earned frugal wages, if they were ever paid (Ministerio de Fomento 1877:121, 124). An alternative was to produce crafts in the household to augment their income. In this way, indigenous residents of Mexico City became involved in Spanish or Spanish-type trade in the first years after the conquest. The official royal policy of spatial and social separation of the indigenous and Spanish sectors was unsuccessful, and Mexico City was the setting for intense contact (Altman 1991:442). Native potters may have learned how to make nonopaque glazed ceramics from “the first master potter who arrived from Spain, despite the fact that he shied away from them” (Mendieta 1993:404), and “in spite of all he could do to guard and hide his secret” (Torquemada 1977a:255). This emulation process was most likely market driven once Native potters understood that the peninsulares (Spaniards) and criollos wanted to buy glazed wares. Early colonial glazed bowls and small pitchers produced by Indian or mestizo potters were mold-made and often had stamped designs using preconquest patterns (López Palacios 1990, 1998; Sodi 1994). A transparent thick, brownish glaze is common, as well as a green glaze, the color probably resulting from a lack of control during the firing process. Glazes in general appear on plain-bodied local Orange Wares, and on rare occasions on Aztec IV Black-on-Orange molcajetes, sometimes referred to as Aztec V (González Rul 1988:94). At La Traza sites and in the Alameda district in Mexico City, Aztec V tripod molcajetes have zoomorphic and anthropomorphic supports similar to those found on Aztec IV Black-on-Orange pieces. Lead was not abundant during the early colonial period and sometimes had to be imported from Spain, but apparently it was inexpensive. Once silver mining enterprises were successful in New Spain, lead monoxide, or litharge, a by-product of the silver extraction process (Wagner 1942), was widely available and sold at the main market in Mexico City (Gage 1838:156).
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Rural Areas There seems to have been only a minimal appearance of lead-glazing technology on indigenous forms in the early colonial period in rural areas. There is no physical evidence of lead glazing ever taking place at the excavated Otumba ceramic workshops. Work in the Otumba citystate did locate light quantities of sixteenth-century plain glazed earthenware, late-sixteenth-century Chinese porcelains and majolica, and Aztec IV Black-on-Orange, confirming the postconquest presence of monochrome glazed earthenware associated with Aztec IV Black-onOrange ceramics (Charlton and Otis Charlton 1998). Recent INAA results show that glazed wares were produced in Cuauhtitlán, the major potting center in the Basin of Mexico during the early colonial period, and apparently also in Otumba, despite there being no archaeological evidence for it. These wares were distributed and consumed in rural areas such as Xaltocan, and apparently glazed ceramics were produced in the Xaltocan region as well, based on interpretations from INAA (Overholtzer 2012; Rodríguez-Alegría et al. 2013:404). In the Sierra de las Navajas obsidian mines, a limited number of plain glazed sherds were found (Pastrana and Fournier García 1998). At Zempoala in the Santa Inés site, life after the conquest appears to have continued without major changes in preconquest ceramic traditions other than the introduction of a few plain glazed vessels (Fournier García and Charlton 2012).
Majolica Mexico City By the mid-sixteenth century, majolica potters from Talavera (Gómez et al. 2001) and Seville (Lister and Lister 1982) were establishing workshops in Mexico City, and Iberian master potters probably employed indigenous novices to assist in the manufacture of their wares (Lister and Lister 2001:79), thus setting a fertile context for Spanish-Indian interaction and the transfer of technological knowledge (Rodríguez-Alegría et al. 2003:78). Archaeological evidence of majolica production in the Basin of Mexico is scant, and early colonial period majolica vessels produced in Mexico City are difficult to separate from imported pieces without compositional analyses by INAA (Blackman et al. 2006; Fournier García, Blackman, and Bishop 2009; Fournier García, Castillo et al. 2009).
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Figure 3.5. Binary plot illustrating the separation of compositional groups for the Basin of Mexico / Puebla (Aztec Orange Wares, colonial glazed wares, Valle Ware majolica, n = 243; Seville-Triana majolica, n = 512; and olive jars, n = 20) (adapted from Fournier García and Bishop 2015:237).
Yet, majolica sherds are fairly abundant in archaeological collections. A wide variety of majolica types are frequent in the Templo Mayor excavations and elsewhere in La Traza and its vicinity in central Mexico City but less so at Tlatelolco (Charlton et al. 2007; Fournier García 1990, 1997a, 1997b; Lister and Lister 1982; Rodríguez-Alegría 2016). Archaeological samples from excavations carried out close to the potters’ quarter located on the fringes of La Traza in the sixteenth century consist of not only nonopaque glazed wares and majolica but also bisque ware, wasters, and saggers (kiln furniture). The clays used in these ceramics and ceramic by-products were available from different districts of the Basin of Mexico, as demonstrated through INAA analysis (Blackman et al. 2006; Fournier García, Castillo et al. 2009). The results of INAA characterize the compositional distinctiveness of Late Aztec pottery (see Hodge et al. 1993) and its similarity to the earliest majolicas produced in Mexico (Valle
Ware) (Fournier García 2012). The chemical composition is different from imported Seville-Triana majolica and Spanish olive jars (Figure 3.5). In 1556, guild ordinances were established for the arts and crafts in New Spain that restricted the activities of Indian craftsmen, but the ceramics industry was not included until the mid-seventeenth century (Carrera Stampa 1954; Cervantes 1939; Fournier García, Castillo et al. 2009). Documentary information is scant, but during this century-long window, indigenous potters must have learned some majolica techniques. Mid-seventeenth-century ordinances specified a rigid stratification of artisans into three groups: masters, journeymen, and apprentices. The former had to prove purity of blood (Carrera Stampa 1954; Cervantes 1939). Based on the ordinances for the “art of potters,” only Spaniards and mestizos were eligible for guild membership. Indians, those of African descent, “Chinese,” or nonwhites of
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions “broken” (quebrado) color were banned as master potters or inspectors (veedores), for “the repulsion they could provoke among the Spaniards who were superior.” However, these norms were not always followed. We do not know exactly what transpired between the advent of the ordinances in the mid-seventeenth century and the late eighteenth century, but by the late 1700s, there was a hierarchy, with criollo potters making wheelthrown true majolicas (loza blanca) and mestizos and Natives making Yellow and Red Wares both with molds or using the wheel (e.g., McMillen 1983). This hierarchy and the tendencies that favor forming techniques probably reflect processes that began prior to the advent of the ordinances. From 1525 to 1553, there were at least 440 Spanish and criollo artisans in Mexico City, many prominent in Spanish society, who formed partnerships, were members of religious confraternities (cofradías) usually with one or more patron saints, bought or rented houses or shops in the capital, and invested in mining and livestock raising (e.g., Altman 1991:429). In the seventeenth century, the patron saints of the loceros (potters) were Saint Justa and Saint Rufina, the patrons of potters in Seville as well, and the craftsmen organized their confraternity reunions at the Church of the Santa Veracruz. This parish church was originally located far from La Traza on the fringe of the potters’ quarter close to the Alameda district. The potters’ quarter was originally at some distance from other residential districts given the inconvenience of the smoke resulting from the firing process (e.g., Fournier García, Castillo et al. 2009). However, by the 1600s, as the city grew and covered a larger area than the original Traza, the potters’ quarter was engulfed by the urban center and became part of the city (González Franco et al. 1994:176).
Otumba In the Otumba region, only very limited examples of early colonial majolica occur at estancia sites. At the church complexes, only one or two examples each of majolica, glazed earthenware, and glass and metal artifacts occur in an artifact complex that is predominantly indigenous in design (Charlton and Fournier García 1993). The small numbers of intrusive artifacts would suggest that either the Spaniards who were present were extremely impoverished or were few in numbers and depended heavily on indigenous materials. Documents indicate that the
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permanent Spanish presence in rural areas during the early colonial period was restricted to necessary religious and governmental officials and to encomenderos and estancia holders. It is very possible that the actual holders of the encomiendas and estancias did not live on the holdings and were absent most of the time. When small numbers of majolica, glazed earthenware, metal tools, coins, and glass are found in association with indigenous structures, they are adopted separately without modification and not incorporated into corresponding elements of the indigenous culture. By the 1580s, some small ranchos begin to appear in the Otumba region, perhaps occupied by Spanish landowners or indigenous cacique (ruler) elites (Charlton 1986). While excavated ceramics are little different from other households, small amounts of majolica are present.
Colonial Trade Mexico City By the mid-1500s, the Tlatelolco market had declined and most sales took place either at the indigenous tianguis of San Juan, located southwest of La Traza in Mexico City, or at the Native market of San Hipólito, located north of the center of the city and founded in 1540, where Indians, mestizos, criollos, and peninsulares all traded (Gibson 1964:395). By 1573, formal shops were built in San Hipólito (Lockhart 1992:351). In 1554, at the main plaza in La Traza, fairs and auctions were held at the central marketplace, supplying consumers in Mexico City without restriction. Merchants from all over New Spain brought all kinds of merchandise, and the best goods from Spain were also traded. One side of the plaza was enclosed by shops and colonnades and valuable merchandise was sold there, attracting foreigners, buyers, and sellers. Craftsmen and officials of different trades offered their services and products nearby. There was also an extensive Native marketplace where produce and other goods were sold, including various beverages (e.g., atole, chia, zotol) placed in large ceramic ollas. Most of the items had been transported in cargo canoes through the channels connecting La Traza with the different lacustrine towns in the Basin of Mexico (Cervantes de Salazar 1978:42–44, 52–53; Ciudad Real 1993:112). Though some of the goods crafted by Indians and mestizos were traded freely at markets, including pottery
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vessels and spindle whorls (another product of the Otumba ceramic workshops), their makers and distributors had to pay fixed local taxes during the early colonial period (A. Anderson et al. 1976:139, 141, 147; Gibson 1964:356). Some towns offering goods for which there was a continuing demand, including ceramic vessels, maintained specialized markets such as the pottery tianguis of Cuauhtitlán (Gibson 1964:358). An interesting example of commercial transactions outside the market system is the Códice de los alfareros de Cuauhtitlán from 1568, depicting different vessel forms and their decoration. The document consists of a formal complaint by potters from Cuauhtitlán who had not been paid for some of the commissioned vessels they had made and delivered to the town’s magistrate, or alcalde (Barlow 1951; Charlton and Fournier García 2010). Mexico City became the center of an informal but widespread trading system with the emergence of small manufacturing enterprises, including pottery workshops where majolica and glazed wares were produced prior to the establishment of guild regulations in the late 1600s; these partially reinforced this centralization process. Ceramics and other goods were distributed at markets, but there were also retailers, tratantes (wholesalers), and peddlers, as well as shopkeepers or provincial agents of almaceneros (warehouse owners). By the 1680s, there were more than 600 persons classified as merchants in Mexico City, and these were only the Spaniards. Only about 180 of these were wholesalers (Schell Hoberman 1977:480–481, 497; Studnicki-Gizbert 2000:61). The wholesale organization probably started in the 1550s or a little earlier in the capital city. Majolica workshops had their own “public” stores as part of their facilities, and wheel-thrown glazed wares were also manufactured and sold there.
Otumba Whereas indigenous ceramic forms and designs become less variable and complex in urban contexts as the sixteenth century progressed, the reduction in complexity of the indigenous ceramic complex was barely underway in the Otumba region by the end of the early colonial period. The degree of fusion and convergence with the Hispanic ceramic tradition found in urban areas prior to 1620 did not occur in the rural areas until the mid-seventeenth century (Charlton and Fournier García 1993), in the aftermath of a demographic crash.
Fina l Comments As Spanish habits of consumption spread among a growing population of peninsulares and criollos in the 1600s, burnished colonial Orange Wares, except for unpolished comales, declined. Undecorated glazed earthenware and unglazed colonial Plain Orange ceramics became the dominant types. The fine Red Ware stylistic tradition continued to develop, although most prehispanic vessel forms and design elements disappear. Plain or smoothed brownish Red Wares became popular, as did glazed wares, which are conspicuous in their frequencies in archaeological collections in Mexico City. The indigenous ceramic tradition became less complex and converged with a Hispanic ceramic tradition that was also less complex and variable than that in the Iberian Peninsula (Charlton and Fournier García 1993). Ceramics from the Basin of Mexico illustrate behaviors and strategies of indigenous people and people of European descent, of various ethnic groups and social classes, who sought inclusion, power, and improvements in their lives in postconquest central New Spain. We have documented the production of indigenous Red and Orange Wares derived from prehispanic traditions and continuities in the exploitation of raw materials during the early colonial era for the production of tin-glazed wares in Mexico City. Colonization, transculturation, and ethnogenesis were part of the new order. Nevertheless, early colonial period ceramics derived from the combination of prehispanic traditions and Hispanic technologies demonstrate that indigenous and Hispanic economic, social, and aesthetic values ultimately were hybridized. The hybridization produced syncretic traditions that appealed both to the conquerors and to the conquered in urban settings. In contrast, in rural indigenous regions such as Otumba, material culture transformations were slow, though the impact of the new order eventually was felt, but only after the devastation of repeated epidemics had drastically reduced the local population to 10 of its preconquest size. The adoption of Spanish material culture and technologies by indigenous societies in the Basin of Mexico and all over New Spain does not imply that Spanish meanings and values were completely embraced, nor does it imply that Native societies were deculturalized or that craft production suffered a total loss of skill. Rather, it leads to the recognition that a new cultural identity and a new set of
Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions
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values were forged in which local indigenous standards were matched to Hispanic objects and customs (e.g., van Dommelen 2005:136; see Card and Fowler, this vol.; King and Konwest, this vol.). Changes in actual conditions meant that certain social groupings ceased to exist or certain distinctions ceased to be made (Lockhart 1992:111). In any case, early colonial ceramics demonstrate that indigenous material culture persisted after the Spanish conquest. The construction of the colonial way of life did not immediately engulf prehispanic technology and decorative style.
T. Alexander and Susan Kepecs. We gratefully acknowledge our invitations to participate and the support of the School for Advanced Research. The chapter also greatly benefited from earlier editorial commentary from Susan Kepecs as well as from Rani Alexander. Both of the authors are deeply grateful to Thomas Charlton who fed and nourished our obsession with ceramics and whose pioneering work with the colonial period ceramic transitions is the basis for this chapter as well as for much of our ongoing research.
Ack now ledgments
Notes
Thomas H. Charlton’s Colonial Project (Post-Conquest Developments in the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico) was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and benefited from earlier surveys by William T. Sanders and Jeffrey R. Parsons and their students. The Otumba Project (Early State Formation Processes: The Aztec City-State of Otumba, Mexico) was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Permits for all aspects of the work were provided by the Consejo of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. We thank Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Alberto López Wario, Margarita Carballal, Carmen Lechuga, María Flores, Juan Cervantes, Cuauhtémoc Dominguez, and Adriana Maldonado for access to the ceramic collections of the projects of the Templo Mayor, Tlatelolco Nuevo Edificio (SRE), and Juárez 70. This chapter is based on an earlier study resulting from a 2008 Advanced Seminar at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico, “Colonial and Postcolonial Change in Mesoamerica: Archaeology as Historical Anthropology,” organized and cochaired by Rani
1. Archivo General de Indias, México, 1088, L. 3, fol. 261, Real Cédula al Virrey de la Nueva España, 21 de febrero de 1539; Archivo General de Indias, México, 19, num. 82, Resumen de las cartas del Virrey Martín Enriquez, 1571–1572. 2. Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de México, México para gobierno de su cuerpo, de su república, gremios, comercio, tratos, efectos, T. 2, vol. 432a, fols. 62–65. 3. For example, Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de México, Colección de ordenanzas de la muy noble insigne y muy leal e imperial ciudad de México para gobierno de su cuerpo, de su república, gremios, comercio, tratos, efectos, T. 2, vol. 432a, fol. 64. 4. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. Mex 109 ICR 1487 bis. According to Charlton and Fournier García (2010:138), the codex is of a mixed type with the images of ceramic vessels drawn according to conventions that stylistically date primarily from the prehispanic period, with added glosses in Latin characters written in Spanish. The basic document was written / painted by the indigenous protagonists of a lawsuit or was made at their initiative. 5. Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de México, Colección de ordenanzas de la muy noble insigne y muy leal e imperial ciudad de México para gobierno de su cuerpo, de su república, gremios, comercio, tratos, efectos, T. 2, vol. 432a, fol. 62.
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods of the Colonial Port of Veracruz, Mexico K r i s ta L . E s c h b ac h
proton-induced X-ray emission spectrometry (PIXE) to approximate the origin of manufacture of these vessels. A technological style analysis provides a nuanced approach for exploring the technological choices made at each stage of the manufacturing process. By viewing ceramics as the result of a series of choices, it is possible to assess potential European, Native, and African technological contributions at each stage of production. I begin my discussion by laying out a framework for parsing technological styles into five stages of production. This approach allows for a consideration of the complex melding of technologies, as well as social and environmental constraints on technological choices. Potential technological contributions by European, Nahua Totonac, and other Native craftsmen are elucidated from historical and archaeological sources. Recognizing African technological contributions is more difficult, but decades of research in the Caribbean offers comparative observations and useful insights. One way of dealing with the archaeological “invisibility” of Africans and their descendants is by examining assemblages from Afromestizo contexts. This is the approach I take by analyzing ceramics recovered from Afromestizo neighborhoods. I emphasize, however, that these were not simply African descendant communities. Rather, these neighborhoods were dynamic and pluralistic, made up of individuals and households of mixed European, Native, and African descent.
The Port of Veracruz served as a central gateway for the introduction of new ceramic technology into New Spain. Ceramic imports flowed through the port and added to persistent indigenous pottery traditions in Veracruz. European craftsmen brought traditions from their homeland communities, responding to early colonial demands for ceramics of familiar form and appearance (Lister and Lister 1987). In the case of thousands of African slaves who entered through the port, their technological influence is less visible in the historical and archaeological record (Carroll 1991; Fournier García and Charlton 2008). Beginning in the sixteenth century, cultural and biological mixing led to the hybridity of people and traditions that are evident in the port’s population and pottery assemblage (Eschbach 2009). In this chapter, I examine potential European, Native, and African contributions to ceramic technology found at two seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Afromestizo neighborhoods in the Port of Veracruz. Archaeological investigations at the Barrios de Minas and the Barrios de las Californias were undertaken through the Colonial Connections Project (CCP), led by Judith A. Bense and Judith Hernández Aranda. In 2008, excavations carried out by archaeologists with the CCP recovered the remains of hundreds of European-style ceramic imports (Eschbach 2009). However, most pottery is plain, lead-glazed, and painted / slipped earthenware of uncertain manufacture and possible local production. I use
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Figure 4.1. Map of central Veracruz indicating locations and clay samples. Map by Krista L. Eschbach.
Next, I briefly describe the CCP excavations, associated ceramic collections, and the laboratory procedures that I use to examine pottery of potential local manufacture. I then situate the Port of Veracruz within the larger economic system of New Spain. Regional declines in Native populations and the influx of Europeans and Africans shaped the demographics of Afromestizo neighborhoods. Pottery production in Veracruz is rarely mentioned in historical sources, but vessels from Xalapa and Tlacotalpan were likely sold in the port (Figure 4.1). In addition, skilled African and Afromestizo potters worked to supply the sugar haciendas with pottery and also could have sold pots in the Veracruz markets. Analysis of raw clays and
pottery from the port suggests that potters throughout the region supplied the Afromestizo neighborhoods with pottery. Analysis of each stage of pottery manufacture elucidates European and continuing Native technological contributions to primary forming, finishing, and firing techniques. African contributions to pottery production are ambiguous. Afromestizo potters may have adopted European and Native technologies and incorporated them with less visible traditions brought from Africa. The cultural integration of Afromestizos into Spanish colonial society is clearly visible in their consumption and use of European and indigenous vessel forms and ceramic technology.
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods
Parsing Tech nologica l Styles European, Native, and African contributions to ceramic technology may be understood as choices made at different stages of the manufacturing processes that together form unique technological styles. Technological style refers to the total of all choices made by potters during the manufacturing process (Lechtman 1977; Lemonnier 1993). To assess technological styles, I use an approach advanced by French archaeologists known as chaîne opératoire (Leroi-Gourhan 1943, 1993). This approach is based on the work of sociologist Marcel Mauss (1935) and archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan (1943). Mauss defined technology as a system that is both technical and social, and styles as techniques du corps, or “ways of doing something” (Hegmon 1998; Mauss 1935). Building on Mauss’s work, LeroiGourhan (1993:228–235) argued that human behavior is made up of operational sequences, or chaîne opératoire. Viewed in this way, technological choices have more to do with social learning and cultural constraints than with technological efficiency or environmental determinism (Sillar and Tite 2000; van der Leeuw 1993). Following this approach, I examine pottery not as static objects but as the result of a sequence of choices that were framed by unique cultural circumstances. There are five stages in the chaîne opératoire of pottery that I investigate: (1) clay acquisition, (2) temper choice and processing techniques, (3) primary forming techniques, (4) shaping and finishing techniques, and (5) firing techniques. Examination of the chaîne opératoire has advantages for the investigation of colonial technology. While Spanish colonists and African slaves brought diverse traditions from their homeland communities, whole cultures never come into direct contact (Foster 1960). Traditions varied between individuals from different communities in Spain and Africa. Technology also changed over time so that African slaves who survived the transatlantic journey in the sixteenth century would have brought different traditions than those who arrived a century later (Hauser and DeCorse 2003; see also Carroll 1991:21–39). Despite dramatic depopulation of Nahua and Totonac communities and policies of congregación (forced resettlement into aggregate communities) in sixteenth-century Veracruz (Cole 2003:76–77; Sluyter 2002:153–159), Native traditions and technologies persisted throughout the colonial period. At the same time, biological and cultural mixing
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between Europeans, Africans, and Native people adds complexity through hybridity of pottery technology found in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Port of Veracruz. Analysis of technology as a sequence of choices allows for a nuanced examination of potential technological transfer and hybridity at each stage of the manufacturing process. In addition, investigating pottery as the outcome of a technological system can highlight the interconnections between choices made at each stage of production. Broadly speaking, Spanish craftsmen introduced the potter’s wheel, glaze recipes, the closed-vault kiln, and different pottery forms. Tableware forms emphasized individual consumption at the Spanish table, such as plates, bowls, and small cups. Forms of crockery served preconceived notions about the appropriate tools for Iberianstyle cooking (Charlton et al. 2007:460; Lister and Lister 1987:216–221). Other new utilitarian forms included candlesticks and chamber pots (Charlton et al. 2007:460). The potter’s wheel required investment in a kick wheel, usually a smaller upper wheel attached by a vertical axle to a large basal disk that was turned by kicking it with the foot (Lister and Lister 1982:81). A potter who used the wheel would require space for their equipment and significant time investment to learn a necessary set of motor habits (Arnold et al. 2007:81). Glazes provided pottery with a glossy and impermeable surface desired by early Spanish colonists (Lister and Lister 1987:216). Tinglazed pottery was imported into the Port of Veracruz, but there is no evidence that it was ever used by artisans in the region. Lead glazing required fine silica sand and lead oxide. Lead bullion was imported cheaply to Veracruz from Spain and, later, from Mexico City (Lister and Lister 1982:81; Wagner 1942:60; see also Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.). Charlton and Fournier García (2010:132) note that highly polished Red Wares also were produced in Spain. A kiln is usually required for glazed pottery to protect the surface coating from contact with the fuel and is advantageous for better control of firing temperature and atmosphere (Rice 1987:155). The introduction of the Spanish closed-vault kiln allowed for higher temperatures (up to 1,300°C) and greater control over the atmosphere and rate of firing (Lister and Lister 1987; McMillen 1983; Rye 1981:100). In central Veracruz, Nahua Totonac and other indigenous artisans better understood the local environment and raw resources for clay and temper. Preconquest
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potters often used molds, or they hand built pots using methods such as coiling (Beauregard García 2007:14; Daneels 1997:244; Kelly and Palerm 1952:217; Noeller 1991:69). Finishing or decorative techniques included red and white slips; red, black, and white paint; smoothing; burnishing; and polishing (Brüggemann et al. 1991; Curet et al. 1994; Daneels 1997:245; Medellin 1960; Stark 1997). Highly polished red slips were related to the Guinda complex, which were often black and / or white painted (Curet et al. 1994; Smith 1990). White-slipped pottery was frequently painted with black and red designs (Medellin 1960). Beginning in the Middle Postclassic (AD 1200– 1350), new pottery forms appear in central Veracruz. Comales (tortilla griddles) become widespread as well as molded deep plates, beakers, jars with handles, and fondo sellado (stamped base) grinding bowls (Curet et al. 1994; Daneels 1997:244–245; Venter 2008:296). Other forms used during the Postclassic period included cylinder vases, pedestaled cups, globular jars, and bowls with tripod supports (Brüggemann et al. 1991; Medellin 1960:124–137). Although Spanish artisans introduced European innovations in kiln technology, circular updraft kilns were used in households and workshops in Veracruz from at least the Late Formative period (ca. 100 BC) (Lister and Lister 1982:80; Pool 1997:151). Comparative technological data from relevant locations and temporal periods in West and Central Africa are insufficient (DeCorse 2001; Hauser and DeCorse 2003:70). Without this data, it is difficult to establish the necessary “shifting baseline” for recognizing technological transfer from Africa to Veracruz (see Silliman 2012:120). This is a problem that has been addressed by Caribbean archaeologists and a brief review highlights issues, potential approaches, and comparative observations. Successful identification of pottery manufactured by African slaves in the Caribbean has been aided by ethnographic research, anecdotal textual accounts (e.g., Hauser 2008:128–130; Hauser and DeCorse 2003:76), and unique historical circumstances combined with archaeological data (e.g., Hauser and DeCorse 2003:76; Smith 1995; see also Weik 2004:35). For example, at sixteenth-century Puerto Real, spatial and temporal analyses demonstrate a correlation between the decline of the indigenous Taino population and their traditional pottery (Smith 1995:368). Simultaneously, new pottery types appeared with the influx of African slaves at the site. In Jamaica, archaeological evidence for manufacture by people of African
descent comes from context of use, such as on plantations (Hauser and DeCorse 2003:79). Pottery produced by African descendants in the Caribbean is frequently grouped into a single “colonoware” tradition, but accumulating evidence shows that this broad category encompasses great variation in technological attributes (see Hauser and DeCorse [2003] for a brief survey of African colonoware in the Caribbean). Superficial similarities are generally limited only to low firing temperatures, often in inconsistent environments. Continuities in vessel form are spatially bound within different locations, such as the eastern Caribbean versus the Hispanic Caribbean (Hauser and DeCorse 2003:71). Hand-forming techniques are frequently used, such as drawing and coiling. Although comparisons with Africa are problematic, ethnographic and archaeological analyses in Ghana find that coiling was used by some potters (DeCorse 2001:118–120). In Barbados and Martinique, archaeological and historical evidence have shown that African slaves were using the wheel to produce pottery used in sugar production and possibly for domestic use (Handler and Wallman 2014:459). In some locations, such as in Jamaica, people of African descent adopted lead glazing (Hauser and DeCorse 2003:75–77, 88). Smoothing, scrapping, burnishing, and red painting and slipping also were common finishing techniques among African descendant potters (Hauser and DeCorse 2003). Slips and paints, burnishing, incising, punctuations, and stamping are among a long inventory of finishing techniques found in West Africa (Hauser and DeCorse 2003:91). This discussion highlights several issues when parsing technological styles in Veracruz. European influence on African potting technology is clear in the Caribbean. In addition, European influence may have begun in the fifteenth century, through trade and colonial relationships in Central and West Africa, before slaves even arrived in New Spain (Carroll 1991:25; DeCorse 2001:116–118). Another issue is an apparent overlap in technologies that developed independently, such as the use of red slips in Spain, Africa, and Mesoamerica. Although similar technologies were used in all three locations, specific methods and tools likely varied in ways that are difficult to discern from small pot sherds. For example, red slips may be prepared and applied using different raw materials and tools (Rye 1981). Therefore, similar techniques should not be understood as necessarily identical. Still, similarities create complexities in identifying the direc-
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods tion of technological transfer. To deal with complexities embedded in technological styles, I follow the lessons learned in the Caribbean by framing interpretations within the historical contexts of pottery consumption and production (Hauser and DeCorse 2003; see also Fournier García and Charlton 2008).
A rcha eologica l Data a n d L a bor atory Methods The Port of Veracruz is located within a basin that is bordered by the Sierra Madre Oriental to the west, the Tuxtla Mountains to the southeast, and the Sierra de Chiconquiaco to the northwest (see Figure 4.1). Three distinct zones characterize the region: piedmont, coastal plain, and sand dunes (Sluyter 1995:69). An alluvial fan from surrounding mountain ranges formed the piedmont. Jurassic and Cretaceous limestone make up the Sierra Madre Oriental, which were uplifted by Tertiary volcanism. Basalts, tuffs, and composite peaks of andesite covered earlier Mesozoic sediment (Sluyter 1995:69). The basin’s piedmont was formed by debris flows and dissecting rivers that redeposited limestone and igneous sediment (Sluyter 1995:70). Later, another layer of igneous sediment was deposited by episodes of volcanic activity during the Quaternary (Sluyter 1995:70). During the Holocene, when sea levels rose and floodplains aggraded, the coastal plain formed east of the piedmont (Sluyter 1995:78). Nueva Veracruz was established within the third zone, a narrow band of transverse dunes that date to the Pleistocene or Holocene, and which separates the coastal plain from the Gulf of Mexico (Sluyter 1995:67). Dunes were formed by eolian processes, as nortes (strong north winds) impacted the region during dry winter months (Sluyter 1995:73). Since no comparable chemical characterization studies have been published for the colonial period near the Port of Veracruz, I collected 12 clay samples from within approximately 50 km of the Port of Veracruz. Examination of clays within the basin provides a general understanding of clay availability. I collected two additional clay samples near Tlacotalpan and Xalapa, even though these locations were more distant from the port, as both towns were known to produce pottery that was likely sold in colonial Veracruz (Mota y Escobar 1987 [1609?]; Paso y Troncoso 1905a; Worth 2009). Clay samples were obtained along three major rivers that dissected the basin: Antigua,
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Jamapa, and Cotaxtla (see Figure 4.1). I also tried to locate clays near colonial towns where pottery may have been manufactured, such as near Tlacotalpan, Xalapa, Villa Rica, Cempoala, La Antigua, and Medellín de Bravo. Ethnographic accounts from the 1950s (Foster 1955) and 1970s (Krotser 1974; Stark 1984) were useful resources for locating and consulting modern potters about local clays. Until recently, colonial archaeology in the Port of Veracruz has been limited mainly to salvage and rescue projects undertaken by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). Judith Hernández Aranda, an archaeologist with Central INAH Veracruz, has conducted historical archaeological investigations on the island of San Juan de Ulúa, as well as several buildings and streets within the port (Hernández Aranda 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006). Because of limited contextual data available for materials recovered through salvage work, I limit my analyses to pottery recovered through controlled excavations conducted in two colonial period neighborhoods in the port as part of the Colonial Connections Project (CCP). In 2008, Judith A. Bense of the University of West Florida and Judith Hernández Aranda conducted four months of excavations within two neighborhoods: the Barrio de Minas and the Barrio de las Californias (Figure 4.2). Archaeologists with CCP excavated 17 units (three 50 × 50 cm, eleven 1 × 1 m, and three 2 × 1 m) in the Barrios de Minas and the Barrios de las Californias. I assigned terminus post quem (TPQ) to stratified middens and features based on pottery with known dates of manufacture or temporal span (Eschbach 2009). In many cases, seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century middens and features were sealed beneath late eighteenth-century floors or demolition debris. CCP excavations reveal the diversity of pottery consumed within the port during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Table 4.1). More than 20,000 ceramic sherds were recovered from colonial contexts. Imports from Europe were most frequent during the seventeenth century. Shipments of majolica and olive jars brought wheel-throwing and glaze technologies into Veracruz. Majolica workshops were established in the Basin of Mexico and Puebla by the mid-sixteenth century (Lister and Lister 1982; Fournier García and Blackman 2008; Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.). These majolica tablewares from New Spain were found in Veracruz from the seventeenth century and mostly replace European
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Figure 4.2. Map showing the locations of modern lots excavated by the CCP in 2008. Map by Krista L. Eschbach.
Table 4.1. Ceramics Recovered by the CCP from Colonial Contexts with a Known TPQ SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Ceramics KNOWN IMPORTS Majolica—New Spain Majolica—Spain Majolica—Plain or Indeterminate Faience Delft Stoneware Creamware Pearlware Chinese Porcelain Spanish Olive Jar Tonalá Bruñida POSSIBLY LOCAL Lead-Glazed Earthenware Plain Coarse Earthenware Red Painted / Slipped Coarse Earthenware White Slipped Coarse Earthenware Black Painted Coarse Earthenware Orange Painted / Slipped or Brown Painted Coarse Earthenware Gray or Brown Slipped Coarse Earthenware Total
Count
EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Count
130 189 97 41 12 0 0 0 18 577 15
4.0 5.7 2.9 1.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 17.5 0.5
1,324 58 1,043 7 13 7 0 0 71 551 148
9.5 0.4 7.5 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.5 4.0 1.1
531 1,491 150 15 0 22
16.1 45.3 4.6 0.5 0.0 0.7
5,202 4,652 632 51 8 134
3 3,291
0.1 100
0 13,901
imports by the early eighteenth century. Glazed and unglazed Spanish olive jar also substantially decreases by the early eighteenth century. The remaining plain, leadglazed, and painted / slipped pottery were of unknown origin, but it was suspected that at least some of these wares were of local or regional manufacture. Because little is
L ATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Count
TOTAL
Count
192 14 512 1 7 6 28 1 35 124 14
6.6 0.5 17.7 0.0 0.2 0.2 1.0 0.0 1.2 4.3 0.5
1,646 261 1,652 49 32 13 28 1 124 1,252 177
8.2 1.3 8.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.6 6.2 0.9
37.4 33.5 4.5 0.4 0.1 1.0
954 881 104 14 0 6
33.0 30.4 3.6 0.5 0.0 0.2
6,685 7,024 886 80 8 162
33.3 35.0 4.4 0.4 0.0 0.8
0.0 100
1 2,894
0.0 100
4 20,086
0.0 100
known about these pottery categories for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Veracruz, I focus on these wares for provenance and technological style analyses. Analytical methods chosen for this research include a macroscopic inspection of a stratified random sample of approximately 200 sherds each from seventeenth-, early
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods
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Table 4.2. Technological Attributes Documented by Macroscopic Analysis and the Stages of Manufacture Elucidated AT TRIBUTES
SOME SHERDS Rim Form Rim Diameter Base Form Vessel Form ALL SHERDS Interior and Exterior Surface Colors Paste Colors Inclusion Type Inclusion Size and Density Interior and Exterior Surface Treatment Interior and Exterior Surface Texture Interior and Exterior Surface Topography Sidewall Thickness Fractures / Cracks Firing Core Fire Clouding Soot
VESSEL FORM / FUNCTION
CL AY ACQUISITION
TEMPER CHOICE AND PROCESSING
x x x x
PRIMARY FORMING
SHAPING AND FINISHING
FIRING TECHNIQUE
c c x x x x
x x x x
c x/r x
x/r
x x x x x x
Source: Eschbach 2018 Note: x = attribute informs on stage of manufacture; c= constrains other choices; r= removes evidence of choice at prior stage
eighteenth-, and late eighteenth-century contexts (n = 607 total). The proportion of pottery categories were sampled so that they were equal to the proportions in the total assemblage recovered from each context. The goal of the macroscopic analysis was to examine attributes that together would elucidate every stage of the chaîne opératoire. For this purpose, as many as 16 attributes were recorded for every pottery sherd selected during initial sampling procedures (Table 4.2). A representative sample of these sherds (n = 203) and all 14 clay samples were further analyzed using in-vacuum proton-induced X-ray emission spectrometry (PIXE) on >1 g samples in order to approximate the origin of raw material procurement. All surfaces of each sherd were removed before sherds and clay were separately homogenized in an alumina ball mill and pressed into pellets. PIXE analysis was undertaken at the Ion Beam Facility at the LeRoy Eyring Center for Solid State Science, Arizona State University. Low Energy PIXE (~0.5nA) allowed for the analysis of 15 light elements (Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Cl,
K, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, and Fe). High energy (~10nA) allowed for the analysis of an additional 12 heavier elements (Zn, Ga, Ge, As, Se, Br, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, Mo, and Pb). For statistical purposes, sodium was removed due to its low analytical precision, and lead was removed as it was only found in sherds that were lead glazed and is, therefore, interpreted as a contaminate. Other elements were removed because they were below the level of detection for a large number of samples. For the statistical analyses presented in this chapter, I transformed the remaining raw concentrations of eight elements (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Fe, and Sr) to base-10 logarithms in order to roughly equalize the variances for all elements (Bishop and Neff 1989).
V er acruz Port, People, a n d Pottery Although the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés landed in Veracruz in 1519, it was not until 80 years later
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that the city was officially established in its present location. Originally, Veracruz was established at Villa Rica, approximately 65 km to the north. For environmental, defensive, and economic reasons, Cortés moved Veracruz to La Antigua in 1525. Finally, in 1599, the Count of Monterrey transferred the port to its present location at Nueva Veracruz (Blázquez Domínguez and Díaz Cházaro 1999; Gerhard 1972:360–365; Santiago Cruz 1966:9). The port’s final location is adjacent to the island of San Juan de Ulúa, which has the best anchorage along the Gulf Coast of central Veracruz (Santiago Cruz 1966:9). This study focuses on this final location of the port during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Veracruz is of historical importance, not only as a landing site of Cortés but also as the principal colonial port for transatlantic trade. From the earliest years of the conquest, the Port of Veracruz served as a central gateway for European and African people and technology entering New Spain. Until 1778, the city of Veracruz was one of only four legal ports linking Spain to its mainland American colonies. A network of roads further connected Veracruz to major colonial cities, resulting in the availability of diverse Native, European, and Asian traditions and technologies (Eschbach 2009; Fournier García 1999; Haring 1947; Hernández Aranda 2006; McMillen 1983; Rees 1975; Walker 1979). This network linked the flow of people, raw resources, and manufactured goods from the Pacific, New Spain, the Caribbean, and Europe. At its final location, Veracruz became one of the most economically important port cities of New Spain (Booker 1984; Chaunú 1960). The Spanish Crown sought to maintain a monopoly over colonial commerce and established institutions and laws to protect their investments. Between 1564 and 1778, laws restricted all Atlantic trade to Seville (and later Cadiz) in Spain and to Veracruz in New Spain, Cartagena in New Granada, and Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama (Booker 1984; Haring 1947; MacLeod 1984; Walker 1979). Initially a sparsely populated settlement in an environmentally unfavorable location, the port grew rapidly. The Spanish Crown established the flota (fleet) system in 1563, and roads developed between the port and the interior throughout the sixteenth century. The northwest road connected Veracruz to Xalapa and Mexico City (Booker 1984:13–16; Cole 2003:60–67). Manufactured goods arrived through the annual flota system and were sold in great markets (trade fairs) beginning in 1587. The Spanish Crown transferred the trade fair from Veracruz
to Xalapa in 1718, leading to the increasing commercial importance of the latter city (Carrera Stampa 1953). The port was an important gateway, not only for commercial goods but also people. During the late sixteenth century, the mainland across from the island of Ulúa was referred to as the Ventas de Buitrón. There, a few inns and their residents met the needs of arriving mariners (Blázquez Domínguez and Díaz Cházaro 1999). Reports indicate that there also were 600 black slaves, some mulattos, and a few Spaniards living on Ulúa between 1570 and 1571. During the same period, 200 Spanish and mestizo residents and 600 black slaves resided at La Antigua (Gerhard 1972:361, 365). Beginning in 1599, most of the inhabitants of La Antigua migrated to Buitrón, establishing the final location of the port at Nueva Veracruz (Gerhard 1972:361, 365). A census taken in 1754 reported 2,751 “Spaniards” and 3,065 castas (people of mixed descent) (Gerhard 1972:361, 365). Almost four decades later, approximately 4,000 individuals were living within the town walls (González Maroño 2004:53). The Revillagigedo census of 1791 reports that only about a third of these inhabitants were españoles. Most individuals in the census were described as individuals of mixed ancestry, particularly pardos, mulatos, and morenos. There also were some mestizos, negros, unspecified indios, and chinos (Blázquez Domínguez 1996; Gil Maroño 1996; Hernández Aranda 2006). The population of the port reflected larger demographic trends in the basin of Veracruz. At the same time that European and African people were entering through the port, regional Native populations were declining (Siemens 1998:107–108). Although indigenous populations were not homogenous, at the time of contact, Nahuatl-speaking people roughly occupied central Veracruz south of Cempoala. Totonac-speaking Natives occupied adjacent lands to the north (Gerhard 1972:365). After an outbreak of smallpox in 1520, the population of Cempoala declined from more than 20,000 tributaries (married Native men) to only 20 tributaries 10 years later (Gerhard 1972:365). Similar declines in Native tributaries were recorded in tribute assessments throughout central Veracruz and depopulation was exacerbated by later outbreaks of measles, typhus, and other unknown diseases (Gerhard 1972:365; Sluyter 2002:153–159). Siemens (1998:107) and Sluyter (2002:153) estimate that more than 90 of Native populations in this region had disappeared by 1580. In the mid- and late sixteenth century, civil authorities
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods undertook two phases of congregación to resettle and consolidate scattered Native populations into new communities that fit the Spanish organizational ideal (Cole 2003:85). Many of the new Native communities were established along royal roads and provided needed services to merchants, muleteers, and other travelers (Cole 2003:117). Following population declines and congregación, by the end of the sixteenth century, at least onequarter of the lands of central Veracruz were in the hands of Spanish settlers (Carrol 1991; Gerhard 1972). The decline in the indigenous populations led to the increasing demand for both skilled and unskilled African slaves (Aguirre Beltrán 1944, 1946; Carroll 1991). The African descendant population grew as a result of the slave trade. There is little documentation for the importation of slaves during the sixteenth century, but based on census data and chronicler accounts, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (1944:414) argues that Africans certainly outnumbered Europeans during the first century after the conquest. An average of 2,000 slaves entered the port annually between 1580 and 1650 (Aguirre Beltrán 1944, 1946). In 1600, Spain granted the Portuguese licenses to import 3,500 slaves to the port annually (Aguirre Beltrán 1944:416; Booker 1984:19). This number dropped to 2,500 slaves per year in 1631 until Spain stopped issuing contracts to the Portuguese in 1640 (Aguirre Beltrán 1944:419). The number of slaves legally traded through the port declined in the late seventeenth century. This downward trend continued in the eighteenth century, despite Spain’s contract with Britain’s South Sea Trading Company in 1713 (Aguirre Beltrán 1944:429). Many Africans did not stay in the port but were transported to locations throughout New Spain. Those who remained defined the demographic character of central Veracruz (Booker 1984; Carroll 1991). Only one-third of African slaves were female, leaving male slaves to seek relations with European, Native, and casta women (Cardoso 1983:26; Carroll 1991:90–91). These relations were particularly desired by slaves because they provided an avenue for securing the legal freedom of their children (Carroll 1991:90). Although Natives and Europeans often shunned relationships with people of African ancestry, over time intermarriage and illicit sexual relations led to an increasing number of Afromestizos in central Veracruz (Carroll 1991:90–91). The regional decline of Totonac and Nahua populations and influx of African slaves shaped the demographics of
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the Port of Veracruz and the two neighborhoods that are the subject of my study. The Barrio de Minas was located just inside the western wall of the port city and was a lowsocioeconomic neighborhood occupied by a large number of people of mixed African descent (Eschbach 2009; Hernández Aranda 2006). In the 1760s, a military hospital was constructed in the Barrio de Minas. Prior to the hospital’s construction, master masons and carpenters appraised 19 houses scheduled for removal from the construction site. These appraisals describe poor wooden structures, some valued as low as eight pesos (Hernández Aranda 2005). The Revillagigedo census of 1791 describes the western quarter of the port, including the Barrios de Minas, as made up of mostly pardos and morenos, as well as some mestizos and indios. Only a quarter of the individuals were described as españoles. An uncertain number of these Spaniards actually were located outside the Barrios de Minas in what might have been a wealthier neighborhood, adjacent to the central quarter of the city (Blázquez Domínguez 1996; Gil Maroño 1996; Hernández Aranda 2006). Less historical data are available for the Barrio de las Californias during the colonial period. This neighborhood was located outside the west wall of the city. Populations outside the wall are generally described as low status with large numbers of mulatos, negros, and some Native peoples (Hernández Aranda 2006; Juárez Hernández 2001). During the last decade of the eighteenth century, in the city quarter that included the Barrios de Minas, some Afromestizos worked as domestic servants, porters, and cooks. Spanish residents were servants, cobblers, merchants, and doctors. In this area, there also were some Spanish and mestizo storeowners living above their businesses (Blázquez Domínguez 1996; Gil Maroño 1996; Hernández Aranda 2006). The Afromestizos residing outside the wall worked as servants and dockworkers within the port (Hernández Aranda 2006). As yet, I have been unable to locate any mention of potters within the port itself. This does not mean that potters did not exist, however. In general, I have only seen anecdotal references to potters near Xalapa in the eighteenth century and Tlacotalpan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pottery production near Xalapa is poorly described but apparently was manufactured there for regional distribution and export to Veracruz, Havana, and the West Indies (Blázquez Domínguez 2000:105; Chávez Orozco and
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Florescano 1988:79). The estate papers for Domingo Miro, a shop owner within the port, includes several entries for pottery: Fifteen and a half dozen of ceramics from Xalapa at one peso per dozen, amounting to fifteen pesos and four reales. . . . Sixteen large service pieces at three reales each, amounting to six pesos. . . . Thirty-one dozen of middling ceramics from Puebla at four reales each dozen, amounting to fifteen pesos, four reales. . . . Five dozen jugs (bucaros) at a peso each dozen, amounting to five pesos (Worth 2009:43). The Relación de Tlacotalpan (Paso y Troncoso 1905a) and the bishop Alonso de la Mota y Escobar (1987 [1609?]) both describe a thriving potting industry in Tlacotalpan during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Native potters manufactured all manner of wares for use and sale to surrounding villages as far as 8 or 10 leagues away (approximately 45–55 km). These wares could have reached the Port of Veracruz, located approximately 80 km to the northwest of Tlacotalpan. Pottery workshops near Xalapa and in Tlacotalpan were documented ethnographically in the late twentieth century, but any continuity between the colonial period and modern industries is uncertain (Krotser 1974; Stark 1984). Historians Luis Chávez Orozco and Enrique Florescano (1988) argue that craft industries were underdeveloped in the province of Veracruz due to indigenous population declines in the sixteenth century and weak urban growth. Native craft production was largely limited to household production for local consumption or for trade for manufactured goods, such as textiles from Puebla. The location of many Native communities on or near royal roads brought indigenous people into the colonial economy (Cole 2003:117). Trade along the roads to Veracruz could have facilitated the sale of household crafts in the Veracruz market. Artisan industries improved during the late eighteenth century when sugar production reached its peak. Pottery production was commonly associated with sugar haciendas and mills in Veracruz. Cortés established the first sugar haciendas in the Tuxtla Mountains of Veracruz by 1524 (Cardoso 1983:23–24). Recognizing the economic potential of the sugarcane industry, the Spanish Crown encouraged land grants for this purpose. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, there were multiple sugar mills in the jurisdiction of Orizaba, Tuxpan, Xalapa, and
Cordoba (Cardoso 1983:24). Due to the depopulation of Natives in the region, beginning in 1596, a series of royal decrees restricted the use of Indian labor in sugar mills. By 1601, Phillip III prohibited Native labor in any hacienda activity (Cardoso 1983:27). African slaves and their descendants replaced Native labor in the cane fields and mills (see Sampeck [this vol.] for similar protective policies involving Native laborers in indigo factories and their possible replacement with mestizos and people of African descent). Sugar mills required skilled mestizos, mulatos, and African laborers to manufacture tools for the sugar industry. Specialists included blacksmiths, carpenters, leather tanners, and potters (Cardoso 1983:28; Carroll 1991:62; García Ruiz and López Romero 2011:135). Skilled laborers, including slaves, received bonuses and special treatment, which encouraged individuals to learn a skill, including pottery manufacture (Cardoso 1983:28, 30). Wage laborers and slaves also could use their potting skills to produce ceramics for the Spanish market. It was not unusual for slaves to earn money for their owners or themselves with work outside the hacienda (Carroll 1991:110; Landers 1997). Trade within the region could have brought Native, Afromestizo, and other casta-made pottery into the port. Veracruz was dependent on trade with other towns to meet the needs of the city’s market (García Ruiz and López Romero 2011:138–139; Hernández Aranda 2009). Agriculture and livestock ranches were the main economic activity in the province of Veracruz. Crops included maize, beans, squash, tomatoes, apples, oranges, and avocados that supplied Native, Spanish, African, and casta subsistence (García Ruiz and López Romero 2011). Trade in food, pottery, and other products both within and between regions developed along the busiest roads (García Ruiz and López Romero 2011; Rees 1975, 1988). Regional and interregional trade brought products to shops and markets in the Port of Veracruz, such as Domingo Miro’s grocery store or commercial stands rented at the Plazuela del Maíz (Worth 2009).
Technologica l Choices of Centr a l V er acruz Potters Ceramic technology was introduced to Veracruz through transatlantic trade with Spain and through interregional trade with major urban centers, such as Mexico City and Puebla. Regional trade and local production brought
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods Spanish, Native, and potentially, African pottery traditions into the port. Though pottery production in Veracruz is rarely described in historical sources, archaeological analysis of pottery recovered by the CCP provides insights into both the introduction of ceramic technologies from outside the region as well as regional and local production and consumption. Pottery analysis supports historical accounts that pottery from Xalapa, Tlacotalpan, and other communities in the region supplied the port with pottery. Archaeological evidence also suggests that potters at or near the port were supplying the city’s markets. Three broad categories of earthenware pottery were analyzed because they were of potential local or regional manufacture: slipped / painted (n = 57), lead-glazed (n = 227), and plain vessels (n = 323) (Figure 4.3). Identifiable lead-glazed vessel forms included both tableware (cups, plates, and bowls) and utilitarian forms (basins, bowls, and a jar). Chemical analysis suggests that most glazed vessels in the seventeenth century were
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produced using clays collected near the Jamapa River. Vessels were generally wheel thrown, although some were mold-made. Most lead-glazed vessels were fired in wellcontrolled conditions. Production near the Jamapa River continued into the eighteenth century using similar technological styles, but an additional source, possibly from outside the region, also began to supply the port with lead-glazed pottery. This additional source might explain the increased proportion of lead-glazed wares, which nearly doubled during the eighteenth century. Most white-slipped pottery is utilitarian, but only comales were clearly identifiable by form. White-slipped pottery was recovered from both seventeenth- and eighteenth-century contexts. Based on compositional analysis of a small sample, white-slipped pottery was largely imported from north of the port, using clays similar to those collected near Cempoala and Villa Rica. Molding techniques were likely used as the primary forming technique. The slipped surfaces of comales were
Figure 4.3. Examples of colonial ceramics analyzed: (a) red-slipped plate rim, (b) white-slipped comal rim, (c) orange painted vessel, (d) lead-glazed bowl rim, (e) plain jar rim. Photos by Krista L. Eschbach.
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occasionally burnished, albeit poorly, and bases were typically roughened. Although inferences drawn from cooking vessels can be problematic, firing conditions appeared to be inconsistent but mostly oxidizing. Red-slipped and painted pottery included bowls, a jar, and a single plate. Slips and paints were either added to both surfaces or only to the most visible side of the vessel. Red colorant was more common than white slips, and red-slipped and painted vessels were recovered from all colonial periods. These wares seem to have been produced in several locations in Veracruz, but many were similar to clays collected from the Veracruz piedmont. Several red-slipped and painted pots were mold-made, and most were fired under well-controlled conditions. Calcareous inclusions within the paste of at least some of these vessels would require low firing temperatures. Plainware vessel forms were mostly utilitarian, including jars, bowls, basins, comales, and a molcajete (grinding bowl). A single cup was the only identifiable plain tableware, although some of the bowls and fine water jars also may have been used as serving vessels. It seems that potters in many locations supplied plain pottery to the port, particularly potters near Tlacotalpan, Villa Rica, Cempoala, and Tepetates. Many plainwares were manufactured using a mold, but hand-forming and coiling techniques also were documented. An exception was water jars that were made from fine buff clays and were wheel thrown. Most plainwares were fired under well-controlled conditions, but often pots were not fired long enough or at a high enough temperature to burn off all carbon in the clay. In the following sections, I discuss in detail the technological choices made at each stage of the chaîne opératoire for lead-glazed, slipped / painted, and plain earthenwares.
Clay Acquisition In his survey of 111 ethnographic cases, Arnold (1980:149, 1985:39–49) found that while potters did not travel more than 50 km, most craftsmen (84) traveled less than 7 km to obtain clay. In central Veracruz, potters in Tlacotalpan used raw clay located only about 1 km downriver (Stark 1984:8), and potters in San Miguel de Aguazuelos used horses to transport clay from approximately 4 km away (Krotser 1974:135). Colonial potters also probably used clays that were located near their homes or workshops. Analysis of clay procurement provides not only
information about technological styles but also the approximate location of clay sources. Pottery provenance was approximated using PIXE for a representative sample of 203 pottery sherds and 14 clay samples. Initial chemical groups were identified using a combination of Ward’s hierarchal cluster analysis, k-means non-hierarchal cluster analysis, and principal components analysis of log-transformed elemental concentrations. From these analyses, I identified seven compositional groups, which I then evaluated using Hotelling’s T statistic based on jackknifed Mahalanobis distances (see Neff 2002). Samples with low probability of group membership or possible membership in multiple groups were removed and left unassigned. The resulting “core groups” are analytically distinct and most likely to approximate geographical zones of production (Duff 2002:103). The formation of these core groups required the removal of 39 of pottery and clay samples. This is not unusual for conservative methods (Neff 2002:33–34). There are other statistical methods for potentially reassigning additional samples as non-core group members (see Duff 2002:103–105; see also Eschbach 2018; Peeples 2011:114–117), but for the current discussion, I am only considering core groups with the highest statistical probability for group membership. A downside of this strategy is that the sample size is small, particularly within individual groups. All patterns that link discrete technological choices with geographical locations should be considered preliminary. The seven core groups are made up of 125 pottery sherds and seven clay samples, shown in a bivariate plot of the first two principal components (Figure 4.4). Calcium contributed most of the variance to the first principal component. While calcium-rich inclusions were identified for some of these sherds, they were not consistently found in pottery with high bulk concentrations of calcium. In addition, similarly high concentrations of calcium are found in raw clay samples. High concentrations of calcium (~30 CaO) are found in clays recovered from high elevations near Xalapa. Calcium was even higher in a clay sample recovered from the piedmont (~52 CaO) and may be the result of calcium leaching or alluvium from uplifted limestone (see Sluyter 1995:71, 114–115). In clays collected from lower coastal plains, calcium drops significantly to less than 10 CaO. While the number of clay samples is quite modest, this pattern may suggest a gradation in calcium concentrations between higher
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Figure 4.4. Biplot of first two principal components showing the seven core groups. Chart by Krista L. Eschbach.
elevations and the piedmont and from the piedmont toward the coastal plains. The second principal component primarily represents variations in potassium, magnesium, and iron, which may be useful for discriminating between samples from different river drainages. Future sampling of pottery and clay from central Veracruz will help determine how well geological and physiographic zones can be chemically differentiated. Five core pottery groups include clay samples, suggesting an approximate location of pottery manufacture near the Jamapa River, Villa Rica, Cempoala, Tlacotalpan, and Tepetates (near Xalapa; see Figures 4.1 and 4.4). All five of these core groups include pottery recovered from contexts dating from the seventeenth through the late eighteenth centuries. Four of the core groups include only one clay sample each. The Jamapa River group includes all three clays that were collected along that river. Today, the mouth of the Jamapa is located approximately 10 km south of the colonial port, and thus clay in this general area was a potential clay source for potters living and working within the port itself. There also were a number of small colonial towns located along the Jamapa, where potters could have made ceramics for sale in the port’s markets. Chemical data are consistent with historical accounts that artisans along the Papaloapan River, near Tlacotalpan, supplied the port with wares throughout the colonial period. These data also support historical evidence that pottery produced near Xalapa was shipped to Veracruz for sale in the city’s shops and markets. Pottery produced near Cempoala and Villa Rica supplied the port as well. Although group sample sizes are small, it is interesting to
note that most pottery associated with the Villa Rica clay sample (14 of 20 sherds) was recovered from seventeenthcentury contexts. Villa Rica was the first location of the town of Veracruz. The two remaining core groups were not clearly associated with a clay sample. If requirements for group membership are relaxed, however, a single clay from the piedmont, collected near Acazonica, is loosely associated with one of these groups. This group is made up of pottery with some calcareous inclusions. These inclusions would contribute to the calcium enrichment of the pottery paste. It is noteworthy that some of the clay samples, such as the one from Acazonica, also were calcium rich, and it is possible that the calcareous particles in the pottery paste were natural inclusions within the clay. The final pottery group was not associated with any of the clay samples. Because the number of clays tested were relatively small, it is highly unlikely that they represent the total chemical variability within the region. The pottery in this last group could come from central Veracruz or could represent long-distance imports. Pottery in this core group is lead glazed and does not appear in the port until the early eighteenth century. Given the rapid decline of pottery from Europe during this period, I suggest that these wares were of American origin, possibly traded along the royal roads from central Mexico. For convenience, I refer to core groups based on the location where I collected associated clay samples. These were not necessarily the specific clay deposits used by colonial potters, however. Because of natural variation in clay deposits, as well as processing techniques used by
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potters, compositional groups represent a range of variability within geographic zones of production. At the time of the conquest, Native peoples had the best knowledge of the local environment and the location of resources necessary for the production of pottery. However, this does not mean that Native choices in raw materials were considered the most favorable by European and African settlers. As Rye (1981) has cautioned, choice in raw materials is shaped by a variety of cultural factors, as well as desired aesthetic appearance, form, and function of the final product. Even if it were possible to transfer whole technological styles from Europe or Africa, resource procurement would still require some adaptation to local raw materials (Rice 1987:460–463). This likely meant periods of experimentation both with clay and preparation procedures.
Temper Choice and Processing Before clays can be formed into useful vessels, potters often employ procedures to prepare clays. Gravel and organics can be removed by hand. Fine clay can be separated from excessive amounts of coarse sand through levigation. Many potters have been known to mix clays from different sources in order to obtain a desired result. In other cases, nonplastic tempers are added to improve clay workability and vessel performance. Selection of temper often is restricted by tradition, locally available resources, natural characteristics of local clays, environment, and functional considerations (Rice 1987; Rye 1981; Shepard 1965:26–31). Preparation procedures were assessed through the macroscopic inspection of 607 sherds. For each sherd, a freshly broken cross section was examined using a 10x hand lens. Several types of nonplastics were observed, and grain size was estimated based on the Wentworth scale with the aid of a sand-gauge (©1984 W. F. McCollough). Very fine to medium grain sand was observed for most sherds, but it was the primary inclusion in 66 of the sample. Coarse to very coarse sand was present in 28 of sherds, and shell or other calcareous particles were identified in approximately 6 of the pottery sample. Sand has been observed in both precolonial and European imports and thus is not a clear indicator of technological change. Adding shell and other calcareous particles to clays could be a local adaption. Krotser (1974:138), for example, has observed modern potters adding crushed calcite to clays at Atlahuilco, a town located 35 km southwest of Cordoba.
While most pottery with calcareous particles were found in the compositional group loosely associated with the Acazonica clay, shell and other calcareous inclusions also were observed in rare sherds from most compositional groups. Density of nonplastics was estimated using particle size and density charts (Rice 1987:349). Particle densities ranged from nearly temperless to more than 20 of sherd volume, but in most cases (86 of the total sample), the density of inclusions was 5 or less. Density and size of inclusions may help in checking primary forming techniques (Rye 1981:61).
Primary Forming Techniques Primary forming techniques can leave behind physical traces for archaeologists to interpret. A growing a number of ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological investigations have documented physical correlates of primary forming techniques (e.g., Arnold 1991; Foster 1955; Peelo 2011; Rye 1981; Shepard 1965; Stark 1984). I have combined this information with my own observations among modern potters in Veracruz to develop a comprehensive list of macroscopic attributes for interpreting forming techniques (Table 4.3). “Anvil molded” is a term that I employ to describe a specific forming technique used by modern potters in Veracruz and other locations in Mexico (Foster 1955; Stark 1984). This method involves pounding out a lump of clay into a tortilla-shaped disk using a stone anvil. The clay is then pressed over or within a mold. This technique can leave traces of the anvil on one side of the pot and may result in laminar fractures typical of some slab building techniques (see Rye 1981:72). I analyzed each sherd for characteristic cracks and fractures, surface textures (interior and exterior), and variability in wall thickness. Type, size, and density of temper were also useful in making interpretations. For example, sherds with abundant very coarse sand were probably not wheel thrown, as the many large particles would harm the potter’s hands. It is important to remember that potters can use multiple forming techniques to construct a single pot. For instance, the base may be formed using a mold and then the rest of the body is coiled upward to the rim. Some evidence of pottery construction is obliterated by later shaping or finishing techniques (e.g., burnishing or glazing). In addition, some evidence is ambiguous without a rim, base, or some other indication about the direction of visible striations. Despite these issues, I identified the specific construction techniques
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Table 4.3. Macroscopic Attributes for Inferring Primary Forming Techniques based on Experimental Archaeology and Ethnographic Research PRIMARY FORMING TECHNIQUES Coiled
Drawn or Hand Formed Mold-Made
Anvil Molded
Wheel Thrown
MACROSCOPIC AT TRIBUTES Variable wall thickness Distinctive fractures: step-like or parallel, cubic facets Unobliterated coils on the exterior and interior surface of the vessel Sherd edges are irregular and meandering Finger grooves on the interior surface Uniform surface texture, except for raised or recess areas on mold side Other side is uneven and shows method used for pressing Mold side may have remnants of “parting material” embedded in surface Join seams apparent on surface Same characteristics as other molded pottery Laminar fractures Anvil impressions on interior or exterior surface Uniform horizontal wall thickness Laminar fractures Horizontal, fine continuous ridges / grooves particularly on interior and possibly exterior surfaces “Turning” spiral facets on the exterior (from trimming on a wheel) Few voids and few >2–3 mm aplastic inclusions Flat base or flat with foot ring S-shaped crack on the base Spiral pattern on base
Sources: Eschbach 2018; Foster 1955; Peelo 2011; Rye 1981; Stark 1984
identified and appears to have been manufactured throughout central Veracruz. Wheel-thrown pottery was the second most frequent, but the use of the wheel may have been more restricted in geographical location. The number of wheel-thrown pottery sherds that were assigned to core chemical groups was small, but nearly half were assigned to a group that did not include any Veracruz clays (7 of 17 wheel-thrown sherds). An equivalent number of wheel-thrown sherds were associated with clays from the Jamapa River.
Shaping and Finishing Techniques Figure 4.5. Identifiable primary forming techniques for plain, lead-glazed, and painted / slipped sherds. Chart by Krista L. Eschbach.
for 218 sherds, including pottery that was mold-made (or anvil molded), wheel thrown, drawn or hand formed, and coiled (Figure 4.5). Residents of Veracruz consumed pottery manufactured by each of these techniques throughout the colonial period. Mold-made pottery was the most frequently
Shaping (secondary forming) and finishing (surface modifications or additions) have different goals, but I consider these stages together as there is overlap in procedures and material evidence left on the sherds. During secondary forming, the shape of the vessel with appropriate wall thickness and proportions is achieved. Common techniques include beating with a paddle and anvil, scraping, smoothing, and trimming (Rye 1981:62). The goal of finishing techniques is to modify surface texture and improve the aesthetic or functional quality of the pottery. Finishing procedures may include modification to the
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Figure 4.6. Identifiable shaping and finishing techniques for plain, lead-glazed, and painted / slipped sherds. Evidence of more than one type of shaping or finishing technique was typically documented for each sherd. Chart by Krista L. Eschbach.
pottery’s existing surface (e.g., scraping, smoothing, or burnishing) or adding material to the surface (e.g., paints, slips, or glazes) (Rye 1981:62). In Veracruz, shaping and finishing techniques that modified, but did not add to, the surface of pottery included scraping or trimming, smoothing, and burnishing (Figure 4.6). Smoothing was the most common technique and was used on both interior and exterior surfaces. Scraping and trimming also were common, most often on exterior surfaces. These techniques involve a rigid tool to remove excess clay when the pot is leather hard (Rye 1981:86–87). Burnishing was uncommon, but when used, it typically occurred in conjunction with painted or slipped pottery. Finishing techniques that utilize additives are the most easily recognizable attribute of pottery sherds. In Veracruz, red (and a few orange) slips or paints were generally added to both surfaces or to the most visible surface of the vessel. Less than half of the slipped / painted sherds were burnished, although not highly polished like some prehispanic types. White slip was rare and was added to the interior surfaces of utilitarian vessels. The slipped surfaces of comales were sometimes poorly burnished. Glaze was the most visible European contribution to potting traditions in Veracruz. Lead glazes were not only aesthetic
additions but also functional. When applied to the interior of vessels, glaze served as a sealant for porous vessels meant to store liquids and made for easier cleaning. Leadglazed pottery in the Veracruz sample was consistently glazed on the interior of vessels, suggesting that the glaze served a functional purpose. Painted and slipped wares were recovered consistently, although in low proportions, from all colonial periods. In contrast, lead-glazed pottery doubled in proportion from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century (from 16 to more than 30 of all ceramics). The increase in leadglazed wares may be due to a new source supplying the port in the eighteenth century. Lead-glazed vessels recovered from seventeenth-century contexts were chemically similar to Veracruz clays, particularly those collected along the Jamapa River. It seems that potters near the Jamapa River continued to make glazed pottery in the eighteenth century, but an additional source appears that is not associated with any of the Veracruz clays. White-slipped pottery also seemed to originate from a limited number of sources. Most were chemically similar to clays recovered north of the port near Cempoala or Villa Rica. In contrast, red-slipped and painted pottery fell into several core chemical groups, but more than half was somewhat similar in chemical composition to clay collected near Acazonica.
Firing Techniques Variation in color on the surface or cross section of pottery sherds provides clues about firing methods. For example, variation in surface color (fire clouding) suggests a differential firing atmosphere (Rye 1981:120). This correlation should be used cautiously, however, as cooking vessels may develop fire clouding during post-firing usage. Another indication of firing atmosphere and cooling rate is the distinct firing core visible within a sherd’s cross section. There are three types of firing atmospheres, which directly relate to the ratio of fuel to oxygen (Shepard 1965:214–215). Excess oxygen generates an oxidizing atmosphere that burns out any organic matter in the pottery paste. Iron oxides are then brought to their highest state of oxidation. If enough iron is present in the paste, the result is a red color. If iron is absent, paste colors are buff or white. Depriving the fuel of oxygen during firing prevents complete combustion and results in a reducing
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods atmosphere. Under these conditions, carbons in the paste will not burn off and irons may be reduced to a lower state. The result is black or gray colors, depending on the amount of organics and iron present. If smoke is produced during firing, soot may be deposited on the pot’s surface resulting in “smudging” or a black appearance. Alternately, if just enough oxygen is produced to reach complete combustion, a neutral environment is achieved (Shepard 1965:214–215). I analyzed the cross sections of pottery sherds to determine firing atmosphere and possible rate of cooling. Rye (1981:114–118) describes distinct firing cores, which correlate with firing conditions and cooling rates. Because using vessels for cooking can leave carbon deposition that is not related to the original firing atmosphere (see Skibo 1992:145–171), I removed from the analysis sherds with surface soot residue and vessel forms that were used for cooking. Most of the pottery analyzed was fully oxidized with a bright uniform color throughout the sherd’s cross section (Figure 4.7). This pattern was particularly characteristic of lead-glazed and red painted vessels. These sherds may lack a dark core because all organics were burned out or because organics were not originally present. In either case, an oxidizing atmosphere is indicated. In contrast, most plain vessels were only partially oxidized. Partial oxidation is indicated by a dark core with diffuse borders— reflecting an oxidizing atmosphere—but the temperature
69
or duration of firing was insufficient for burning off all organics that were originally present in the clay. The diffused border between the dark core and oxidized surface suggests the pot was cooled slowly in the air. Either a kiln or an open fire can produce this pattern, but I documented fire clouding only occasionally, reflecting a wellcontrolled atmosphere. Pottery fired under poorly controlled conditions was generally less common. Evidence of a reducing atmosphere often co-occurred with fire clouding. Fully reduced sherds had black or gray paste throughout the cross section. Partially reduced sherds had bright colors in the center and blackened paste near both surfaces. A small number of sherds were partially oxidized only on the surface, but with sharp core boundaries, indicating a reducing environment and rapid cooling in the air. This pattern is associated with open firing techniques (Rye 1981:116– 118). Pottery that varied in oxidized and reduced colors between the interior and exterior could suggest partial contact with the flame, exposure to differential firing temperatures or atmospheres, smudging, or post-firing usage (Rye 1981:115–116). As noted by Rye (1981:116), oxidized pottery could have been blackened on the exterior by smoke and reducing gases during cooking. Similarly, cross sections that reveal blackened interiors and oxidized exteriors can be caused by charred food remains penetrating the interior surface (Rye 1981:57; Skibo 1992:148) or from other post-firing alterations. It is, therefore, problematic to infer firing conditions from these sherds.
Discussion
Figure 4.7. Identifiable firing atmosphere for plain, leadglazed, and painted / slipped sherds. Chart by Krista L. Eschbach.
Imported ceramics found in the Afromestizo neighborhoods of the Port of Veracruz reflect the larger economic system in which the port was situated. The CCP recovered olive jar and some European tablewares from seventeenth-century contexts. The former largely disappeared and the latter was mostly replaced in the eighteenth century with Spanish-style majolica produced in central Mexico. Small amounts of Chinese porcelain likewise made their way into Afromestizo households throughout the colonial period. Yet, despite the port’s importance to international trade, most pottery was manufactured regionally in central Veracruz. Although the sample size for the provenance study is small, most of the pottery assigned to core groups are associated with clays
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collected in Veracruz, supporting scant historical references to pottery manufacture within the region. The technological choices made by potters in central Veracruz reflect the influence of Native and European technologies. The potter’s wheel and lead glaze were the most obvious European techniques incorporated into regional technological styles. Veracruz potters who used these techniques and supplied the port with their wares seem geographically limited primarily to locations along the Jamapa River. Clay near this river was a possible source for potters who lived at the port. Afromestizos could have learned European techniques while producing pottery for sugar haciendas. Some lead-glazed pottery was mold-made, reflecting a combination of European and Native techniques. Molds were the primary forming technique most frequently identifiable in the CCP sample. While molds were traditionally used for producing some European pottery forms (Lister and Lister 1987:135–136, 147), mold-made pottery also was found in the Late Postclassic of central Veracruz (Beauregard García 2007:14; Daneels 1997:244; Noeller 1991:69). Ethnographic research suggests that primary forming techniques, and their associated motor habits, are the most resistant to change (Gosselain 2000). This may explain the continued use of molds and handbuilding techniques and the limited geographic incorporation of the wheel (see also Arnold et al. 2007). Other aspects of technological styles demonstrate overlap in the cultural contributions of technologies. Red slips and paints were frequently used in Late Postclassic Veracruz (Curet et al. 1994; Medellin 1960). Charlton and Fournier García (2010:135) have remarked on the similarity in appearance between the highly burnished Red Ware of the Basin of Mexico and the red ceramics of Extremadura in Spain. Red-slipped pottery also is frequently associated with African-made pottery in the Caribbean and is found in some regions of West Africa (Hauser and DeCorse 2003). The red painted and slipped pottery of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Veracruz is not as elaborate as Late Postclassic or early colonial examples (Curet et al. 1994; Medellin 1960). Red-slipped surfaces were rarely or poorly burnished and white and black painted designs reminiscent of the Late Postclassic are absent. White slips also were found in the Late Postclassic (Medellin 1960), but in the mid to late colonial period, white slips were located on the interior of utilitarian vessels and not elaborately decorated.
Evidence of firing techniques also reveal possible overlap in European and Native technologies. Because of better control of conditions and separation between pots and the firing box, kilns are generally needed for glazed pottery (Rice 1987:155). Although the Spanish introduced new kiln technologies, Mesoamerican updraft kilns could have been used for this purpose. Most other pottery in the CCP sample also was fired in a well-controlled oxidizing atmosphere. These conditions contrast with the inconsistent firing environments that are often associated with African-made pottery in the Caribbean (Hauser and DeCorse 2003). The foregoing discussion highlights European and Native contributions to ceramic technology in Veracruz. Less visible are the possible African influences on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pottery manufacture. However, this does not mean that people of African heritage did not participate in the production of pottery in Veracruz. By the late eighteenth century, many of the port’s residents were described as individuals of mixed descent, including pardos, mulatos, and morenos. These were Afromestizos who shared cultural ties and experiences with people of European, African, Nahua, and Totonac descent (among others) who created the cultural landscape of Veracruz. This mixed heritage is evident in the consumption patterns of Afromestizos in the Barrios de Minas and Barrios de las Californias. The assemblage combines European and European-style tablewares with small amounts of regionally made red painted ceramics. Pottery used in food preparation combined lead-glazed cooking basins with molcajete grinding bowls and white-slipped comales for preparing tortillas. Similarly, pottery production by Afromestizos may have incorporated technologies learned while working in Veracruz’s sugar mills. Alternatively, Afromestizos may have learned technologies through interaction with European, Native, or mestizo neighbors or family members and possibly combined these techniques with less visible traditions brought from Africa.
Conclusion Analyses of technological choices made at each stage of the manufacturing process elucidate European and indigenous contributions to the technological styles of
Ceramic Technology in Afromestizo Neighborhoods Veracruz pottery. Lead glazes and the potter’s wheel were incorporated into some technological styles, but their use appears geographically limited. Nahua Totonac and other Native techniques, such as the use of molds and hand-building technologies, were widespread in colonial Veracruz. Such continuity in Native pottery traditions, long after the initial introduction of Eurasian (and African) technologies, is a pattern well documented in other regions of Mesoamerica (see Card and Fowler, this vol.; Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.; King and Konwest, this vol.), as well as in Spanish Florida (Deagan 1990:308), and the Pueblo Southwest (Liebmann 2012:28, 2015:332–333). Other technologies, such as kilns and red slips / paints, may represent complementary technologies from multiple sources. In contrast, African technological contributions to pottery production are ambiguous. Consumption patterns in Afromestizo neighborhoods highlight the integration of people of African, European, and Native descent into the broader Veracruz culture. Afromestizos used both European and Native vessel forms and technological styles in their everyday lives. Similarly, by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Afromestizo potters may have adopted production technologies from European or Native artisans. While I have focused on the broad technological influences of Europeans, Natives, and Africans, it is important to remember that these monolithic categories mask cultural and temporal variability (Voss 2005). Research in other regions has demonstrated the complexity in how Native ceramic technology, for example, can both persist and change. Pigott (2015) has shown that Apalachee migrants adopted ceramic styles and technology from other Indian potters (particularly Creek) before arriving in northwest Florida during the early eighteenth century. In the Pueblo Southwest, some Jemez potters incorporated styles and tempering methods from the neighboring Zias following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (Liebmann 2010). In California, most Native groups did not have an existing pottery tradition before Europeans arrived (Peelo 2011). Instead, during the late eighteenth century, indigenous potters at Spanish missions learned their craft from Mexican and nonlocal Indian potters. As a result, Native plainwares incorporated both hand-forming and wheel-throwing techniques. These examples serve as a reminder of the heterogeneity of colonial populations and responses. Technological change was a continuing
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process that was altered by colonial encounters but did not begin with them. In addition, the racial categories recorded in census data for Veracruz and elsewhere were ascribed by Spanish officials, often were manipulated (see Castleman 2001; Frederick 2011), and do not necessarily convey the ways people identified themselves at the community level (see also Chance 2008:138–141; Restall 1997:13). Analysis of material remains from archaeological contexts should go beyond ascribed social categories to provide insights into the ways people used or altered technologies and traditions within pluralistic neighborhoods. Variability in the consumption of highly visible and broadly recognizable material culture, such as majolica tableware, was susceptible to social manipulation (see Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.; cf. Sampeck, this vol.; Voss 2012). The use of utilitarian vessel forms, such as comales or leadglazed basins, provides insights on the persistence and change in foodways. Adding to these observations, my investigation of technological styles provides a nuanced approach for investigating technological persistence and change. Additional investigations using neutron activation analysis, petrographic analysis, and the study of firing temperatures using X-ray diffraction augment the current discussion and further elucidate information on social and economic relations that go beyond broad colonial categories (see Eschbach 2018).
Ack now ledgments The CCP was made possible through the collaborative efforts of Judith A. Bense (University of West Florida [UWF]) and Judith Hernández Aranda (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia [INAH]). Funding for CCP was provided by the UWF Archaeology Institute and a generous donation by K. C. and Lori Clark to the UWF Foundation in support of the university’s archaeology program. The pottery and clay analysis is part of a larger dissertation project by the author and was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant # BSC-1240412), the Foster Latin American Research Fellowship, the ASU Chapter of Sigma Xi, and the Arizona State University (ASU) School of Human Evolution and Social Change. The PIXE analysis benefited from the meticulous assistance of Kelsey Vaughan and Jacqueline Fox, who helped
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in the preparation of pottery and clay samples. I gratefully acknowledge use of laboratory facilities at ASU’s LeRoy Eyring Center for Solid State Science. I also am thankful for the permission and support of the Consejo de Arqueología of Mexico’s INAH and the Centro INAH Veracruz. Finally, I thank Rani Alexander for her invitation to contribute an early version of this chapter to a symposium at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Austin, Texas. This chapter has greatly
benefited from comments by Rani Alexander, Judith Hernández Aranda, Alanna Ossa, and two anonymous reviewers. Any errors remain my own responsibility.
Note 1. Mexican anthropologist Aguirre Beltrán (1946) coined the academic term “Afromestizo” to refer to castas of mixed African, Spanish, and Native heritage.
New Materials—New Technologies? Postclassic and Early Colonial Technological Transitions in the Nejapa Region of Oaxaca, Mexico
S tac i e M . K i n g a n d E l i z a b e t h K o n w e s t
after the arrival of the Spanish—a problematic narrative that many have critiqued (see Rodríguez-Alegría 2008)— we argue instead that indigenous peoples in Nejapa chose to abandon, adopt, change, or otherwise continue to use particular technologies in a process of reinterpretation and shifting priorities. The social and politico-economic climate of Nejapa was always dynamic, and the changes that took place cannot be attributed to colonialism alone. The data force us to think carefully about the meaning of technological change and the interpretation of production and consumption in different settings. In the end, the technological transitions that took place in Nejapa may be more about changing politico-economic and social relations and less about technological needs and advancement (Hart 2012:100; Rodríguez-Alegría 2014). Lying at the midpoint along the long-standing trade route connecting the large political centers in the central valleys of highland Oaxaca with the resource-rich coastal Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Nejapa region was traversed by different Mesoamerican groups across millennia (Figure 5.1). The Nejapa / Tavela Archaeological Project, directed by Stacie M. King, has identified human settlement in the region extending back to the Middle Formative period (King et al. 2018). These data demonstrate social, political, and economic connections between the peoples of Nejapa and those of highland Oaxaca and the coastal Isthmus of Tehuantepec, among them, probable Zapotecs, Mixes, Chontales, and Huaves. In the early
The Nejapa region of southeastern Oaxaca, Mexico, experienced multiple waves of conquest and colonialism at the hands of highland Zapotecs, Aztecs, and Spaniards in relatively rapid succession between AD 1400 and 1650. Though we do not yet have the precision in radiocarbon dates and artifact data to detect specific conquest campaigns or entradas, we also recognize that these “waves” were more than likely long-term campaigns, each composed of multiple, varyingly timed, and sustained entradas of differential impact, rather than discrete, singular, devastating events. Our archaeological research at Postclassic (AD 800–1523) and early colonial (AD 1523–1650) period sites in the Nejapa region has helped us to delineate some of the long-term impacts of colonialism on the access to and use of particular raw materials for cutting tools, architecture, ceramics, and costume ornaments. Across this long transition, certain products and raw materials such as stone cutting tools and locally made stone beads were largely abandoned, while other technologies including ceramic production and the use of stucco and stone in building construction remained relatively stable. The indigenous peoples of Nejapa appear to have experienced shifts in the availability and use of some materials after the Spanish arrived, but they also seem to have used new materials in novel kinds of ways, making the interpretation of wholesale technological replacement less compelling. Rather than reifying a narrative of a sweeping and quick replacement of Native ways of life
73
74
K i ng a n d Kon w e st
Figure 5.1. Map of Oaxaca, showing the location of the Nejapa region and places mentioned in the text. Map by Alex Badillo and Stacie M. King.
sixteenth century, according to early Spanish accounts, Mixe, Chontal, and Zapotec peoples were living throughout the Nejapa Valley and the surrounding mountains in relatively large numbers. Drawn to Nejapa because of its strategic location along a major trade route and productive lands, King (2012) has argued that the people of Nejapa had long been accustomed to living in a highly diverse multiethnic setting. The first Spanish entrada in the Nejapa region likely occurred in AD 1523, but it was not until 1553 that a permanent Spanish villa was founded in the region (King 2012; Oudijk and Restall 2007). After the mid-sixteenth century, these indigenous groups were joined by Nahua (highland Mexican), African, and Spanish immigrants, and moved around responding to changed economic conditions, forced labor and relocation, and epidemic disease (Bradomín 1989; Chance 1989; Gerhard 1972; King 2010, 2012; King et al. 2012). Though
population numbers varied through time, the Nejapa region can be characterized as a highly diverse social, political, and economic setting and the home to varied groups of indigenous communities across many centuries. For this analysis, we have chosen to compare archaeological evidence collected in two areas of the modern-day municipalities Nejapa de Madero and Santa Ana Tavela that represent two moments in time on either side of the colonial transition. The first assemblage at Greater La Amontonada encompasses what was once a large regional center located on low piedmont rises above the valley floor, whose archaeological materials were collected as part of excavations and surface collections. The sites included in Greater La Amontonada were occupied contemporaneously, prior to conquest and colonization of the region (that is, prior to presumed Zapotec, Aztec, and Spanish intrusions between AD 1400 and 1650).
New Materials—New Technologies?
75
Figure 5.2. Map of Greater La Amontonada, with an inset plan of the El Cucharital neighborhood. Map by Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa / Tavela and inset drawing by Elizabeth Konwest.
Altogether, the multiple named sites that make up Greater La Amontonada likely represent a single, large, and dispersed preconquest political center that at its height covered 210.1 ha (Figure 5.2). Four radiocarbon dates from excavated contexts confirm an Early to Middle Postclassic occupation at these settlements, between AD 1042 and 1400 based on 2-sigma range of calibrated AMS dates (Table 5.1). As a whole, the settlement contained multiple residential neighborhoods, several with their own ball courts and temple-patio-altar complexes surrounded by residences. Floodplain terraces between the neighborhoods were probably cultivated in the past as they are now, with irrigation systems. Each of these residential neighborhoods has dense artifact debris littering their surfaces, which includes a great variety of utilitarian ceramics and lithics. The site complex gets its name from the site of La
Amontonada, which served as the central civic-ceremonial center for the entire settlement and houses the largest temple-patio-altar complex in the Nejapa / Tavela region. La Amontonada was probably used by elites and nonelites living in the different neighborhoods during formal or informal politico-religious events. Test excavations show that the area was largely devoid of habitation debris, and excavated artifacts include large numbers of incense burner fragments and miniatures, wares that would have likely been placed in offerings and used during religious rituals. Incense burners and miniatures occurred in much greater frequency here than in the other neighborhood assemblages associated with La Amontonada. Representing the other end of the transition is the now abandoned rural townsite of La Asunción Majaltepec, located in the mountains southeast of the Nejapa Valley in terrain of Santa Ana Tavela (see Figure 5.1). The
K i ng a n d Kon w e st
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Table 5.1. AMS Radiocarbon Dates from Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec SAMPLE
Greater La Amontonada (Lachixoba) Greater La Amontonada (El Órgano) Greater La Amontonada (El Cucharital) Greater La Amontonada (La Amontonada) Majaltepec (adobe building) Majaltepec (Siete Cuartos) Majaltepec (Siete Cuartos) Majaltepec (Siete Cuartos) Majaltepec (striped adobe building)
L AB NUMBER
MEASURED R ADIOCARBON
C / C
SIGMA CALIBR ATION .%*
PERIOD
Arizona-X26921
861±47 BP
−24.7 ‰
AD 1042–1161
Early Postclassic
Arizona-X26926
844±38 BP
−24.2 ‰
AD 1049–1267
Early Postclassic
Arizona-X23314
768±35 BP
−23.1 ‰
AD 1207–1288
Early Postclassic
Arizona-X23312
625±35 BP
−24.3 ‰
AD 1288–1400
Early to Late Postclassic
Arizona-X23315 Arizona-X26923LA Beta-263647 Beta-263648 Arizona-X26922
379±34 BP 371±39 BP 330±40 BP 340±40 BP 330±37 BP
−24.6 ‰ −24.5 ‰ −24.2 ‰ −23.2 ‰ −25.4 ‰
AD 1443–1634 AD 1445–1635 AD 1466–1645 AD 1462–1642 AD 1468–1645
Late Postclassic / Colonial Late Postclassic / Colonial Late Postclassic / Colonial Late Postclassic / Colonial Late Postclassic / Colonial
* Calibrated with OxCal 4.2
former townsite is spread over 21 ha of high elevation hills averaging 1,450 m asl and extending southward in the shadow of Los Picachos, a ridgeline (and archaeological site) that reaches 2,150 m asl (Figure 5.3). Majaltepec was a rural farming community administered by Native elites, who used terracing and water management features to increase agricultural productivity in the land between the hills. The main portion of the site was occupied primarily between AD 1550 and 1645, based on the dating of diagnostic glass beads and calibrated radiocarbon dates (see Table 5.1). Historic documents, such as the Relaciones geográficas and Suma de visitas, state that Majaltepec was one of two principal towns (cabeceras) subject to the Spanish villa of Santiago Nexapa, established in 1553 (Paso y Troncoso 1905b, 1905c; see Table 5.2 for a list of archival documents that mention Majaltepec). During the sixteenth century, people in Majaltepec were required to pay tribute in goods and gold to Spanish encomenderos and later the Dominican doctrina (parish) established in Nexapa in 1558, as well as provide labor in Nexapa’s church construction and nearby mines (King 2012). The town was the major party in legal complaints filed in Mexico City about forced resettlement, or congregación, in 1604, during which it seems that people in many small mountain settlements surrounding the valley were moved into more controllable collective lowland settlements, including the indigenous elites who had become leaders in those communities (King 2011). Yet, Majaltepec was never fully abandoned and remains present in documentary
evidence until 1793, when a fire apparently destroyed the town, forcing the migration of most of its residents. In the 1760s, people in Majaltepec were active producers of grana cochinilla (cochineal), the red dye that for a time made many Spanish administrators rich as a major global export (King 2011). In 1768, Majaltepec’s farmers were cocomplainants in a legal battle to remove a corrupt alcalde mayor, a local administrator, for his abuses of repartimiento laws (see also Baskes [2000, 2006:25–26] for a discussion of what was likely a later iteration of this same case). Excavations to date have only succeeded in locating the early colonial, likely pre-congregación phase of settlement in Majaltepec (King 2010; King et al. 2012, 2018). Based on the current excavation data, we cannot be sure that either site area was occupied specifically during the centuries of successive Zapotec, Aztec, and Spanish conquest events, but it is fair to assume that these conquest and colonization efforts significantly impacted the lives of people living across the region. Occupants of these sites or nearby sites and their ancestors or descendants were likely among them. Even if these sites were unoccupied during conquest episodes, people would have continued to visit and utilize these “unoccupied” lands, albeit in different kinds of ways throughout these centuries (King 2015). So, rather than continuous habitation or even habitation in one place, our comparison is based on site assemblages that represent two accumulated points in time from which we will try to approximate technological preferences and changes across these transitions.
Figure 5.3. Map of Majaltepec, with an inset plan drawing of Siete Cuartos. Map by Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa / Tavela and inset drawing by Stacie M. King.
Table 5.2. Archival Documents That Mention Majaltepec YEAR
DATE
ARCHIVE / SOURCE
1533
13 May
Paso y Troncoso 1939:15–16 Paso y Troncoso 1905c:1590 AGN* AGN
1550 1576 1584
4 Apr
DOCUMENT GROUP
VOL.
Epistolario de Nueva España Suma de visitas
3
EXP.
PAGE
Town claimed and distributed in repartimiento by Gaspar Pacheco Town has 3 estancias with 182 tributarios
1584
AGN
1590 1590 1591 1591
30 Apr 4 May
AGN AGN AGN AGN
General de parte Archivo histórico de hacienda Archivo histórico de hacienda Mercedes Mercedes Indios Indios
1591
4 May
AGN
Indios
3
621
148v
1591
11 May
AGN
Indios
3
640
152v–153r
AGN
Indios
3
689
161
1591
1 1486
818 196
159 1
1486
200
1
15 18 3 3
619 620
289v 93v 148v 148v
1591
30 May
AGN
Indios
3
708
167r
1591
30 May
AGN
Indios
3
709
167r & v
AGN AGN AGN AGN
Mercedes Indios Indios Indios
17 6 6 6
29 30 31
Mercedes Mercedes Congregaciones
18 18 1
615
1591 1592 1592 1592
130 7 7v 8
1592 1592 1603
17 Jul 22 Sep
AGN AGN AGN
1604
17 Jan
AGN
Congregaciones
1
121
71–72v
1604
15 Mar
AGN
Congregaciones
1
170
90–91
AGN
Tierras
2973
186
447r & v
16 145
28 103v–104v
1609
MAT TER
21
171v 93v 12–13
1654 1656
15 Jan 20 Jun
AGN AGN
Indios Indios
17 20
1656
20 Dec
AGN
Indios
21
1657 1662
10 Mar 21 Oct
AGN AGN
Indios Reales cedulas duplicadas
21 22
81 135
85v–86r 190
1768
23 Jun
AGN
Indios
61
228
212r–213r
1–4v
Petition for license to carry goods by mule Lamberto Fernández named teniente gobernador Residents ordered to pay tribute to church and Spanish Crown Gerónimo Veles granted estancia Bernardino Vasquez granted estancia Resident ordered to pay tribute to gobernador Bernardino Vasquez, cacique gobernador, granted permission to have a horse ( jaca), saddle, and irons Corregidor ordered to pay residents for their work Request from Bernardino Vasquez to pay residents for their work in mines Request for restitution and pay for work in mines and complaint of mistreatment Request to name someone to the office of escribano Request for restitution from alcalde for what he charged for visiting the community Request from Diego de Arana for estancia Request that alcalde mayor pay what he owes Request that alcalde mayor not force payment Request for payment of service rather than being forced Juan Gusman, principal, granted estancia Bernardino Vasquez granted estancia Response to complaint about ordered congregation Juan de Bazan ordered not to execute the congregation Juan de Bazan ordered to continue with the congregation Juan Gutierrez Pinelo’s tenancy extended for second year Order to announce election results Order that residents of Majaltepec be safeguarded in their land and left alone Complaints about mistreatment at the hands of Padre Juan de Cubillas Enriquez Petition to grant justice to Lucas Perez Request to alcalde mayor to consider whether or not a new doctrina vicario should be established in Majaltepec Complaint that people are not paid for their work
New Materials—New Technologies?
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Table 5.2. Continued YEAR
DATE
1768 1769
23 Jun 28 Nov
1786 1912
ARCHIVE / SOURCE
DOCUMENT GROUP
AGN AGN
Indios Indios
AGN AGN
Indios Archivo de buscas
VOL.
EXP.
PAGE
MAT TER
61 61
230 353
214r–216v 326v–328v
67 4210
139 90
168v–170v 461r & v
Complaint regarding abuses of repartimiento Order that Miguel de Alarcón present himself and comply with sentence License for 200 pesos to ornament the church Request by residents of Santa Ana Tavela for documents relating to the lands of the destroyed town of Majaltepec
Notes: Majaltepec is spelled in various ways in these documents and was most often recorded as “Maxaltepeque.” Vol. = volume, Exp. = expediente (document number), Page = page number, and “r” and “v” in page numbers = recto (front) and verso (back) * AGN = Archivo General de la Nación
We also do not want to imply that the preconquest assemblage at Greater La Amontonada serves as a baseline approximating “traditional” preconquest lifeways, as if these traditions were static and unchanging (Silliman 2012:121). The long-term history of the Nejapa / Tavela region is complex, and our work shows that the Early to Middle Postclassic grew out of an already incredibly dynamic politico-economic world (King 2012). Greater La Amontonada is but one place in which particular forms of social, political, and economic relations and interaction coalesced. Other sites in other parts of the Nejapa / Tavela region tell different stories. The assemblage from La Amontonada is one of our largest and is our best excavated, and it is for this reason that we have chosen this site to examine the sequence of change in the region. Majaltepec represents our only well-dated and well-excavated early colonial site known to date. One could also argue that these site assemblages from Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec are too different to compare—one being a major political center and the other a rural townsite, respectively. However, our excavations in each area have targeted similar kinds of contexts, primarily larger elite spaces with public, residential, and smaller non-elite residential structures nearby. Regardless of sociopolitical differences, the continuities and differences in materials or technologies and their contexts of use should be able to tell us something about preconquest and postconquest choices and responses. From these data, we hope to infer some of the complex processes that conditioned the use and access to particular materials and ideas in the centuries before, during, and after initial conquests and colonizations. Our assemblages and artifact counts are weighted heavily toward preconquest deposits in the valley floor
Table 5.3. Comparison of Site Size, Excavation Size, and Artifact Counts at Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec
Total Area Total Excavated Area Ceramic Vessel Sherds Chipped Stone Lithics Stone Beads Glass Beads Metal Ground Stone Total*
GREATER L A AMONTONADA
MAJALTEPEC
210 ha 94.75 m 25,353 924 753 0 1 22 27,053
21 ha 16 m 905 16 0 448 10 2 1,381
* Does not include ceramic objects / ornaments (figurines, spindle whorls, miniatures, net weights), faunal remains (animal bone and shell), or construction materials (stucco and daub samples)
in both number and frequency primarily because of the extensive horizontal excavations that were undertaken as part of Elizabeth Konwest’s dissertation research, which examines community formation and identities in Postclassic La Amontonada (Table 5.3). Over the course of three field seasons, we have excavated a combined total of 94.75 m at these sites, which includes large portions of at least three residential structures in three different neighborhoods, as well as nine 1 × 1 m test pits at several different sites targeting mostly elite residential structure platforms and public ceremonial space. At Majaltepec, we have excavated 16 m over the course of three seasons. Here, our excavations were limited in part because of the focus on test pits to examine chronology and site history in public buildings, but mostly due to the remote site location. All excavations at Majaltepec took place during
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three nine-day, carefully planned wilderness camping expeditions, each in a different field season. The excavated deposits at Majaltepec also tended to be more complex owing to the human burials and adobe construction we uncovered in some of the units.
A rchitectu r e Greater La Amontonada Settlement patterns across the sites consisting of Greater La Amontonada indicate a spatial organization of a series of neighborhoods, many with their own temple complexes and respective residential structures. The lands devoid of architectural remains between the discrete neighborhoods are either not suitable for construction (like rivers or gullies) or are prime agricultural areas. Architectural styles are variable between the sites and within neighborhoods. People used a blend of stone, earth, and perishable materials, and in some cases stucco, for building construction. Though an adobe brick was excavated from a residential structure at one site, it is not a common building material. A “typical” neighborhood is best exemplified by the site of El Cucharital (see inset in Figure 5.2), the largest site included in Greater La Amontonada, which itself consists of several neighborhoods of clustered residences. El Cucharital lies to the south of La Amontonada on the same extension of piedmont hills above the floodplain.
The largest neighborhood, located 1.3 km south of La Amontonada’s main plaza and temple, has its own temple and patio complex. The temple reaches 4 m high and is roughly square at the base, measuring 14 × 15 m, with earth and stone construction. Large, flat patios surround the temple, and, uniquely, two sunken patios lie to the temple’s west and northwest. Immediately east of the temple, there is a large L-shaped platform of earth and stone construction forming a large open courtyard or plaza between the two structures. Residential structures surround the temple precinct, utilizing both stone and earthen platforms and simple single-course stone foundations, some arranged in groups around a patio. It is likely that all structures, including the temple, had enclosed, roofed structures made of perishable materials built atop the earth and stone foundations. At El Cucharital, in a second neighborhood 200 m northwest of the largest neighborhood described above, excavated public architecture shows use of both cut stone blocks and stucco floors and walls (Figure 5.4). Two wall foundations adjacent to a temple mound were built with multiple courses of faced stones. The facings of the structure walls were then covered in a stucco wash (repello). Both the interior and exterior of the structure had stuccoed floors, and some of the exterior floors had evidence of red paint. A stone wall constructed of small cut stone blocks would have separated a patio from the platform. Residential platforms to the north of this complex also have stucco floors. Other neighborhoods feature a blend of public and
Figure 5.4. Cut stone block platform wall at El Cucharital, Greater La Amontonada. Photo by Elizabeth Konwest.
New Materials—New Technologies? residential architecture. Across the river from La Amontonada, the neighborhood of Mezquitillo is situated on a flat portion of land partway up a steep hillside. At the north end of the site, there is a large stone and earth platform (22 × 24 m at the base) with stone foundations of multiple superstructures. A large possible defensive wall runs 100 m north-south on the northern side of the site, enclosing the majority of the residential structures between the wall and the steeply sloped river cut to the south. Like El Cucharital, the remaining residential structures are a mix of low stone platforms and simple stone foundations, some arranged into groups.
Majaltepec Much of the architectural remains at Majaltepec are spread along a flat rise of land to the east of a natural spring-fed arroyo, which is wet year-round. This stretch of land splits into two hills at the start of a second arroyo, also referred to as the laguna (lake). There are two additional clusters of terraces and small structure foundations located on low hills to the east and south. Surface mapping of architecture at Majaltepec was challenging due to ground cover and leaf debris, and structures were often only partially visible. Like other early colonial sites with the absence of surface-visible artifacts and architecture (Palka 2009), it is likely that many structures were small and made entirely of perishable materials. A majority of the visible structures’ remains are simple rectangular stone foundations and low stone terraces. However, a few buildings located to the east and north
Figure 5.5. Formal entrance connecting the atrium to the church (Siete Cuartos), Majaltepec. Photo by Andrew Workinger.
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of the laguna utilize more elaborate construction techniques. Two buildings, a terrace platform and larger structure, have multi-coursed stone wall foundations, including a rectangular structure measuring 5 × 4 m in dimension with faced stones. All of these buildings would have utilized perishable materials for walls and roofs. The two most impressive buildings at Majaltepec are constructed primarily of adobe and are not constructed in the same style or manner as the rest of the structures at the site or even each other. The largest building, located to the east of the laguna, has a multi-coursed stone foundation with thick adobe walls. The stone foundation would have raised the adobe walls off of the topsoil and prevented wear on the wall due to soil humidity and other weathering agents (Rodríguez Parga 2009:176). Called Siete Cuartos (Seven Rooms) by locals, we have interpreted the structure as Majaltepec’s church. It has an attached enclosed atrium, a formal entrance with stairs connecting the atrium to the church, and stuccoed interior benches (see inset in Figure 5.3). The formally constructed entrance had a wide staircase constructed with faced stone slab risers and flagstones, as well as wooden beams that likely served as a formal door jamb, which at some point may have supported a lintel (Figure 5.5). The enclosed rectangular atrium or courtyard abuts the building on this side, comparable to other early Spanish churchyards. The main building is similar to other early colonial churches with a potential nave and cloister court surrounded by associated rooms, though wrought in miniature (Baird 1962; Fernández Contreras 2009; Mullen 1997). As in other parts of Oaxaca and Mexico, it might
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have been the case that services were held in the openair atrium to accommodate the town’s population (Early 2001; Edgerton 2001), which in the 1590s totaled 182 tribute-paying citizens spread out among three different rural settlements (estancias) (Paso y Troncoso 1905c:159). In the western portion of Siete Cuartos, the building has an interior courtyard or cloister with small, attached rooms, which might have served as small offices, storerooms, or living quarters for visiting clergy. There is a near absence of domestic debris and artifacts in the structure interior. In larger Dominican monasteries, friars’ quarters were supposed to be austere, simply furnished spaces (Baird 1962:24), and a rural church like this one would not likely be heavily ornamented or heavily used. The larger rectangular room on the eastern half of the structure has a low, red-painted, stucco-covered bench running along the wall edges. This may have been the small nave of the rural chapel. Further up the hill lies another terraced earthen platform on top of which a large adobe building once stood. The building was constructed using adobe blocks, but without evidence of a formal stone basal platform. Adobe brick construction was common in other parts of the Spanish colonial world, extending as far north as the American Southwest (Bunting 1964; Edgerton 2001). At least one wall (the south-facing wall) once stood at 2 m tall and was constructed using two different types of adobe placed in horizontal bands, creating the visual effect of patterned light and darker stripes. Therefore, instead of using adobe to create a more stable basal platform, builders used different adobes to create decorative detail. The height and style of construction would have given the building a striking appearance. After what appears to have been a conflagration of some kind (evidenced by a layer of burned earth with carbon inclusions on top of the platform fill layers) and subsequent abandonment, the wall fell inward covering the structure’s packed earthen floor. Approximately 35 to 50 cm beneath the floor, we uncovered multiple burials, showing that the subfloor area served as a burial ground. Though the burial pattern initially made us suspect that this might have been the community’s rural chapel (and perhaps it served as such for a time), we interpret this building as a likely elite residence based on construction materials, the presence of artifact debris, and the existence of a nearby church. Below the burials, in the platform fill, we found a fired brick, though it is unclear how this brick might have been used. Radiocarbon dates in both areas are nearly identical, suggesting
that Siete Cuartos and the striped adobe structure were contemporaneous.
Cer a mics Ceramic material at La Amontonada is abundant, on both the ground surface and in excavations. In total, we recovered 25,353 ceramic sherds weighing 162,896.3 g from the sites that make up La Amontonada (Table 5.4). This is in contrast to Majaltepec, which has very few ceramic materials on the surface and only slightly more in excavation contexts for a total of 905 sherds weighing 4,940.8 g. However, if we analyze the percentages of specific ceramic forms and pastes relative to the assemblages as a whole, some interesting patterns emerge. The ceramic pastes of the Nejapa region are generally made with gritty sand temper and are fired into oranges, grays, and browns. Fine orange pastes and differentially fired wares, which are cooked to different colors on opposite sides of the vessel or in patterns, are also present. At La Amontonada, fine grays and coarse oranges comprise 91.9 of the recovered ceramics found to date, and then the rest of the assemblage is distributed evenly between seven other paste categories. At Majaltepec, fine grays decrease and coarse wares increase at 27.7 and 24.1, respectively, together comprising the majority, or 51.8, of the total assemblage. Here, though fine grays and coarse oranges remain in the majority, orange-gray coarse wares and coarse browns emerge as increasingly common paste categories comprising 22.4 and 17.3, respectively. These four categories comprise 91.6 of the pastes represented in Majaltepec samples. The remaining materials represent four different paste categories, only one of which, the early colonial porcelain / majolica, is completely new and definitively post-Spanish contact, represented by two small non-diagnostic sherds. With the exception of porcelain / majolica, all of the other paste categories are present at both sites. Though La Amontonada sites have a greater variety of pastes in terms of the number of different types represented, they exhibit far more uniformity in general, with only two common paste categories, perhaps indicating more centralized organization in ceramic production capabilities, fewer market choices, or clear and patterned decision-making on the part of both producers and consumers. Ceramic forms in the Nejapa region, in general, fall in line with broader patterns in Oaxaca (Caso et al. 1967;
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Table 5.4. Comparison of Identified Ceramic Forms and Ceramic Pastes Represented at Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec IDENTIFIED CER AMIC FORMS GREATER L A AMONTONADA
Cajete Olla Plato Tecomate Sahumador Comal Pichancha Cantaro Vaso Botellón Patojo Brasero Apaxtle Total
MAJALTEPEC
Count
of Total
Weight (g)
of Total
2,429 344 75 55 46 44 36 32 19 10 8 2 1 3,101
78.0 11.1 2.4 1.8 1.5 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.6 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.0 100
28,099.2 7,199.5 984.4 650.1 655.6 1,098.8 200.7 545.3 308.6 295.2 3,300.4 49.0 253.1 43,639.9
64.0 16.5 2.3 1.5 1.5 2.5 0.5 1.2 0.7 0.7 7.6 0.1 0.6 100
Cajete Olla Plato Tecomate Sahumador Comal Pichancha Cantaro Vaso Botellón Patojo Brasero Apaxtle Total
Count
of Total
28 7 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1.0 0 41
68.3 17.1 2.4 0.0 2.4 2.4 2.4 0.0 2.4 0.0 0.0 2.4 0.0 100
Weight (g) 246.7 124.0 9.7 0.0 12.0 23.8 9.8 0.0 1.4 0.0 0.0 86.8 0.0 514.2
of Total 48.0 24.1 1.9 0.0 2.3 4.6 1.9 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 16.9 0.0 100
IDENTIFIED CER AMIC PASTES GREATER L A AMONTONADA
Fine Orange Coarse Orange Fine Orange Gray Coarse Orange Gray Fine Brown Coarse Brown Fine Gray Coarse Gray Kaolin Porcelain Other Total
MAJALTEPEC
Count
of Total
Weight (g)
of Total
441 8,096 31 48 90 840 15,222 549 7 1 29 25,353
1.7 31.9 0.1 0.2 0.4 3.3 60.0 2.2 0.0 0.0 0.1 100
3,174.9 69,784.0 145.2 1,207.5 687.1 8,308.2 73,835.1 5,532.7 86.4 3.1 135.3 162,896.33
1.9 42.8 0.1 0.7 0.4 5.1 45.3 3.4 0.1 0.0 0.1 100
Herrera Muzgo 2000; Martínez López et al. 2000; Zeitlin 1978), where people produced and used coarse-ware pasted cooking vessels (mostly jars) and both coarse ware and fine ware serving vessels (primarily bowls). In total, 3,101 of the ceramic sherds (mostly rims) collected at Greater La Amontonada sites from excavations and surface collections could be identified to form, while only 67 of the sherds (again, mostly rims) from Majaltepec could be identified to form. In both sites, cajetes (bowls) are the most common vessels form, reaching as high as 78 (by count) at Greater
Fine Orange Coarse Orange Fine Orange Gray Coarse Orange Gray Fine Brown Coarse Brown Fine Gray Coarse Gray Kaolin Porcelain Other Total
Count
of Total
Weight (g)
of Total
29 218 0 203 0 157 251 4 0 1 42 905
3.2 24.1 0.0 22.4 0.0 17.3 27.7 0.4 0.0 0.1 4.6 100
126.5 1,177.2 0.0 1,440.4 0.0 1,256.4 585.4 16.9 0.0 2.0 336.0 4,940.8
2.6 23.8 0.0 29.2 0.0 25.4 11.8 0.3 0.0 0.0 6.8 100
La Amontonada and 68.3 (by count) at Majaltepec. Bowls were typically shaped in one of three ways: conical, semispherical, or cylindrical. At both sites, when the shape of the bowl could be identified, the majority were semispherical. This is not surprising compared to other sites in the region and in Oaxaca more generally, where semispherical bowls remain popular and common forms across centuries. After bowls, ollas (jars) are the next most common type at both sites, accounting for 11.1 and 17.1 at each site assemblage, respectively. Eleven other less common forms are represented in very small
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percentages at Greater La Amontonada, and six other forms are represented at Majaltepec. Among those forms that are not represented in the Majaltepec assemblages that were once present at La Amontonada are apaxtles (large, oversized containers), botellones (bottles), cantaros (water jugs), patojos (boot-shaped vessels), and tecomates (incurving walled bowls). None of the forms identified at Majaltepec is new.
Lithics The chipped stone lithic data from Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec could not be any more different. At the La Amontonada sites, we found 925 chipped stone fragments across all excavated and surface contexts. The vast majority (n = 649) of the pieces (70.2) are chert, of varying colors and quality. Chert and quartz are both locally available materials. The rest of the fragments are obsidian (n = 248, or 26.8) and various other rock types including quartz (n = 28, or 3.8). The obsidian is predominantly clear obsidian (n = 213, or 85.9), which sometimes has visible gray or black streaks, similar to raw material from Pico de Orizaba in Puebla, Oaxaca. The obsidian from excavated contexts specifically at La Amontonada (n = 187, or 82.7) has been sourced to Pico de Orizaba based on X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis. Other sources include El Chayal (in present day Guatemala), Pachuca, and Zaragoza, but in much smaller percentages (King et al. 2018). The Greater La Amontonada lithic assemblage as a whole includes 466 pieces of worked stone tools and debitage (blades, flakes, modified flakes, cores, and other tools) and 459 fragments classified as unworked chunks and shatter. The quantity of stone tool debris demonstrates that residents had relatively easy access to local raw material in the case of chert and quartz and to the networks of trade that brought obsidian to the Nejapa region. At Majaltepec, we have only found two small blade fragments made out of obsidian, accounting for only 12.5 of the 16-piece chipped stone lithic collection. This decrease in use of obsidian is interesting because we have found obsidian at nearly all of the large sites that were occupied through the Postclassic, including at Cerro de la Muralla and Cerro del Convento, two nearby sites that were supposed mountaintop Zapotec fortresses, whose occupations date from the eleventh through seventeenth
centuries AD (King et al. 2014). At each site we find obsidian from different sources in highly varied proportions, which suggests variation in terms of access to specific trade networks on a site to site basis (see Pastrana Cruz et al., this vol.). The Majaltepec fragments are themselves each a different kind of obsidian, one sourced from Pico de Orizaba and the other from Zaragoza, which might have been obtained through different channels. Majaltepec is one of the few sites in the region where we have completed excavations in which we have collected such a small percentage of obsidian (King 2010; King et al. 2012). This says that something changed with the onset of Spanish colonial settlement or with Majaltepec specifically in terms of not being able to maintain access the trade networks that were once available during the Zapotec or Aztec entradas. Either that or Majaltepec residents preferentially chose to acquire newly available materials instead. The majority (87.5) of the chipped stone lithics collected at Majaltepec are chert, only six of which were definitive flakes and not one of which was a tool. The unworked pieces included chunks or shatter that may be debris from tool manufacture but do not have any obvious cutting edges. This begs the question, What were people at Majaltepec using for cutting tools? The evidence suggests that they used local cherts sparingly when needed. Perhaps by this time metal was preferred, or perhaps, with only 14 pieces of chert, a small amount of metal, and only 16 m of excavations, we have not yet recovered sufficient evidence to make a determination. The ground stone lithic artifacts, on the other hand, indicate large-scale continuity when comparing both sites against each other. Like other artifact classes, we found more material and variety at Greater La Amontonada than in Majaltepec, with chisels, sculpture, axes, manos, and metates present. At Majaltepec, we only located one axe and one mano in both excavations and surface collections.
Bea ds Stone Beads of El Órgano During excavations of a simple stone residential structure foundation at the site of El Órgano in Greater La Amontonada, we uncovered the refuse of a bead-making
New Materials—New Technologies? workshop. Among other refuse in the midden south of the structure and nearly ubiquitous in every excavation square, we found raw material, tools, and beads in various stages of production. El Órgano is located 1.7 km from the ceremonial complex at La Amontonada and includes a temple-patio-altar complex on a hilltop with large earthen terraces occupied by small residential complexes and agricultural space on the slopes. The excavated structure appears to be the residence of a relatively “commoner” status household. Overall, the architecture is missing characteristics associated with “elite” construction including formal masonry walls and stucco floors. However, the people who once lived here had a few rare possessions that would have required access to interregional exchange networks as well as the economic power to procure them. These rare imported items included a carved stone tenant head that may have served as an architectural decorative element hewn in the shape of a human figure, a fragment of copper tweezers, and polychrome ceramic sherds. In general, the beads were produced by a combination of flaking, drilling, and grinding / polishing. We have identified eight stages of production ranging from nodules of raw material to finished products (Table 5.5). Beadmakers first produced roughouts, followed by blanks, then drilled a hole from both sides, ground the bead, and polished complete beads. The raw material is not “fancy” or highly prized like jadeite or azabache (jet), but rather is softer and easier to work steatite varying between dark blue and green quarried from an as-yet unknown source. Bead-makers used chert micro-drills, made of expedient flakes, to drill the holes in the beads. The bead-makers at this residence were bringing the
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raw materials to the workshop in small, easy to transport pieces. The largest piece of raw material found weighs only 160.1 grams and is approximately 7 cm across at the widest point. This means that they were most likely doing their initial reduction of material at the location of procurement or a third location. The rest of the processes were all conducted at the workshop, and it is likely that one group of people (most likely a household) conducted all stages of production from roughout to polishing. Only two unbroken, complete beads were found, which indicates that most of the finished products were likely exported, apparently outside the region. No other sites in the region have yielded anything like the workshop. Only one other chert drill was found in the region during any field season (at El Cucharital). Of the six stone beads found at Postclassic sites in the region, only two possibly appear to have been produced at the Órgano workshop. The rest were made from a different, higher-quality greenstone. This includes a fine example of a round jadeite bead found in a midden outside the main plaza at La Amontonada. There are yet some avenues to investigate and some questions that cannot be answered at this time. Although we only found a few examples of finished beads at other sites, it would be disingenuous to assume that all of the beads were being traded outside of the region. As of now, only limited amounts of excavation have been completed at neighboring sites, so there is still a possibility that some finished beads did not travel far. It is also unclear from where and how they acquired the raw material to make the beads. Due to the small sizes of the chunks of raw material we have found, it is possible that raw material
Table 5.5. Different Stages of Stone Bead Production Represented at El Órgano, Greater La Amontonada STAGE OF PRODUCTION
DESCRIPTION
COUNT
% OF TOTAL
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total
Unmodified raw material Debitage (worked raw material) Roughout (roughly chipped into a cylindrical or spherical shape) Blank (ground on the sides perpendicular to the future hole) Blank with partial hole Blank with complete hole (holes bored from both sides to meet in center) Ground (the faces parallel to the hole are ground to form the final shape) Polished (removing the manufacturing marks)
561 19 23 49 18 49 18 9 746
75.2 2.5 3.1 6.6 2.4 6.6 2.4 1.2 100
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could have been acquired and transported from outside the Nejapa region.
Glass Beads at Majaltepec We uncovered a total of 448 glass and jet beads (total includes complete beads and bead fragments) below the floor in the patterned adobe structure, found among the burials. A majority of the beads were found in two clusters that lay directly next to each other. One group consisted of larger and more intricate beads mixed with smaller, simpler beads. The other group consisted of only small, simple beads including many beads of the seed bead variety. Alongside these beads, we also found fragments of a copper clasp. Several of the beads still had small fragments of cotton thread through their perforations, including four gilded green-glass beads still strung together. A majority of the beads were most likely deposited in a grave in the form of one or two pieces of jewelry such as a necklace, bracelet, or rosary. Preservation of human remains at the cemetery is poor, and no remains were directly associated with these deposits. However, teeth fragments were located 20 cm to the west of the beads, and many eroded bone fragments were uncovered 35 cm to the southwest. The beads are most likely related to these remains but do not seem to have been worn on the body in burial. The arrangement of the beads in the ground indicates that they were piled next to an interred body. A ceramic spindle whorl found just to the south of the beads likely relates to the same depositional event—a small offering of goods likely placed with a deceased individual. Other beads were found loose with other burials and in the fill between the structure floor and the burials. The loose beads recovered from fill are likely the result of older burials being disturbed during more recent interments. Each identifiable burial only had a few associated beads, so it is not clear if these beads were placed with bodies loose or if they were strung. It is also possible that the beads were sewn into clothing as was common across the transition (Anawalt 1981; Deagan 2002). The four beads found in association with Burial 4 are the only beads that appear to have been placed on a body and were found clustered below teeth and cranial fragments. Given the size of the burial stain and the aging of the teeth, this individual was less than five years of age (King and Higelin Ponce de León 2017). The location of the beads
indicates that they may have been buried with a necklace of four beads. In order to classify the beads found in Majaltepec, we used the system developed for the beads found in mortuary contexts at St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia (Blair et al. 2009). The Spanish mission at St. Catherine’s operated from AD 1605–1680. A total of 356 out of 448 (79.5) of the Majaltepec beads match types identified in the Blair and colleagues (2009) monograph. Another 37 beads are tentatively matched to the typology. Only 55 beads of Majaltepec have no equivalent at St. Catherine’s Island. The most common bead type, accounting for 39 of the collection, is Blair and colleagues’ Type 113, an opaque, hollow, white, and single or bilobed bead. These beads were most likely manufactured in the region of Andalucía, Spain. The production methods used there were imported from the Middle East, possibly Egypt, and were not produced after the seventeenth century. The next most common bead type (n = 88, 19.6) is a variety of different colored seed beads, which most likely originate in Venice, Italy. The most striking of the beads are the 62 (13.8) green-glass beads that were covered in gold leaf. While the gold plating was not well preserved, the beads still appear quite beautiful due to the incised decoration of the glass. Blair and colleagues (2009) posit that these beads probably originated in Spain because gold leaf beads of this type have only been found in Spanish colonial contexts. Other bead types help refine the chronology of the site, including 38 beads that correspond to Type 18. These blue, fragile beads, produced by the a speo method, were made in France between AD 1560 and 1750. Notably, with chemical analysis, this chronology could be further refined due to varying amounts of copper used before and after AD 1600 (Hancock et al. 1994; Kidd and Kidd 1983). There is one example of a transparent, deep yellow, spherical, and faceted Type 27 bead in the Majaltepec collection. This bead was produced by the a ferraza method in Venice and was only manufactured before AD 1630 (Smith et al. 1994:39). Two jet beads were also found, associated with Individual 1 in Burial 2. Jet beads reached their height of production in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, between AD 1534 and 1589, though they continued to be produced after this time (Blair et al. 2009). Jet beads were also produced in Mesoamerica and other parts of the Americas before Spanish arrival (Davis and Pack 1963), but the Majaltepec beads were most likely imported due
New Materials—New Technologies? to their faceted, barrel shape, which matches those from Santiago de Compostela. Other notable beads from Majaltepec include two Type 92 translucent green beads. These are the largest beads in the Majaltepec collection at 20.6 mm long. The beads are faceted and teardrop shaped. Among the beads unique to Majaltepec, there are 30 gray-brown, opaque, spherical beads of unknown raw material. The patina on these beads indicates that they could be metal or glass.
Meta l Mixed in with the refuse of the bead workshop at El Órgano was a fragment of copper tweezers (Figure 5.6). These tweezers were broken so that one blade was entirely missing. The break most likely occurred before they were discarded because the folded end had been reworked to form a closed loop. This closed loop would have enabled the owner to continue wearing the tweezers as a pendant even after the tweezers’ utilitarian purpose was lost. Ethnographic and archaeological sources for other parts of Mesoamerica indicate that tweezers were worn suspended around the neck but were also functional depilatory tools (Hosler 1994:150–152). According to various typologies, they have a shell (Hosler 1988:198) or miniature axe (Caso
Figure 5.6. Drawing of the copper tweezers found at El Órgano, Greater La Amontonada. Drawing by Elizabeth Konwest.
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1969:123) or flaring (Pendergast 1962:524) shape, with the flare at the bottom. The tweezers are small and measure only 20.1 mm in length by 16.9 mm in width at the widest part of the flare and 7.6 mm at the top. Although we have not chemically identified the raw materials, visual inspection indicates that the tweezers were made of a copper alloy, with a blade only 0.6 mm in thickness. Although evidence now abounds for metallurgy in various parts of Mesoamerica including western Mexico, the southern Maya Lowlands, and Honduras (Shugar and Simmons 2013), the Órgano tweezers are of probable western Mexico origin and arrived via long-distance trade. Metallurgy, both technology and design, in western Mexico was most likely directly introduced from northern South America (Hosler 2009; Mountjoy 1969). Western Mexico–produced metal items were traded over long distances including into the American Southwest as far north as Colorado (Vargas 1995) and as far east as Honduras (Hosler 1994). Lastly, the design, shape, and materials match other tweezers determined to be from western Mexico. At Majaltepec, we found 10 fragments of metal. Three are small bits of wrought nails. These include a cut, square nail head and the two fragments of rectangular cut nail shafts. Nearby, we found seven broken pieces of what was once a single metal machete or knife blade. Though broken, the blade pieces and the nails were all found close
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together in the churned up fill surrounding Burial 2, which leads us to suspect that the blade may have been deposited as a burial offering and was later disturbed by subsequent burial events. While we cannot rule out the possibility that the nails arrived in the fill through other means, they also could have been associated with a hafting for the blade but found slightly out of place due to mixing. The hafting would have been made out of a now decomposed organic material such as bone or wood. The context can be approximately dated to between AD 1560 and 1630, based on its association with the burials and diagnostic glass beads, which tells us that someone in Majaltepec had access to metal even though ownership of metal blades required special permission from the Crown (Anawalt 1980; Rodríguez-Alegría 2008:39).
Discussion The comparisons between artifacts of various classes and architectural styles present in Greater La Amontonada and Majaltepec tell a story that is complex and, at times, frustratingly contradictory. For example, the only constant in building construction techniques and architectural styles is that variability was predominant in both La Amontonada and Majaltepec; there is not one unified building technique or style in either community. Instead, choices in building construction and materials more likely had to do with the use of the building and / or the preferences of their builders and occupants. In Greater La Amontonada, elite buildings and public architecture employed stone masonry walls with stuccoed floors and
walls. At Majaltepec, elite and public buildings had thick adobe walls set on top of formal stone foundations and some formal stuccoed and flagstone elements (in this case benches and stepped entrances). Though the primary building material for the two structures we examined at Majaltepec was different (stone vs. adobe), they are not unique to either site. However, the elite buildings of Majaltepec used adobe to much greater effect than any La Amontonada structure (cf. Card and Fowler, this vol.). Similarities in architecture included the use of redpainted stucco and perishable materials. Majaltepec reserved the use of red-painted stucco floors for their “fanciest” buildings, which is a pattern we also see at elite platforms in La Amontonada. Perishable materials were used for roofs, tops of walls, and / or the entirety of walls. All buildings employed perishable materials—likely palm thatch—for roofs. At both sites, a majority of the nonelite structures would have also had walls of perishable materials. Early Spanish chroniclers throughout Mexico recorded some details of these structures and noted the variety of construction materials, including wattle and daub, lashed reeds, thatch, and wood beams. Only recently has the use of perishable materials in rural Mexico been largely abandoned in favor of cement and other materials (Yampolsky 1993). In Majaltepec, most of the houses were constructed entirely of perishable materials, with only simple stone foundations. Given that colonial sources indicate a population size far greater than could be housed in the number of identified structures (see Paso y Troncoso 1905c:159), it is likely that there were once many more structures constructed in a historically known
Figure 5.7. A remaining casa de paja in Santa Ana Tavela. Photo by Stacie M. King.
New Materials—New Technologies? style of wattle-and-daub structures with palm thatch roofs (casas de paja). Only a few examples of this kind of house remain in the region today (Figure 5.7). Historical accounts give descriptions of these simple dwellings, and until recently, adobe and wattle-and-daub homes were regularly constructed across the region. The ceramic data suggest substantial continuity across a tumultuous time of conquests and colonialisms. As evidenced by both paste types and forms, there is large-scale stability in ceramic traditions across the transition events. Fournier García and Otis Charlton (this vol.) also note a continuity in utilitarian wares in central Mexico from the Postclassic through the early colonial period. In Nejapa, neither community had a large number of identifiable imported ceramic vessels, indicating that the reliance on locally produced ceramic items remained relatively constant through time. Nonetheless, both groups enjoyed access to imported ceramics in limited quantities, as evidenced by the polychrome sherds found at La Amontonada, which were likely produced outside the region, and the majolica at Majaltepec. In other parts of prehispanic Oaxaca, including the highland central valleys, stone beads have been found in various contexts, but few archaeological sites have provided the evidence of production facilities. At the large civic-ceremonial center of Monte Albán, persons buried in Postclassic period tombs were found with spectacular stone bead jewelry made of jadeite, turquoise, and jet (Caso 1969). Though the beads at Órgano predate these tombs by several hundred years, it is relatively common to find stone beads of various materials in burial and midden contexts in prehispanic sites. Residents of Órgano and Greater La Amontonada were in a unique position to interact with many different groups of merchants and foreigners, and they appear to have received substantial economic and / or political benefits by living in the valley, where they were open and accessible to trade envoys. This was not the choice of many other contemporaneous Nejapa communities, who lived in the surrounding mountains along ridgelines and mountaintops behind defensible cliffs and walls. For the residents of the Órgano house, producing beads and trading at least some of them out, presumably to merchants moving through the region, seem to have afforded them increased opportunities. The economic rewards of being close to traders and merchants might also help explain the presence of imported fancy goods, which they were able to acquire, and then later, casually discard in trash middens.
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The glass beads were not locally produced items, and to date, there are no known glass-bead production facilities in early colonial Mexico. Glass makers established a famous glass-making facility in Puebla as early in the 1530s, producing glass wares for local use and export, but there is no evidence that they produced beads (Deagan 2002:31). Instead, beads were likely produced in other regions that were part of the Spanish trading empire including various parts of Europe (Spain, Venice, etc.), the Middle East, and China (Blair et al. 2009). Having had success with using glass beads as gifts in other contact situations, Spanish clergymen and conquistadors came with these items when entering new areas of Mesoamerica, including Oaxaca. In later centuries, we know that glass beads were used as compensation in the repartimiento system and as payment in obligatory trade situations (Blair et al. 2009:170). Dominican clerics probably brought beads to the region after they established the doctrina in Nejapa in 1558. Beads likely arrived to Mexican soil through the port in San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz, and traveled by ground to Mexico City where they were acquired and redistributed (Blair 2015). Spanish shipping registers show that beads arrived in the Spanish colonies in large quantities, with over three million beads brought to Mexico in the year 1592 alone (Deagan 2002:120). The glass beads and metal offer an intriguing look at technological change. These glass beads simultaneously have assisted us in dating the occupation of Majaltepec and offer an intriguing look at the blend of Spanish and Native traditions being employed by Majaltepec residents. According to Dominican doctrine, clerics were supposed to forbid the deposition of offerings in burial contexts (Blair et al. 2009; Deagan 2002). Church laws thus did not permit burial offerings (other than rosaries) to be buried with the deceased, and there is evidence for compliance with these rules in Oaxaca. For example, in the early colonial cemetery in the community of Teposcolula Yucundaa in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, the indigenous deceased were buried without offerings, in sharp contrast to prehispanic practices (Spores and Robles García 2007; Warinner et al. 2012). The one burial we have excavated from an Early Postclassic context (not at Greater La Amontonada, but nearby) included a ceramic vessel offering, and stone beads in prehispanic contexts in Nejapa were typically found in trash (King et al. 2012). The individuals buried at Majaltepec were buried with beads in a variety of manners, including complete pieces of jewelry placed next to bodies, beads
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worn, and possibly individual beads placed with bodies. The presence of the beads (along with other presumed offerings, including the metal knife and a spindle whorl) thus demonstrate that the indigenous people of Majaltepec were using newly introduced items as burial offerings, against Dominican policy. The use of beads in burials differs from the ways that beads and cutting tools were used in the past in Nejapa, but the practice demonstrates continuity with prehispanic burial traditions, when offerings of material items were common. No stone beads have been found in Majaltepec, yet people seem to have accepted imported glass beads as valuable alternative burial offerings. The contexts in which the beads and the metal are found, as compared to La Amontonada, show that there may have been a reworking of their meanings from utilitarian goods to ritually important and valuable items, no longer discarding the items in household trash (cf. Pugh 2009). Thus, the use of newly acquired materials as burial offerings and the practice of subfloor residential burial demonstrate that indigenous residents of Majaltepec opted to use newly introduced items in ways that were once reserved for ceramic vessels. The meaning of beads may have been reworked from exportable market goods to ritually important consumer items. The incorporation of newly acquired Spanish objects in indigenous ritual practice also occurred in other places in Mesoamerica. For example, the sixteenth-century elite Maya residents of Chanlacan used Spanish olive jar fragments to both “ensoul” and terminate a shrine using the imported olive jar in a similar manner to other exotic, prestigious Maya goods (Oland 2017). Early colonial legal documents indicate that Dominican friars from the convent in Nexapa visited Majaltepec on a somewhat regular basis to provide religious services, but they complained bitterly about the long, arduous trip to get there (King 2011; see Table 5.2). The distance of Majaltepec is one of the mentioned reasons for why the community became a focus of a contested congregación in 1604. We also know from archival documents that in 1576, “los naturales” (Indians) of Maxaltepec, along with those of Nexapa and “Tlaxuchaguaya” (Tlacochahuaya in the valley of Oaxaca), were granted the right to have horses and mules to use in carrying their goods (see Table 5.2). Likewise, in 1591, Bernardino Vasquez, “cacique gobernador de Maxaltepec de los Mixes,” who had already been granted an “estancia de ganado menor” (a parcel of land and permission to raise sheep and goats) the year before, requested permission to possess a horse, saddle, and
irons. This shows that by 1591, there was at least one entrepreneurial local Indian elite in Majaltepec who was seeking permission to use and own Spanish goods, including metal tools, that were otherwise prohibited based on proscribed Spanish sumptuary laws (Anawalt 1980). Together, these data show that Majaltepec’s interactions with immigrant Spaniards in Nexapa were frequent. Though clearly not a relationship among equals, Majaltepec’s residents sought to establish and maintain successful economic enterprises. In this way, there are broad similarities in the data that we see from both El Órgano and Majaltepec. As King (2012) has argued elsewhere, indigenous residents of Nejapa knew when to engage with foreign migrants, merchants, and militaries, and when not to. Some people benefited economically by establishing relationships with outsiders and connecting themselves to networks of long-distance exchange but did not rely on those ties for basic everyday goods. Though La Amontonada residents had easy access to imported obsidian, they also used chert cutting tools and made ceramics to meet everyday needs. The differences that we see between La Amontonada and Majaltepec appear to be differences of scale rather than quality. By colonial times, some long-distance exchange options may have already been foreclosing, such as access to networks that were supplying and receiving obsidian in central Mexico well into the colonial period (Rodríguez-Alegría 2008, 2013). Consequently, the amount and variety of ceramic and stone consumer goods arriving to the community from outside decreased. In addition, the sheer volume of materials littering the surface and belowground at La Amontonada lies in sharp contrast with the Majaltepec’s paucity of consumer goods. Nonetheless, people in both communities were able to penetrate and navigate the social, political, and economic relations of the market economy in order to acquire special luxury items and use them in the ways that made sense to them. Mathers and Mitchem (2013), focusing on the US Southwest and Southeast, argue that the impact of entradas in the early colonial period was mitigated by various factors, including climatic variation; the impacts of disease, forced labor, and slave raiding; the political organization of Native groups; and the different motivations and drivers of the different entrada efforts. They note that it was not until the latter half of the sixteenth century, when Spanish efforts shifted to colonization and missionization, that ways of life in Native North America
New Materials—New Technologies? were more markedly altered. In the case of Nejapa, it was only after the establishment of the Dominican parish in 1558 that we begin to see clear changes in access to specific consumer goods. While we cannot effectively distinguish the multiple entradas and waves of conquest in Nejapa, we can detect a shift in the quantity and variety of consumer goods that people used in their everyday lives after the onset of sustained relations with the Spanish colonial regime. Card and Fowler (this vol.) likewise note minimal technological transfer in the first few generations of the early colonial period. In Ciudad Vieja, it was not until after the 1540s and passage of the New Laws that the economic system shifted and networks of access changed. Unlike Nejapa, residents at Ciudad Vieja enjoyed increased opportunities for access to imported consumer goods. In Nejapa, Spanish colonialization and missionization reduced the availability of some key consumer goods (cutting tools like obsidian) that had once been available to indigenous Nejapa residents. Nonetheless, Nejapa residents adopted and adapted new materials, specifically imported glass beads and metal, within existing logics of everyday practice. Like Otumba and Xaltocan in central Mexico (Charlton and Otis Charlton 1994; Rodríguez-Alegría 2016) and Progresso Lagoon in Belize (Oland 2017), the arrival of the Spanish in Nejapa also occurred on the heels of major shifts in intra- and interregional power relations. The pace of technological transfer varied in these different contexts depending a wide variety of circumstances, including proximity to regional headquarters; the nature of social, economic, and political relations between and within groups; and the access to raw materials and the means of local production of various consumer goods. The distance of Nejapa from the central valleys of Oaxaca in the case of La Amontonada and the added distance of Majaltepec from Dominican parish headquarters in Nejapa likely accounts for at least some of the relatively slow pace of change in local production and access to exchange networks.
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innovation, political resistance, or economic oppression. We see broad similarities between the two complexes (in ceramics, ground stone tool technologies, use of stucco), with some marked shifts in the contexts of use of certain kinds of materials (beads, metal) and the absence of other materials in specific site complexes (glass beads, stone beads, and for the most part, all cutting tools). We also observed a trend in that both communities maintained access to elite goods (metal, glass beads, stone sculpture), but they did so through different means (local bead production in Órgano and in Majaltepec, presumably by establishing economic and social relationships with Dominican / Spaniards). The adoption of new materials and technologies and the continued use of others demonstrate simultaneous restrictions in choice and the availability of new opportunities within the politico-economic structures of colonialism. In the end, just as we cannot say what a colonial context should look like, neither can we say what a prehispanic context should look like. Each of these site complexes represents a particular snapshot in what were always dynamic times, with differential access to materials and networks of trade. Not all sites that date to the “colonial” era are necessarily going to include diagnostic colonial material goods, especially in rural areas (Bayman 2003; Palka 2009). At Majaltepec, our targeted excavations by sheer luck revealed what are obvious Spanish imports. Other materials, like obsidian, might have been obtained through new economic networks, perhaps with Indian conquistadors or newly aligned merchants, but these goods simply might not be “new.” Our work is also a reminder that what we think of as “prehispanic” artifact forms or materials were likely used well into the colonial period and beyond. Thus, technological changes in Nejapa may have included both invisible transitions and apparent continuities, which we are then challenged to recognize and tease apart.
Ack now ledgments Conclusion The comparison of two different site complexes that represent different moments in time during an extended period of multiple transitions does not provide one easy story of technological change with the advent of colonialism, whether it is one of replacement, continuity, technological
We must, as always, thank the people of Santa Ana Tavela and Nejapa de Madero for sharing their time and expertise with us and supporting our work since the Nejapa Tavela Archaeological Project’s inception. Likewise, this research would not have been possible without the support and permission of the Consejo de Arqueología of Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and
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the Centro INAH Oaxaca. Grant support was provided by the National Science Foundation (Grant #1015392) and Indiana University’s Office for the Vice Provost for Research New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities program in grants to King. Lastly, we thank Rani Alexander for her invitation to present this work at the Society for American Archaeology meetings, her careful editing, and for facilitating our introduction to colleagues working across Mesoamerica.
Notes 1. Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), General de parte, vol. 1, exp. 818, 159. 2. AGN, Indios, vol. 3, exp. 620, 148v; AGN Mercedes, vol. 18, 93v.
Technology and Forest Transitions in the Soconusco Region of Chiapas, Mexico M ar io A. Castillo a n d Ja n in e Gasco
and New World land-use technologies impact forest land cover (Gasco 2012, 2018). This study explores how patterns of land use and land cover have changed in Soconusco from the prehispanic period to the present. A principal focus is the history of Soconusco’s forests from the sixteenth century until today and how changes in forest land cover have been influenced by technology and other factors. In particular, we examine these patterns in the wider context of forest transitions (Grainger 1995, 2014; Hecht 2014; Hecht et al. 2014; Klooster 2003; Mather 1992, 2007; Mather and Needle 1998; Perz 2007; Perz and Skole 2003) in order to situate the complex dynamics between innovation in technology and the problems posed by the cultural construction of nature in colonial and postcolonial contexts (Dawdy 2010; Masco 2014; Morrison and Lycett 2013; Peluso 1996). We begin with a brief outline of the forest transition theory. Thereafter, we summarize what is known from the archaeological record about land use and the state of Soconusco’s forest area in ancient times. We then review the documentary data to identify land-use / land-cover change, and we evaluate how technology and other factors are related to changes from the sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Finally, we examine land-cover change from 1964 to 2010, utilizing remote sensing data, and we describe the results of field checking conducted in May 2014. At that time, we visited several locations where remote sensing data suggested reforestation had taken place in an effort
Technology, or a set of meaningful innovations (Latour 1990, 2000) in the context of common knowledge (Schiffer 2000), has played an important mediating role between society and nature throughout history. Technology’s mediating roles include qualitative changes over time, such as the phenotypic plasticity brought about when our ancient hominid ancestors began to control fire and the dramatic ecosystem engineering associated with the domestication of plants and animals (Boivin et al. 2016; Gowlett 2016; Smith and Zeder 2013). In colonial and postcolonial Mesoamerica, Old World innovations, particularly those associated with Mediterranean agropastoralism and the frequency of transatlantic transportation, impacted socio-natural trajectories including patterns of human land use and the corresponding trends in land cover in many regions (e.g., Alexander 2012b; Fournier García and Mondragón 2003; Melville 1994; Sluyter 1999). We use the term land use to refer to human activities on land that modify and / or appropriate ecosystem processes to produce something of value. We use the term land cover to refer to the physical land-surface features of the earth that are either natural or cultural in origin (LópezGranados 2013:19). In the case of the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico, it remains unclear how the introduction of Old World agricultural technology influenced indigenous Mesoamerican agroforestry (Figure 6.1). Further, it is unclear to what extent ongoing translation (sensu Latour 1990, 2000, 2005) between the suite of Old World
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Figure 6.1. Location of the Soconusco region. Map by Mario A. Castillo.
Technology and Forest Transitions to determine the causes for this change. We were particularly interested in investigating the possibility that recent efforts to promote the planting of African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) contributed to this apparent trend of forest resurgence (see further discussion below). We conclude with a discussion of forest transitions in Soconusco after the Spanish invasion and assess the role of technology in bringing about these transitions.
For est Tr a nsition Theory Research on forest transitions is a subset of the larger field of study that explores patterns of regional land use and land cover. Land use, including use of forests, has long been a focus of archaeological and historical research, whether the subject was early hominids, hunter / gatherers, ancient civilizations, or more recent societies (e.g., Bamforth 1991; Beaudry 1986; Berglund 2006; Bintliff 2005; Blumenschine and Peters 1998; Fedick 1995; Kaplan et al. 2009; Kohler and Matthews 1988; Redman 1999). While changes in forest-dominated regions are brought about by myriad reasons, what has come to be known as the forest transition was first articulated by Alexander Mather (1992), a historical geographer. He used the term to model technical, economic, and social factors that reverse long-term declines in forest land cover “from shrinking to expanding forest area” in the countries of northern Europe and the United States since the nineteenth century (Mather 1992:367–368, 2007; see also Grainger 1995). This expansion is characterized either as reforestation, which is the “re-wilding” of deforested areas, or afforestation, which is forest expansion into new areas not previously dominated by woody vegetation (Grainger 1995; Mather 1992; Mather and Needle 1998). As an analytical framework for regional land-cover analysis, forest transition theory describes “forests” as spatial compositions of contiguous woody vegetation (Mather 1992). This conventional definition, however, abstracts the intimate and substantive content of human and forest socio-natural relations in the New World (see de Castro 2014; Descola 2013; Kohn 2013). According to Mather (1992), in initial periods, population pressure increased demand for forest resources including timber for building material and land for farming, causing deforestation. In regions where population growth occurs in conjunction with greater interregional and intercontinental trade, deforestation is more devastating (Mather 1992:373). In later periods, however, the
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downward trend in forest areas is perceived as a negative externality (Mather 1992, 2007). In essence, deforestation is rationalized as a problem (primarily among the business classes) when compared to the extent of its previously “natural” condition (Mather 2007). Nevertheless, the “perception of a forest crisis” (Mather 1992:372, 2007) creates political interest in forest management (Dewey 1988 [1927]). This shift to publically mandated forest management, according to Mather (1992, 2007), correlates with the shift in lifestyles among the working class. In later periods, the lure of city dwelling, the availability of manufacturing jobs, and the prospect of upward mobility shifted people from farms to cities, yet in many countries, forest area stabilized long before population pressure tapered off (Mather 1992). This leads Mather (1992:372) to argue that “the underlying trends of population and of resource perceptions are probably the most significant factors leading to the forest-area transition.” The shift to forest regeneration—the transition—took place in much of Europe and the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Grainger 1995; Mather 1992; Mather and Needle 1998; Rudel et al. 2005). Graphically, this trend is represented as an inverted J-shaped curve (Figure 6.2; see Barbier et al. 2010; Grainger 1995; Mather and Needle 1998; Mather et al. 1999; Rudel et al. 2005). Since Mather’s (1992) initial formulation, scholars have found that technical, economic, and social change and the timing of forest transitions vary. Grainger (1995:243) describes forest transitions as a two-step process: the “national land use transition,” which is the deforestation period, and the “forest replenishment period.” For Grainger (1995:243), the forest transition demarcates the boundary between these two distinct trends, suggesting that forest land use that results in deforestation and land use that seeks to manage forests are not inherently interrelated. In other words, land use can drive deforestation, but this does not mean that the same land-use practices at a smaller scale cause forests to grow back (Grainger 1995). Placing forest transition in a subregional context leads to the recognition that no single factor drives forest-area reduction, and the factors that result in forest regeneration differ as well (Grainger 1995). To explain how increases in food production could contribute to forest-area expansion, Mather and Needle (1998:122–123) suggest that cumulative knowledge helps farmers adjust to the labor shortages and the increased demand for agricultural products caused by rural to urban migration. Mather and Needle (1998) demonstrate that the conditions that lead
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Figure 6.2. J-shaped curve illustrating forest transition pattern.
to the expansion of forest areas and the sustained increase in food production happen if there is an accumulation of knowledge of local environmental conditions. Thus, farmers who have farming heritage are likely to be more resilient and able to sustain the level of agricultural production for growing populations in towns and cities on less land, causing the conditions necessary for reforestation and afforestation (Mather and Needle 1998). In recent years, research on changing forest land-cover patterns has accelerated in response to growing concerns about the interconnectedness and consequences of contemporary activities across the globe (Foley et al. 2005; Lambin et al. 2003; Turner et al. 1994), and the forest transition model is now being applied to describe the historical trajectory of forests in the humid tropics of the Global South (e.g., Central America, Brazil, the Caribbean, Ecuador, India). Of particular concern has been the large-scale deforestation that has taken place in the humid tropics because of the important role that these regions play in regulating global climate patterns. The humid tropics have high biodiversity, they contribute to global hydrologic cycles, and perhaps most significant of all, the forest cover sequesters carbon (Chowdhury 2006; Lambin et al. 2003). Recent research on changing land-cover patterns in the humid tropics has shown that after decades of large-scale deforestation, forest resurgence is taking place in many regions of Latin America, or the former Spanish Empire (Aide et al. 2001; Bray et al. 2003; Hecht and Saatchi 2007; Kull et al. 2007; Neeff et al. 2006; Perz and Skole 2003; Rudel et al. 2002; Schmook and Radel 2008).
The shift from deforestation to forest regeneration in some countries in the Global South today has generated considerable debate. This process has been interpreted by some as evidence that similar processes are driving forest resurgence in the countries of the tropics today as they did in countries in temperate zones in the past (see Grau and Aide 2008; Klooster 2003; Mather 2007; Rudel et al. 2005). Others, however, argue that a theory of forest transitions derived from aggregated regional data from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in temperate zones may fail to explain forest transitions in the context of neoliberal globalization (Hecht 2010, 2014; Lambin et al. 2003; Perz 2007:107; Rudel et al. 2002; Schmook and Radel 2008). In this view, a wide variety of factors linked to globalization are largely responsible for forest expansion today, and these factors make the current situation different from and more complex than the situation that initially gave rise to the forest transition model (GarcíaBarrios et al. 2009; Hecht 2014; Hecht and Saatchi 2007; Klooster 2003; Perz 2007). In this view, as countries are integrated through the movement of commodities, capital, labor, technology, and information, policies have been implemented that result in privatization, free trade pacts, administrative decentralization, liberalized credit systems, and elimination of subsidies (Appadurai 2013; Harvey 2005; Ong 2007; Tsing 2004), all of which can affect land-use and forest land-cover patterns (García-Barrios et al. 2009; Hecht and Saatchi 2007). In the critique of forest transition theory, a primary concern is the concept of forest itself and how
Technology and Forest Transitions practitioners view and describe the forests in in the Global South, including the regions of Mesoamerica. What constitutes a forest? Forests are vibrant and contain different types of vegetation at different stages of becoming (Kohn 2013), so a single model of transition masks this diversity (Neef et al. 2006; Perz 2007; Perz and Skole 2003). At issue, as well, is the definition of forest cover and how to treat large-scale, agro-industrial tree crop plantations. As Perz (2007:108) notes, if plantations are “expanding as primary forest declines, a landscape may become more economically productive even as it becomes ecologically impoverished.” Similarly, highly capitalized, mechanized agricultural technology plays an important role in landuse trends today. One example of this is the current promotion of large-scale agrofuel monoculture. Critics of this trend are concerned that it will be disastrous for small farmers, for biodiversity, and for consumers, and that it will “displace tens of thousands of farmers, decrease food security in many countries, and accelerate deforestation and deepen the ecological footprint of the industrial agriculture model” (Altieri 2009:236). Other limitations of traditional models of forest transitions deal with treatment of forest dynamics that are derived from national estimates and land-cover change analysis through remote sensing (Perz 2007). Inaccurate use or interpretation of these data cross-nationally or within different temporal and spatial scales may lead researchers to identify forest regeneration, but upon closer inspection, land degradation, social inequality, and human suffering are also taking place (Perz 2007). Other factors affecting forest transitions across the developing world include migration, because it is clear that migration patterns are different today than in the past. Previously, rural migration to cities resulted in an abandoned countryside and forest expansion, but today, as international migration has increased, remittances are sent to family members who often still reside in forested rural areas. In summary, forest transition theory describes how the historical processes of technical, social, and economic change caused contraction and resurgence in forest area in temperate zone countries from the nineteenth century onward. At first, deforestation reduced the size of woodlands. Thereafter, a crisis of deforestation in these areas triggered a political interest in forest management, limiting the rate of deforestation, while changes in society such as city dwelling, off-farm labor, and upward mobility forced farmers to innovate to produce more food on less land. Both land-use strategies, including management,
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and agricultural adjustment created the conditions for forest areas to recover or expand into new areas. Similar trends are documented in the Global South, but the causes of trajectory remain unclear. In forest transition theory, changes in forest cover are driven by internal factors, but today in countries in the Global South, neoliberal globalization has thoroughly reconfigured social and cultural life and created novel ecosystems whose structure and function remain poorly understood (e.g., Tsing 2015). These problems suggest that additional issues such the long-term mediating role of technology (Alexander, this vol.) need to be addressed.
For est Tr a nsitions in Socon usco The Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico, occupies a long, relatively narrow strip of land that lies between the Pacific Ocean to the southwest and the Sierra Madre range to the northeast, an area of approximately 5,500 km (Figure 6.1). Numerous rivers flow from the slopes of the Sierra Madre across the coastal plain, depositing sediment and nutrients annually and providing the region with deep, rich soils. This, together with high levels of precipitation—ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 m of rainfall annually—make Soconusco one of the most agriculturally productive areas of Mexico. An important element in ongoing research that focuses on long-term land-use patterns in Soconusco is to better understand the history of the region’s forests. Much of Soconusco has long been covered by tropical deciduous forest or semi-evergreen and evergreen seasonal forests, with portions of the area closer to the Pacific coast covered by mangrove forest and short-tree savanna, thorn woodland, and palm forest (Breedlove 1981). From at least the Late Postclassic period—and probably much earlier— until today, the region’s economy has depended heavily on forest products. Yet, in the almost 40 years that Gasco has conducted field research in the area, she has observed a reduction in forested areas and has had numerous conversations with local residents who were concerned about deforestation (see also Alvarez del Toro 1985). Nevertheless, we are not aware of any research that documents this phenomenon. Therefore, we began this research with what we thought was a fairly straightforward task: to review historical forest patterns in Soconusco, and more specifically, to document the extent of recent deforestation, using remote sensing data, and review its likely
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causes. As expected, the data indicate that the region has experienced high levels of deforestation over the last three decades of the twentieth century, but surprisingly, this trend appears to have slowed considerably in recent years. This led us to the literature on forest transition and a consideration of how Soconusco fits into this ongoing debate.
Forest Transitions in the Ancient Past: Archaeological Evidence Paleobotanical research provides some data about ancient patterns of forest land cover in the Soconusco region (Blake and Neff 2011; Jones and Voorhies 2004). By the Middle Archaic period (ca. 5500–3500 BC), what had been a heavily forested environment began to experience human disturbance as domesticated maize and other cultigens appear by 3500 BC, and forest disturbance increased gradually throughout the Late Archaic period (ca. 3500–2000 BC) (Blake and Neff 2011; Jones and Voorhies 2004:341). Not surprisingly, the earliest human modification of the Soconusco forest environment appears to have been carried out as forests were cleared to make way for agriculture. Cacao residues found on an Early Formative period (ca. 2000–1200 BC) pot that dates to about 1800 BC (Powis et al. 2007) suggest that at this early date, Soconusco residents may have engaged in agroforestry that included a specific set of forest-related land-use strategies including the cultivation of crops like cacao in existing forests, in addition to forest clearing for rain-fed agriculture as noted above. Whereas the earliest cacao beverages in Mesoamerica may have been produced using only the pulp of the cacao fruit (Henderson et al. 2007), at some point—almost certainly in the Formative period— Mesoamericans discovered that cacao seeds, not just the pulp of the fruit, had great potential (sensu Latour 1990; Schiffer 2000). This innovation forever changed the role of cacao for humans because seeds can be dried and stored and easily transported to regions where cacao does not grow. The growing importance of cacao across Mesoamerica over time would have contributed to the widespread adoption of agroforestry practices in places like Soconusco that were ideally suited for its cultivation (Gasco 2017). By the Middle Formative period (ca. 900– 400 BC), Jones and Voorhies note that they see evidence for “widespread deforestation” in some areas of Soconusco, but they also note that “overall, the microbotanical data record an environment that remained fairly constant
over the last seven to eight millennia” (2004:340). This seems to suggest that as early as the Formative period, Soconusco residents were engaging in swidden agriculture, in which forests were cut to provide full-sun fields, as well as forest management, where forests were maintained for the production of forest crops. Although no further paleobotanical data are currently available, evidence suggests that this pattern of forest maintenance combined with full-sun agriculture as an economic strategy was also common in the Late Postclassic period (ca. AD 1430– 1519), and in all likelihood, during the intervening years. In summary, early land-use and land-cover change in Soconusco, beginning in the Archaic period, was associated with the origins of agriculture in the region and the associated technology that led to forest clearing to create full-sun agricultural plots as discussed above. Population growth undoubtedly also played a role in this process as growing populations required more cleared agricultural plots. It also seems likely that the region’s forests were being utilized by local residents, presumably for a wide range of plant resources, including cacao. In Soconusco, the earliest evidence suggests that a markedly different societal and ontological orientation toward nature can develop in initial periods of regional development in contrast to the underlying assumptions in forest transition theory discussed above. Managed forests also would have required technological expertise and the tools needed for pruning and other tasks. A broad range of social institutions must be developed in association with the spread of agroforestry land-use strategies. Social complexity becomes more evident in later periods, but the earliest manifestation of Soconusco socio-natural relations linked with early agriculture and technology point to the development of an early cultural orientation toward nature bent toward the management of forests, thereby facilitating population growth.
Forest Transitions from the Sixteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century: Documentary Evidence For the final years of the Late Postclassic period, an important pictorial manuscript provides information about the Soconusco environment and its forests. The Matrícula de tributos is an Aztec tribute document and a precursor to the tribute portion of the colonial period Codex Mendoza. It is thought to reflect Aztec tribute demands in 1517 (Berdan 1996:116). Previous studies have examined this document in some detail as it relates to
Technology and Forest Transitions Soconusco (Gasco 2006; Gasco and Voorhies 1989). Soconusco tribute consisted mainly of forest products: both plants (cacao and jícaras, presumably from the tree gourd, Crescentia sp.) and wild game (feathers of five bird species as well as bird skins and jaguar pelts). These products almost certainly came from the local forests, suggesting extensive forest management practices and associated technology. Throughout the colonial period, cacao continued to be the principal product of the region; the tributary population of Soconusco paid its tribute to Spain in cacao, and cacao also attracted merchants to the region as it had in the Postclassic period (see Gasco 1989a, 2006; see also Sampeck, this vol.). New technology included the introduction and use of a metal tools as identified during excavations at the colonial townsite of Ocelocalco and from archival evidence (Gasco 1992a, 1992b; see also Pastrana Cruz [this vol.] for discussion of the colonial obsidian industry). The use of metal tools, however, does not seem to have contributed to significant land-use change, perhaps due to high rates of depopulation, which may have reached over 90 within the first century after the Spanish invasion (Gasco 1989b). In colonial Soconusco, it seems that population trends have had the greatest impact on socio-natural relations and land-use practices. Documents suggest that the region experienced extensive forest regeneration as the population plummeted to less than
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one person per km, and throughout most of the colonial period, population density remained low (Table 6.1; see Gasco 1989b). Colonial documents are replete with descriptions of the region’s dense forests, raging rivers, and wild animals (Gasco 1989a). Soconusco’s population began to recover by the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century (see Table 6.1), and cacao and other forest products like vanilla and achiote provided the foundation for the local Soconusco economy along with subsistence crops grown in full-sun agricultural fields. It seems likely that vanilla and achiote had long been cultivated in Soconusco, but there is no definitive evidence for this until they are mentioned in early nineteenth-century documents (see Gasco 1996, 2012, 2016, 2018). Vanilla and achiote are closely associated with cacao, and the triad of cacao, vanilla, and achiote has also been documented in the Maya Lowlands (Caso Barrera and Aliphat F. 2006). These are all crops that would have been (and still are) part of the agroforestry system in Soconusco. In sum, for most of the colonial period, Soconusco residents maintained many of the same land-use patterns that had been present previously. New plants (e.g., citrus trees, bananas) and domesticated animals (e.g., chickens, pigs, cows) were integrated into existing systems (see Gasco 2012, 2018). In the nineteenth century, sugarcane production increased, which would have resulted in some deforestation
Table 6.1. Soconusco Population and Population Density (ca. AD 1520 –2010) DATE
POPUL ATION
POPUL ATION DENSIT Y / KM
REFERENCE
ca. 1520 1611
65,000–90,000 7,578
6.3–8.6 0.6
4,606 2,255 6,409 8,761 11,826 30,333 54,691 126,809 175,300 241,946 305,524 429,486 578,508 664,437 754,629
0.4 0.2 1.2 1.6 2.2 5.5 9.9 23 32 44 56 78 105 120 137
Gasco 1990b; Gerhard 1993 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (AGI), Audiencia de Mexico, Leg. 3102, “Padron y matrícula” Archivo General de Centroamérica, Guatemala City, A3.12.240 2976 AGI, Audiencia de Guatemala, Leg. 375, “Información del Obispo de Chiapas” Archivo Histórico Diocesano, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, “Informe de los vasallos” de Vos 1994:152–153 Pineda 1999 [1845] Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), Primer Censo de población INEGI, Tercer Censo de población INEGI, Quinto Censo de población INEGI, Séptimo Censo de población INEGI, VIII Censo de población INEGI, IX Censo de población INEGI, X Censo de población INEGI, XI Censo de población INEGI, XII Censo de población INEGI, XIII Censo de población
1687 1733 1778 1814 1842 1895 1910 1930 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
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at lower elevations as sugarcane grows in full sun (Gasco 2012, 2018). Sugarcane cultivation itself does not require any new technology, but processing the cane into panela (or piloncillo) or aguardiente does, and without the technology for these products—principally the trapiches, or sugar mills—there would have been little demand for greater quantities of sugarcane (see also Mayfield et al., this vol.). To the extent that forests were cut in order to grow more cane, one can attribute land-cover change in part to new technology as well as to changing economic dynamics that met new demands by a growing population for new kinds of production. Coffee is first documented in Soconusco in the early 1800s, when small-scale, primarily indigenous farmers began to plant coffee bushes in their forest gardens (Gasco 1996, 2012, 2018). Presumably this was primarily for auto-consumption, because coffee is not reported as a commercial crop at that time. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, coffee became the principal economic export of the region. Coffee was produced primarily on fincas (farms), many of which were owned by foreign immigrants (Baumann 1983; Benjamin 1989; Helbig 1964). Most coffee fincas were located at high elevations, above 400 m, in previously unoccupied forests. Although coffee brought about dramatic economic changes in Soconusco, coffee, like cacao, was—and continues to be—grown in the shade of existing forests, and it apparently did not lead to significant changes in the region’s forests (Gasco 2012, 2018). Census documents from 1910 reveal that the Soconusco landscape at that time consisted of large tracts of forest—managed and unmanaged—as well as full-sun agricultural fields. Agricultural fields included those of small-scale farmers as well as a growing number of large properties, which were typically used for cattle or sugarcane production at lower elevations and coffee at higher elevations (Gasco 2012, 2018). It is likely that if we could measure forest cover, we would discover that forest reduction was taking place on a small scale at lower elevations at this time. Yet, Soconusco remained heavily forested until the second half of the twentieth century (see Alvarez del Toro 1985).
population growth; population has quadrupled in the last 50 years after a precipitous decline and slow recovery in the previous 450 years (Table 6.1). Second, as Mexico promoted economic development and the introduction of new agricultural technology, agricultural production in Soconusco has changed dramatically, particularly at the lower elevations of the coastal plain, where mechanized and large-scale production of monocrops (e.g., cotton, soy, bananas, mangos) reliant on chemical inputs became the norm (Villafuerte Solís 1992). The new technologies associated with these changes— the machinery; the chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers; and even the agricultural technology that created new hybrids—have contributed heavily to land-use changes. These technological changes, of course, did not happen in a vacuum and can be directly linked to changing economic policies, and, as noted above, population growth has also been a driving factor behind these changes. Currently, both federal and state governments are aggressively promoting large-scale cultivation of African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) across the humid tropics of southern Mexico, but particularly in Soconusco (as well as northern Chiapas and the Selva Lacandona). Lands that formerly were used to produce food crops are now being used to produce African oil palm (Fletes Ocón et al. 2013; García Aguirre 2013). In 2015, 67 of the African oil palm in Mexico was grown in Chiapas, covering an area of over 43,000 ha, and within Chiapas, 65 of its cultivation is in the Soconusco region (SIAP 2016). The Soconusco economy today is globally connected and still heavily based on agricultural production. Soconusco’s most important product is coffee, a crop that is largely shade-grown in forests, primarily in areas above 400 m. However, at lower elevations, small-scale farmers, industrial farms, and ranchers have expanded cattle production, and they also produce crops such as bananas, soybeans, mangos, and, more recently, African oil palm. Most of this large-scale, industrial agriculture is a postWorld War II phenomenon. We now turn to an examination of land-use changes, particularly changes in forest or woodland cover, over the past 40 years.
Forest Transitions from 1964 to 2014
Remote Sensing Data, 1964–2010
Several factors have contributed to land-use and forest land-cover change in Soconusco since the mid-twentieth century. First, the region has experienced tremendous
The developments in Soconusco that occurred after World War II—specifically changes in forest land cover—can be measured by classifying land cover using remote sensing
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Table 6.2. Data Used for Land- Cover Classification Analysis IMAGERY
DATE
PATH
ROW
ENTIT Y ID
LANDSAT 1 MSS LANDSAT 4 TM LANDSAT 5 TM LANDSAT 5 TM
1974 / 02 / 15 1990 / 02 / 03 2000 / 02 / 23 2010 / 02 / 02
22 21 21 21
50 49 49 49
EMP022R50_1M19740215 LT40210491990034XXX03 LT50210492000054XXX02 LT50210492010033CHM00
Additional Data for Supervised Classification Mosaicked 1964 panchromatic imagery from SRH Comision del Grijalva produced by Aerofotogametria S.A. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (STRM) digital elevation model from USGS. Ground truth data of study area acquired by Castillo and Gasco in May 2014.
techniques (Robbins and Maddock 2000). Following Hecht and Saatchi (2007:665), we define forest using the terminology of woodland as areas that are dominated by woody vegetation and with more than 10 canopy cover. However, we have modified their definition of woodland by increasing the areal scope to more than 5 ha (they use a figure of 0.5 ha). This modified areal scope is especially useful in Soconusco where there are many orchards and plantations smaller than 5 ha that are cultivated and are classified in this study as agricultural lands. In this study, assessment of woodland cover was achieved through the analysis of Landsat satellite imagery and black-and-white aerial photography. Since the early 1970s, the Landsat program has continually captured moderate-resolution pictures of the surface of Earth. These images have become essential for studies of landuse and land-cover change analysis. For Soconusco, we obtained one image from the Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) from 1974 and three images from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) from 1990, 2000, and 2010 from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) (Table 6.2). All images were captured during the region’s dry season (January to April) to reduce classification errors due to cloud cover and reflectance signatures from cultivated areas (Hecht and Saatchi 2007). Image analysis was achieved in ERDAS IMAGINE 13.0 and maps were rendered in ArcMap 10.2. ArcMap’s image editing features were used to define a study area that encompasses approximately 23,800 ha of Soconusco. The study area is located adjacent to the Sierra Madre in Soconusco’s upper coastal plain. In this defined region, the elevation ranges between approximately 25 m and almost 1,000 m asl (with most of the study area located well below 1,000 m, see Figure 6.3). The study area encompasses parts of the municipios (municipalities) of Villa Comaltitlán, Escuintla, Acapetahua,
Figure 6.3. Location of the study area. Map by Mario A. Castillo.
Acacoyagua, and Mapastepec, and it includes the towns of Villa Comaltitlán, Acacoyagua, and Escuintla. Mexican Federal Highway 200 and a major rail line intersect the study area. Preprocessing procedures turn satellite image values into meaningful data points, and they are vital for any type of land-cover analysis involving satellite imagery (Chander et al. 2009; Chen et al. 2005; Price 1987; Song et al. 2001). Procedures involving terrain correction, radiometric correction, atmospheric correction, and image registration generalize topographic, electromagnetic, and locational values between satellite images acquired at different points in time and thus allow for comparisons between them. Landsat images were terrain corrected by USGS. Conversion to radiance values—the heat emitted by Earth’s surface—was achieved using the standard equation (Chander et al. 2009). Trace amount of latent heat from Earth’s atmosphere was removed through Dark Object Subtraction using heat values from
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water (the dark object) located in Presa Netzahualcoyotl (Chen et al. 2005). Afterward, conversion to reflectance values—the measure of the proportion of light emitted from Earth’s surface—was achieved through the standard equation (Chander et al. 2009). Images were then aligned pixel to pixel. The image bands were merged to create a single satellite image. Finally, only pixels located within the boundaries of the study area were used in analysis. In this study, the land-cover classification scheme was formulated using existing classification schemes from the literature (J. Anderson et al. 1976) but modified based on information from images and field data gathered in 2014. Four land-cover classes were developed: (1) Woodland— areas larger than 5 ha that contain mostly woody vegetation and with a tree canopy of more than 10; (2) Urban or Built-Up—cities and towns including areas where land is covered by human-made structures; (3) Agriculture— areas under cultivation or being prepared for cultivation including fallow fields, orchards, and plantations; and (4) Water—areas containing rivers, creeks, and other linear water bodies including associated alluvial plains. However, to better represent woodland change, it was decided to combine classes 2, 3, and 4 into a single class labeled “non-woodland.” Satellite images were analyzed in ERDAS IMAGINE 13.0 using supervised multispectral classification—a method of sorting pixels into categories based on their pixel values (ERDAS 1982–1999). In this study, classification was used to sort pixels based on reflectance. Accurate supervised classification results are obtained when the analyst has prior knowledge of the area. In this case, each image for analysis was displayed in false color composite, which is useful for highlighting vegetation health and texture in the form of reflectance values. In addition, field data from the area, a black-and-white photograph from 1964, and a 100 m contour map were overlaid to each image to accurately collect reflectance signatures.
These overlaid data contrasted past land cover with current land cover as well as physiographic details such as elevation to allow the analyst to accurately collect reflectance signatures. To reduce spectral confusion, a postclassification fuzzy convolution operation was applied to each classified image. This operation generalizes classification values, which lead to more representative landcover analyses (ERDAS 1982–1999). The results of this classification are summarized in Table 6.3. Mapping land cover using aerial photography requires an object-oriented approach in contrast to the pixel-based approach described above. In black-and-white photographs, relationships between neighboring pixels allow for the identification of objects in a process called segmentation (Laliberte et al. 2004). In this study, we did not use object-oriented analysis to assess woodland cover for 1964; instead, it was decided to separate pixel values because of high contrast in the black-and-white image between woodland and non-woodland areas. For the 1964 photo, we used the reclassify function in ArcMap to split pixel brightness values into nine distinct classes. Through visual inspection it was decided that classes one to three (the darkest pixels) represented woodland cover. But it is important to note that not all dark pixels represent wooded areas, and there were areas in the black-andwhite photo that clearly showed trees but were not located in dark pixel areas. Issues of commission and omission that emerged from reclassification affect the validity of woodland-cover estimates for 1964, yet for the purposes of this study, we think it necessary to establish a baseline for woodlands in the ’60s to illustrate the amount of woodland change in subsequent decades. Thus, for 1964 we concluded that the baseline forest was about 10,871 ha (Table 6.3). Based on this analysis, the study area experienced continuous deforestation from 1964 to 2000. From 2000 to 2010, woodland levels appear to stabilize with only a minor overall reduction in forest cover, and in
Table 6.3. Results of Land- Cover Classification Analysis IMAGERY
DATE
CLASSIFICATION METHOD
OVER ALL CLASSIFICATION ACCUR ACY %
WOODL AND COVER IN HECTARES HA
PANCHROMATIC LANDSAT 1 MSS LANDSAT 4 TM LANDSAT 5 TM LANDSAT 5 TM
1964 1974 / 02 / 15 1990 / 02 / 03 2000 / 02 / 23 2010 / 02 / 02
Reclassification Supervised Supervised Supervised Supervised
n/a 96 91 89 96
10,871 4,378 2,816 2,462 2,414
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Figure 6.4a–e. Images of the study area: (a) 1964, (b) 1974, (c) 1990, (d) 2000, (e) 2010. Maps by Mario A. Castillo.
some locations, forest regeneration appears to have taken place (see discussion of field checking below). As discussed earlier, these trends align with other recent observations in Latin America and other parts of the developing world (Figures 6.4a–e).
Field Checking Forest Dynamics in Soconusco The evidence for significant deforestation over several decades and an apparent stabilization in recent years in Soconusco is limited to our study area; we do not know if it is occurring across the entire region, or if this trend will transition into expanding forest area as expected from models of forest transitions. In this study, our scale of analysis was determined by the extent of the 1964 black-and-white aerial photograph, and our study area intersected with municipios and communities where Gasco has worked previously. This led us
to decide to investigate on the ground certain locations where the satellite image analysis suggested that forest regeneration had taken place, and we also conducted semi-structured interviews with local people within our study area in an effort to determine what factors might explain how the situation in Soconusco compares to that in other areas in the Global South where forest change also has been documented. In May 2014, we visited 16 different locations around our study area where it appeared that forest cover was increasing (Figure 6.5). The objectives of this exercise were to assess the accuracy of our satellite image analysis and to observe, firsthand, current land-use practices that might account for the apparent increase in forest cover. Locations were selected for field checking because they were areas that seemed to be experiencing expansion of woody vegetation. A second, more practical factor was proximity to roads so that we could visit numerous
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Figure 6.5. Ground truth locations. Map by Mario A. Castillo.
Table 6.4. Description of Ground Truth Locations GROUND TRUTH LOCATION
ELEVATION M ASL
L AND USE CATEGORY
DESCRIPTION
GT01 GT02 GT03 GT04 GT05 GT06 GT07 GT08 GT09 GT10 GT11 GT12 GT13 GT14 GT15 GT16
46 66 80 81 30 28 29 49 41 56 97 100 114 43 47 72
Expansion of tree crop cultivation Growth of secondary vegetation Growth of secondary vegetation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Growth of secondary vegetation Growth of secondary vegetation Growth of secondary vegetation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Growth of secondary vegetation Expansion of tree crop cultivation Growth of secondary vegetation
Cleared land with some trees being prepared for cultivation Pastureland and secondary woodland separated by highway Secondary woodland Mixed cultivated land Banana plantation African oil palm plantation African oil palm plantation Mixed farmland and African oil palm plantation Mixed farmland and African oil palm plantation Overgrown pastureland Mango orchard with overgrown pastureland Woodland Cacao orchard Secondary woodland Mature African oil palm plantation Sparse woodlands on higher elevation
locations in the short time we had in the field. The areas visited were located on the coastal plain and low foothills of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, at elevations between 30 and 114 m asl. We did find evidence for what appeared to be expanding woodlands in these locations. The specific causes for this expansion vary, but they all fall into one of two fundamental categories: (1) growth of secondary vegetation due to abandoned agricultural plots and / or pasturelands, or (2) expansion of tree crop cultivation (e.g., mango, banana,
African oil palm, cacao) (Table 6.4). This unexpected observation led us to consider how the current situation in Soconusco is related to the forest transition model.
Discussion The long-term socio-natural history as indicated in landuse patterns and forest land-cover trends in the Soconusco region includes periods of deforestation as well as
Technology and Forest Transitions periods of forest regeneration, and the underlying causes for these changes include technological, economic, and demographic factors. Initially, some deforestation was associated with early agriculture over 5,000 years ago, although the extent to which Soconusco’s forests were cleared or maintained for much of the prehispanic period remains unknown. What seems likely from the prehispanic data is that an orientation toward nature—fostering a program of forest management—developed alongside the adoption of agricultural innovations in the region. It is possible that this orientation toward nature may have unfolded similarly to other non-Western landscape management regimes catalyzed by the adoption of common norms (see Lansing 1992). Dramatic population loss following the Spanish invasion and in the colonial period sparked a period of forest regeneration. Furthermore, after the Spanish invasion, the introduction of Old World agricultural technology was less significant to land-use and land-cover change due to postcontact population decline. In the colonial period, low population led to forest resurgence and thereby may have increased regional humidity, habitat connectivity, and the exponential growth of biotic communities, which was an unusual experience for Spanish invaders accustomed to more temperate conditions. This, we assume, led to the view that the region was covered with impenetrable forest; it was excessively hot and unhealthy and generally inhospitable. As a result, few Spaniards were interested in living in the region, which resulted in decentralized administration and consequently kept agricultural production in local hands in the colonial period. Agricultural production based on local control continued the orientation toward forest management, which we argue meant that agricultural adjustment remained relatively stable, even as new technologies such as metal tools were introduced. Thus,
Soconusco’s low population density and the region’s resilient socio-natural history, drawn from prehispanic forest management practices, provided the ideal conditions for the Soconusco region’s forests to thrive into the twentieth century. The expansion of full-sun plantation crops (e.g., sugarcane) and cattle ranching in historic times did contribute to deforestation in the region, but large tracts of forest land cover remained. It seems likely that for most of its history, the Soconusco landscape was a mosaic of managed forests, full-sun agricultural plots, and settled communities where families maintained complex gardens on their house plots (see Gasco 2008, 2012, 2018). The forested areas of Soconusco have long been important to the social and cultural lives of people living in the area. Archaeological and historical data provide us with general impressions of the Soconusco’s regional forests trends and dynamic socio-natural relations in the past, but it is not until recent years that we can document in more precise regional terms patterns of forest successions. In the last half of the twentieth century, populations increased dramatically, creating new demands for agricultural fields. This, together with new technologies, such as mechanized tools for cutting trees (chainsaws), and economic policies that promoted large-scale monocultures, a process that also has been aided by agricultural innovations such as industrial fertilizer and pesticides, is largely responsible for high deforestation rates in the late twentieth century. The analysis of remote sensing data for the period between 1964 and 2010 allows us to estimate that during this period, woodland cover in the study area declined from 46 to 10, a deforestation rate of approximately 1 per year (Table 6.5). This puts deforestation rates in Soconusco at the high end of estimates for all of Mexico, which range from 0.25 to 1.02 for the period between 1976 and 2000 (Velázquez et al. 2002). During this period, the study area experienced its highest
Table 6.5. Deforestation Rates and Population Increases, 1964–2010 DATE 1964 1970 1974 1980 1990 2000 2010
WOODLAND %
DEFORESTATION R ATE %
POPUL ATION INCREASE IN PREVIOUS DECADE %
46 26 18
2.8
12 10.3 10.1
0.38 0.17 0.02
105
30 46 15 14
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levels of deforestation in the period between 1964 and 1974, and rates of deforestation have been declining ever since. These data indicate further that between 2000 and 2010, deforestation rates stabilized, registering a change of only 0.02. Population pressure in the second half of the twentieth century almost certainly played an important role in the high rates of deforestation over these years (Table 6.5). Nevertheless, from 1964 to 1974, when the highest rate of deforestation occurred and forest cover declined from approximately 46 of the study area to 18—a decrease of over 55—population growth was lower than during the decade of 1980–1990. Yet, between 1980 and 1990, when population growth reached 46, deforestation rates were decreasing (Table 6.5). We are currently unable to explain this pattern; the socio-natural relations associated with earlier changes in land use do not adequately explain this most recent change that may indicate a reversal of the high levels of deforestation for most of the late twentieth century. In our field visits to 16 locations, we observed that some parts of the study area seem to be experiencing forest regeneration due to the growth of secondary vegetation as agricultural plots and / or as pasturelands have been abandoned, or with the expansion of tree crop cultivation (mango, banana, African oil palm, and cacao). The examples of abandoned agricultural plots leading to forest regeneration might support the explanation for agricultural adjustment where it would be predicted that marginal agricultural lands are abandoned in favor of higher quality lands, a pattern associated with rural-urban migration, the application of new agricultural technologies— gasoline-powered tractors, nitrogen-based fertilizer, commercial pesticides, and industrial seeds—and land-tenure reforms. Additional research will be required to determine if, in fact, these abandoned plots are on marginal lands, and if the residents have moved to a city and changed occupations, but for the moment, this remains a possibility. The majority of the locations that were field checked, however, were identified as areas of expanding woodlands because they were places where tree crop cultivation was expanding, and the most common tree crop was African oil palm (see Alexander et al. 2018; Gasco 2018; Table 6.4). This trend is more closely aligned with factors associated with neoliberal globalization than factors associated with regional economic development. Although much additional research would be required to demonstrate
this conclusively, we are inclined to agree that this shift to the production of African oil palm may represent a case where the landscape is becoming more economically productive but more ecologically impoverished—and creating greater social inequalities (following Perz 2007). We know from anecdotal evidence that many individuals in the study area have temporarily or permanently left the region to seek work elsewhere and that they send remittances home. We are unaware of any studies that focus on this issue for the Soconusco region or that link this issue to changing land-use and land-cover patterns. Clearly, the application of new agricultural technology impacts regional dynamics, but in Soconusco, this phenomenon is intertwined with the long-term socio-natural ethos oriented toward management of forests. Before the arrival of the Spaniards—that is, before the Soconusco region’s incorporation into transatlantic world trade routes—people satisfied their subsistence needs and paid regional tribute demands by applying agricultural technology that conserved large tracts of forest cover. In the colonial period, this orientation toward nature contributed to the continuity of Mesoamerican agroforestry landuse strategies sustaining vast tracts of woodland. Forest resources—particularly cacao—together with agricultural products from full-sun fields provided the resources that people used to meet their subsistence needs and their tribute demands, as well as providing them with products that were in demand in the larger economic system. However, population increases in Soconusco and in other regions in the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century increased local demand for food and international demand for Soconusco’s export products (first cacao, later coffee, and more recently, cotton, mangos, and African oil palm). After World War II, the use of mechanized technology spurred widespread forest reduction. Additionally, neoliberal economic policies have massively accelerated this process and have shaped a qualitatively different agricultural adjustment based on investment rather than management, which led to changes in the application of agricultural technology (see Verdery 2003). As of late, however, the reconfiguration of economic flows, migration patterns, and perhaps other factors have impacted rural farming and forest cover in Soconusco in unforeseen ways (Tsing 2015). These are all issues that warrant further research in Soconusco and in other parts of the world where farmers have depended for millennia on vibrant forests for their livelihoods.
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Ack now ledgments Funding for remote sensing analysis was provided by the Chancellor’s Office of the California State University Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Program. We’d like to thank Jackson Cothren of CAST UArkansas and Nico Tripcevich of the ARF UC-Berkeley for technical assistance. We also want to thank Barbara Voorhies for providing access to aerial photos from the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we’d like to thank Rani Alexander for inviting us to participate in the Society for American Archaeology session and including our chapter in this volume.
Notes 1. Culture is defined as ideation referring to “information, signs, or symbols communicated and stored” in the minds of people in a population (Brown 2016:509). Such media communicated and stored is meaningful, or cultural, “because they are either believed (i.e., considered truth) by some percentage
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of that population or else associated with one or more other ideas believed by some percentage of that population” (Brown 2016:509; Brown and Feldman 2009). Methodologically, the analyst observes culture indirectly using the “performance of some action or behavior” as a proxy for shared ideas (Brown 2016:509). Society refers to a population—human and / or nonhuman—in meaningful interaction producing common patterns, otherwise referred to as social structures (Archer 1996). Methodologically, the analyst studies society directly by documenting social roles of participants and drawing them as a network in the context of some uncertainty (Latour 2005). By nature, we are referring to the source of uncertainty (Engels 1940:286). In this way, technology is seen as the suite of practices and performances collectively described as methods to reduce uncertainty (Latour 1990; Schiffer 2000). 2. A trapiche we have observed currently in use near Acacoyagua, Chiapas, was built in 1867 in Buffalo, New York. Its owner reports that in the past, many trapiches in the region were handmade from local woods. 3. We wish to thank Barbara Voorhies for providing us with access to these photos.
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas Changes in Yucatán’s Hydrogeologic Landscape after the Spanish Invasion
R a n i T. A l e x a n d e r a n d N i n a W i l l i a m s
and Valladolid, Yucatán, and a reconnaissance survey that targeted the norias of the Ruta Puuc and Ruta Conventos tourism trail (Figure 7.3; Alexander 2004; Alexander et al. 2008; Williams 2013). The noria was a mechanical technology that relied on animal traction and the wheel. It revolutionized the acquisition, storage, and distribution of water both for domestic consumption and the production of European livestock, dyes, citrus, sugar, and henequen on the peninsula. Our analysis draws on Michael Schiffer’s cascade model and his framework for studying technological differentiation (Schiffer 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005). First, we examine the physiographic conditions and historical contingencies in Yucatán that led to the installation of norias and other hydraulic features in rural settlements. Our discussion highlights two episodes in which the shortcomings of existing hydraulic technology stimulated a rash of new designs and applications, which Schiffer (2005:486) termed “invention cascades.” The first occurred in the sixteenth century, as the noria was introduced in settings originally configured for sophisticated, large-scale water collection and storage systems that predated the Spanish invasion. The second occurred in the late nineteenth century, as the noria was replaced by the mechanical windmill in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. We compare the performance characteristics of norias with competing hydraulic technologies for these two sets of invention cascades (Schiffer 2004). Next, we analyze an archaeological
The cenotes (natural water sources), limestone caves, and rejolladas (sinkholes) of the Yucatán Peninsula are archetypical formations of the karst environment (González Herrera et al. 2002). Since the peninsula generally lacks surface water in the form of rivers and lakes, water is obtained from hydrogeologic solution features where the limestone cap rock has collapsed to expose the freshwater aquifer (Figure 7.1). Often these features are presented to visitors as pristine natural resources that held great cosmological significance for the ancient Maya. Yet, cenotes, caves, and rejolladas have a long history of human use. Most locations possess material traces of contemporary and past hydraulic modifications that reflect significant changes in land use during the last 500 years (Alexander 2012a; Alexander et al. 2008; Williams 2013). One of the most common postconquest modifications found at cenotes is the addition of the noria, or waterwheel, a mechanism for raising and collecting water using animal traction (Figure 7.2). In this chapter, we address two questions. How did the introduction of the noria transform the hydrogeologic landscape in Yucatán, and how were rural agrarian practices interwoven with new water management technologies after the Spanish invasion? We explore changes in the design of water-lifting devices and the sociotechnic relations of groups who used them from the sixteenth century to the present. Our evidence comes from systematic archaeological survey of historic sites around Yaxcabá
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Figure 7.1. Cenote Nocac. Photo by Rani T. Alexander.
Figure 7.2. Noria at Hacienda Uxmal (Noyes 1932:305, courtesy of the Middle American Institute, Tulane University).
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas
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Figure 7.3. Locations with norias in the study sample. Map by Matt DeFreese.
sample of 56 norias and explore variation in their architectural and technological design. Finally, we look at how norias transformed rural landscapes. We consider how the water collection and storage systems of historic sites compare to evidence of other, earlier hydraulic modifications found in cenotes and rejolladas. Our results suggest that the technological modification of cenotes and rejolladas reflects variation in the stability of Native landholding, conservation of traditional ecological knowledge, and the resilience of smallholder agroecologies.
Nor ias a nd Technologica l Differ entiation A noria, or waterwheel, is a direct lifting device used to collect water (Braudel 1992:345; Fraenkal 1986; Reynolds 1983). Typically, a horizontal wheel is fitted against a vertical wheel to form a mechanical gear. Work animals (burros or oxen) are yoked to a pole that circles a central axis that turns the horizontal wheel, which transmits energy to the vertical wheel that raises the water. A chain of pots or buckets is bound to the circumference of the vertical wheel. As the wheel turns, water can be lifted from depths of over 10 m and poured into a basin where it is distributed through channels and aqueducts to water tanks, animal troughs, or irrigation canals. Norias have two drawbacks—water spillage from the buckets and the friction drag caused when the containers scoop up water (Fraenkal 1986:42). Yet, they significantly
improve efficiency in the energy and time needed to collect and distribute water used for irrigation and livestock management. In Yucatán, the waterwheel mechanism is situated on a large circular or rectangular masonry platform and supported by masonry piers positioned above a rectangularshaped opening to the water (see Figure 7.2). Some norias were perched over cenotes, whereas for others an excavated well shaft (with footholds and handholds) provided access to the water table. Some well shafts have internal features used to guide the containers down one side of the shaft to the water table and back up the other side to the waterwheel. The waterwheel itself was typically made of wood, but in the twentieth century, wood was replaced with metal. Noria platforms usually have ramps to permit access by animals that turned the waterwheel. Water troughs and water storage tanks typically are situated alongside the platform, and water is directed to them via wood or masonry channels. In some cases, aqueducts distribute the water to orchards and gardens. The platforms vary widely in size, but labor investment and the cost of materials needed to construct the masonry platform, water tanks, and troughs is considerably greater than those needed to dig a well. The noria is a hydraulic technology whose distribution and morphology can be analyzed using Michael Schiffer’s (2001, 2002) framework for studying technological differentiation. As a new technology is transferred from one community to another, it is redesigned so that it becomes more useful for performing specific tasks and
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achieving economic, social, political, and symbolic functions among different “user groups.” Following Schiffer (2002:1150–1153), our discussion of the technological differentiation of the noria is guided by a series of questions. How and with whom did the technology originate? To whom was the technology transferred? What groups make up the recipient communities? How was the technology redesigned to fit the purposes of the user group? What new functional variants of the technology arose and what characteristics were emphasized? How did people replicate and acquire examples of the new technology? Norias have a long history of development in Asia and Europe. Although scholarly opinions are divided, the device may have originated in India or Egypt during the fourth century BC and from there spread to Persia, where it became known as the sakieh (Gies and Gies 1994; Oleson 2000; Reynolds 1983; Schiøler 1973). Norias should not be confused with waterwheels used to grind and mill grain, which have been documented in Europe and China as early as the first and second centuries BC (Gies and Gies 1994:89). Instead, the noria is an older technology that gave rise to other water-lifting and rotary devices that included windmills and water-powered grain mills. Water-lifting technology spread to the eastern Mediterranean by the third century BC and later extended across the Roman Empire, North Africa, and the Islamic world (Oleson 2000). In Europe, norias became standard features of most monasteries by the ninth century AD (Gies and Gies 1994; Reynolds 1983:110), and by the fifteenth century, the technology had become ubiquitous in Spain and the Mediterranean. Not surprisingly, the first noria constructed in the New World was located at the site of Las Coles, associated with the first European settlement of La Isabela in Hispaniola (Deagan and Cruxent 2002a:57). Fragments of a late fifteenth-century waterwheel jar (arcaduce) were found in the Bajabonico River, which suggests that either a noria or a water mill was built to support ceramic production and agricultural activities at the site. Spanish friars imported water-lifting technology to the Yucatán Peninsula in the sixteenth century as a specific hydraulic complex used in monasteries. Yet, non-European groups rapidly adopted norias for use in radically different physiographic settings. Since norias were constructed of local materials and powered by human or animal traction, the simple mechanical principles of water-lifting devices were easily replicated. Like many hydraulic systems, they were continuously constructed, used, modified, and refitted with various water pumping mechanisms, water
storage, and water distribution features down to the present day. Water-lifting devices provided obvious advantages for the collection of freshwater in Yucatán, which was often located at the bottom of steep-sided cenotes 15–30 m below the ground surface. As the colony was yoked to Spain’s expanding transoceanic empire, norias became essential features of most urban centers and colonial towns formed under the sixteenth-century congregación (resettlement) orders. In 1588, Fray Alonso Ponce, the commissary general of the Franciscan order in New Spain, remarked on the scarcity of surface water, the presence of cenotes, and the impressive numbers of norias in his tour of inspection of the conventos (monasteries) and Native towns of Yucatán (Noyes 1932). Spanish clergy used local labor to build norias in the residential quarters of monasteries to supply water for fruit trees, gardens, and animals, as well as for human consumption. Colonial authorities viewed norias as key elements that indicated the orderliness and civility of monasteries, parish churches, and colonial towns (see also Hanks 2011; López de Cogolludo 1954:256, 260). Clearly, Yucatán’s Native inhabitants first acquired working examples and knowledge of water-lifting technology through interactions at rural churches and monasteries. Yucatán’s early colonial Spanish chroniclers saw the lack of permanent sources of surface water as a major obstacle to the colony’s economic development (Irigoyen 1970; Victoria Ojeda and Grosjean Abimerhi 2009). Greater quantities of water were needed to process indigo dye, raise cattle, and produce other tribute items in rural colonial towns. Water was in short supply during the dry season (November–May), and this problem spurred the construction of hydraulic systems that could either store sufficient quantities of water to span the months of little rain or provide water from the aquifer year-round. As a result, rural colonial communities experimented with a number of hydraulic technologies based on prehispanic methods for acquiring water using human muscle power from wells, cenotes, aguadas (reservoirs), caves, and rejolladas and storing it in cisterns (chultuns, haltuns). Prehispanic wells (Landa, in Tozzer 1941:187, n975; Roys 1939) were modified with the addition of a wall or curb (brocal) around the mouth of the well shaft, which reduced contamination and injuries caused by falling into the well (Figure 7.4). Further, additional wells were dug by hand from the surface, even though they were not always situated to take advantage of Yucatán’s natural hydrogeologic
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas features. Historic period wells are circular with a diameter sufficient to accommodate a single person using hand tools. The well shafts are seldom lined, but they often have radial or circular striations. Small cisterns (algibes, haltuns), and water tanks (pilas) were also constructed in rural towns and along roadways. These features supplied water to urban centers, rural towns, and to travelers and their beasts of burden on the road (Irigoyen 1970). The simplest way to improve the efficiency of water collection was to fit the wells and cisterns with a pulley affixed to a wooden pole. In addition, large-capacity water storage features were constructed in the Puuc Hills, where the water table was situated over 20 m below the ground surface. There, colonial authorities mandated construction of municipal reservoirs or cattle ponds, known as jagüeyes or chulub, of which a few examples still survive today (Victoria Ojeda and Grosjean Abimerhi 2009). Typically, they are constructed in low-lying areas that fill with water when it rains. Though they are similar to prehispanic aguadas, they are smaller. Jagüeyes are surrounded by thick masonry walls to retain the water, and sometimes steps and archways were incorporated into the reservoir’s retaining walls. In other areas, prehispanic aguadas were modified and maintained, and they continued in use through the early twentieth century (Figure 7.5). Yet, the scarcity of archaeological evidence for large colonial-era reservoirs suggests that they did not become the predominant hydraulic technology in Yucatán. Instead, by the late sixteenth century, the noria became the essential feature of monasteries and towns, as well as dye mills and cattle ranches. Animal-powered waterwheels offered significant energetic efficiencies where
Figure 7.4. Historic well at Chan Cruz, situated at the bottom of a rejollada. Photo by Rani T. Alexander.
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Figure 7.5. San Felipe aguada by the highway in Libre Unión, Yaxcabá municipio, Yucatán, Mexico, 1951 (University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW 38657).
greater quantities of water were needed. To extract indigo dye (añil, Indigofera sp.), for example, the leaves, flowers, and shoots of the plant must be soaked and agitated in large vats of water, then filtered and dried into cakes (Contreras Sánchez 1996; Sampeck, this vol.). Archaeologists have found circular vats and networks of water tanks in tiers for soaking the leaves in towns and at haciendas that produced dye (Alexander 1993:135, 416–419; Hanson et al. 1994; Ruz 1979; see Sampeck, this vol.). The tiers of rectangular vats often are associated with a noria situated on a tall platform to assist the gravity flow of water through the system of vats and tanks (Contreras Sánchez 1996:49). By raising the noria, operators could increase the water-lifting capacity. Tall noria platforms or piers meant that more buckets were added to the chain. Yet, archaeological evidence suggests that this picture is complicated and needs additional investigation. Among sites where the noria platform is unusually tall, some have pilas and others do not, and not all sites were used for dye processing (cf. Alexander 1993:417; Alexander et al. 2008:165– 167). This variation might relate to differences in the facilities needed to process different kinds of colorants— indigo as opposed to palo de tinte (Haematoxylum campechianum) for example—or spatial segregation of the different tasks involved in dye processing that occurred with shifts in the production scale of the dye industry (Susan Kepecs, personal communication 2014). In addition, norias became essential features of ranching operations (García Bernal 2006:118). Because cattle consume as much as 20 times more water than humans— between 5 and 20 gallons of water per day depending on
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the animal’s size and daily temperature (Rasby and Walz 2011)—norias supplied a critical resource necessary for large animal husbandry. Commercial expansion of cattle ranching and the production of agricultural commodities in rural Yucatán was stimulated by the Bourbon political reforms and free trade decrees after 1786. Yet, the capital needed to launch these small business enterprises was in short supply. Lack of financial liquidity was ameliorated through a complicated system of small loans in which wealthy individuals and the church served as the bank (Contreras Sánchez 2011). Mortgages secured using rural property as collateral provided liquidity in the peninsula’s economy, and larger and more architecturally elaborate estates could be mortgaged for greater amounts of money (Alexander 2003; Bracamonte y Sosa 1993). Norias were central elements of the property’s physical plant, which was appraised when an estate was mortgaged or sold. By the early nineteenth century, cattle ranching had become an entry-level entrepreneurial activity for the middle class (Machuca Gallegos 2011). The animals were liquid commodities in an undercapitalized economy. Most small ranchers did not render the animals for their meat, hides, lard, and tallow (see Pavao-Zuckerman 2011) but bought and sold the animals “on the hoof ” to generate a profit. As long as the herd had a reliable water supply, they reproduced quickly and needed little management, and the animals were easily exchanged in urban markets. Cattle rustling was a common crime (Güemez Pineda 1991). In addition to cattle, however, a diverse assortment of agricultural staples (dyes, sugar, henequen, fruit and vegetables, and honey and wax) was produced on the estates (Bracamonte y Sosa1993:84; Contreras Sánchez 1996, 2011). Norias supplied irrigation water for orchards and apiaries. It is not surprising, then, that archaeologists have found norias on most rural ranches in Yucatán (Alexander 2004; Alexander et al. 2008; Alexander et al. 2018). Further, the noria’s shape, size, and spatial configuration became standardized. In our study area, the noria platform was either circular or rectangular and situated either adjacent to or opposite the main house of the estate. Channels leading from the noria’s water tank fed water troughs situated within a masonry corral, and the troughs often ran just below the entrance to the main house. In cases where the noria was not adjacent to the house, a system of aqueducts conducted water to the house and corrals. For some properties, masonry residential architecture was exceptionally modest or absent. Yet, even the smallest sites had a noria and corral, since these facilities
were always constructed first. Housing for the workers, foreman, and owner was usually built later, depending on whether the owner chose to invest in the estate’s physical plant or its lands and livestock (Alexander 1997, 2003; Bracamonte 1990). By the mid-nineteenth century, being a noria operator, known as a noriero at ranches and haciendas or alcalde de noria in rural towns, had become a specialized occupation (Irigoyen 1970:76; Stephens 1962:I:214, 216). As the Industrial Revolution took hold in the late nineteenth century, many cattle ranches in western Yucatán were converted to sugarcane for the production of sweeteners and aguardiente (cane alcohol) or to henequen for the production of binder twine (Millet Cámara 1985). Yet, in the east around Tizimín and Valladolid, large cattle haciendas continued to supply the peninsula’s growing cities with meat and hides (Kepecs 2014). On henequen and sugar estates, norias provided water needed to fill the boilers that generated the steam power needed to run the cane-crushing mills and henequen decortication machines in the hacienda’s machinery house (Hernández Álvarez, this vol.; Meyers 2012, 2014, 2017). Yet, the waterwheel mechanism itself was not redesigned. Waterwheels were more or less a standard size and raised water at a constant rate. Instead, if more water was needed, the platform or the pilasters could be raised, as for dye production, or a second noria was constructed (e.g., Alexander 1993:436–438; Burgos Villanueva et al. 2005). The haciendas of Yucatán’s Gilded Age often had large orchards and apiaries, and large-capacity water storage tanks, cisterns, and aqueducts were built to support them (Alexander 2016; Hernández Álvarez, this vol.; Hernández Álvarez and Zimmermann 2016; Hernández Álvarez, Fernández Souza, and Zimmerman 2012). Transport of sugarcane and henequen leaves and their derivative products around the estate relied on animal-powered Decauville rail systems and wheeled carts. But transport functions increasingly were segregated from production activities that occurred at the machinery house. Specialized annexes to the hacienda, with their own norias, corrals, and water troughs, were built well away from the estate’s core to support animal care and maintain the infrastructure needed to transport finished products to coastal ports (Andrews et al. 2012; Millet Cámara et al. 2014). The noria itself took on symbolic functions, along with the hacienda’s central buildings, just as water-lifting technology began to change (Figure 7.6). Steam-powered water pumps were installed in henequen haciendas as
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas
Figure 7.6. Noria at Hacienda Tabi, with windmill, 2005. Photo by Rani T. Alexander.
early as 1865, and in 1889, Eusebio Escalante built the first mechanical windmill at his residence in Mérida (Irigoyen 1970:83–85). Yucatán’s oligarchs fiercely competed for wealth and prestige, and as a result the size and ornamentation of the hacienda’s buildings reflected the conspicuous consumption of the era. Yet, the hacienda’s architectural appointments also provided a source of capital and collateral in the peninsular economy. Noria platforms were improved and integrated into the estate’s architectural and aesthetic design. Yucatán’s henequen and sugar barons installed windmills directly on the noria platforms, replacing the waterwheel. Because water could be raised continuously using wind power, water storage tanks remained full, and water could be distributed through troughs and aqueducts on demand. In addition, a windmill situated on the noria platform next to the hacienda’s main house became a visible symbol that evoked modernity and progress for all persons who lived on or visited the estate. Henequen industry profits helped finance improvements in potable water systems, especially in urban areas. By 1871, Mérida’s residents began to take advantage of advances in residential construction to collect rainwater that sheeted off the masonry roofs into cisterns located in the central patio of the house (Irigoyen 1970:86). The water was perceived to be cleaner and more healthful than what was collected from wells and norias. Water was distributed throughout the city by water sellers from large barrels mounted on horse-drawn carts. By the turn of the twentieth century, windmills sprouted from every rooftop and pumped water into cisterns (Irigoyen 1970:85). In 1907, after a series of devastating fires swept Mérida’s
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commercial district, the Mérida Yucatán Water Company inaugurated pressurized water service from a plant that used an electric turbine to circulate water through a grid of water pipes installed below street level. In 1961, as Mérida’s rapidly growing population topped 600,000, construction began on a new potable water system using high-capacity electric pumps that raised water and stored it in water towers (Irigoyen 1970; see also Cabrera Sansores et al. 2002). Change was slower in rural areas, but during the 1970s, electric water pumping systems with water towers were installed in most of Yucatán’s rural towns and villages. Waterwheels became obsolete. Noria platforms that are still in use today are sometimes retrofitted with mechanical windmills or diesel-powered pumps. In urban areas, even after the introduction of potable water systems, norias were refitted with electric pumps to supply water for irrigating lawns and gardens (Anthony Andrews, personal communication 2016). With the growth of the tourism industry since 1990, Yucatán’s henequen haciendas have been restored as hotels, museums, and historic sites (Meyers 2012). In some instances, norias have been restored as exhibits; others have been refitted with modern pumping mechanisms to create swimming pools and fountains that enhance the visitor’s experience. Over the last 500 years, norias constituted a widespread and general purpose hydraulic technology that was continually redesigned to fit the needs of diverse user groups. By and large, they were built and maintained by elites (clergy, Spanish creole and mestizo merchants, hacendados, entrepreneurs, and Native leaders) with local labor but used by practically everyone. In some cases, their uses were specific enough to generate standardized forms and variants, but overall the technology was not tied to single-purpose production of key commodities, such as dyes, livestock, sugar, or henequen. Moreover, norias were long-lived features of historic sites. They show evidence of continuous maintenance and refurbishment, even though the architectural and spatial settings in which they were embedded changed over time.
In v ention Casca des a nd Per for m a nce Ch a r acter istics Yucatán’s hydraulic technologies are examples of what Schiffer (2005) calls complex technological systems, which tend to develop in a series of bursts or “cascades” of
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innovation. Cascades typically occur because some components of the system (such as a well, a noria, or a windmill) lag behind the development of other features and cause performance problems in the functioning of the system as a whole. To solve the problem, inventors create sets of technological variants, redesigning some features and jettisoning others, which generates a flurry of inventions that tend to cluster in time when viewed over the longue durée. The noria’s adoption and obsolescence coincides with two such cascades of hydraulic innovation, one in the sixteenth century and the other in the late nineteenth century. Explaining how and why one element of a complex technological system is redesigned or becomes obsolete during a cascade is most easily visualized through the comparison of the performance characteristics between two or more technological solutions (Schiffer 2004). In the broadest sense, human behavior consists of activities in which people interact with one or more technologies. Variation in the sets or patterns of interactions between people and their technology gives rise to new sociotechnic constructs and organizations that continually are assigned new meanings through practice. Performance characteristics are intrinsic properties such as strength, efficiency, cost, symbolic functions, and even the visual, tactile, olfactory, and acoustic qualities that appeal to or repel the human senses, which all come into play as activities are performed in specific contexts that involve the technology. These properties shape the interactions between people and their technologies and either constrain or enable the performance of specific activities that constitute sociotechnic behaviors (Schiffer 2004). When analyzing the performance characteristics of components of complex technological systems, it is helpful to organize the array of performance characteristics according to the technology’s life history stages that frame the contexts of interactions between people and their technology. Life history stages refer to the processes involved in creating a prototype, replication / manufacture, use, maintenance, and discard / reuse (Schiffer 2004). Tables 7.1 and 7.2 compare the performance characteristics of norias against historic-era wells and windmills to explain why norias were adopted in the sixteenth century and why they became obsolete in the twentieth century. We have arrayed the performance characteristics according to the life history stages of acquisition and installation, function, operation and maintenance, and discard and reuse. A plus sign (+) indicates that the technology
Table 7.1. Comparison of Performance Characteristics for Wells and Norias PERFORMANCE CHAR ACTERISTIC Acquisition and Installation Affordability of the system’s first costs Ease of acquiring components Cost of material components Cost of labor for construction Cost of power (human vs. animal) Require specialized installation expertise Function Provides water during dry season Ease of water storage Ease of water distribution Valued as landesque capital Symbolize orderliness, civility Operation and Maintenance Energy efficiency per unit volume of liquid collected Time efficiency per unit volume of liquid collected Costs of feeding and care of burros or oxen Bucket breakage Traditionally operated by women Traditionally operated by men Operator requires specialized training Operable with backup systems Ease of repair during breakdowns Hierarchical administration Discard and Reuse Disposal of broken buckets and containers Reuse of metal hardware Potential for reuse using other water-pumping devices
WELL
NORIA
+ + − − − −
− − + + + +
+ − − − −
+ + + + +
−
+
−
+
− − + − − + + −
+ + − + + + − +
− − +
+ + +
performs better or greater than expected than the alternative for a particular trait, whereas a minus (−) sign indicates the performance of a specific characteristic is worse or less than expected. The comparison of wells and norias presented in Table 7.1 shows that the greater costs of building and installing a noria were offset by gains in efficiency in collecting and distributing water. The gains are rooted in a fundamental shift in the energy source used to raise water— from human muscle power to animal traction. Yet, there are other important differences in the performance of wells and norias that are not related to the costs of feeding the animals that turned the waterwheel, the time required to fill a water tank or trough, or the cost and expertise required to build the infrastructure that supported the
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas Table 7.2. Comparison of Performance Characteristics for Norias and Windmills PERFORMANCE CHAR ACTERISTIC Acquisition and Installation Affordability of the system’s first costs Ease of acquiring components Cost of material components Cost of labor for construction Cost of power (animal vs. wind) Ability to use existing instead of specialized installation expertise Function Provides water during dry season Ease of water storage Ease of water distribution Valued as landesque capital Visible above the forest canopy from a distance Symbolize modernity and scientific progress Operation and Maintenance Energy efficiency per unit volume of liquid collected Time efficiency per unit volume of liquid collected Ease of acquiring replacement parts Vulnerability to storm damage Operator requires specialized training Operable with backup systems Ease of repair during breakdowns Hierarchical administration Discard and Reuse Disposal of broken buckets or vessels Reuse of metal hardware Provisional discard of spare parts Curation of specialized tools for repair
NORIA
WINDMILL
+ + − − + +
− − + + − −
+ + − + −
+ + + + +
−
+
−
+
−
+
+ − + + + +
− + + − − +
+ + − −
− + + +
waterwheel. Norias symbolized subordination to hierarchical (male) control of natural resources, orderliness, and political civility that Spanish authorities sought to instill in every colonial town (Farriss 1984; Hanks 2011). Further, they were valued as landesque capital, defined here as an investment in the facilities of water collection and distribution purposefully made to increase and secure the productive capacity of the land beyond the annual agricultural or pastoral production cycle (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987:9; Håkansson and Widgren 2014). Norias and wells also differ in terms of reuse and discard. Because the containers affixed to the waterwheel often broke, operators had to have replacements on hand. Scads of broken ceramic water jars commonly are found in cenotes, but
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the noria would have increased the frequency and rate at which ceramics were deposited in these contexts. Yet, wells never became obsolete. The affordability of construction, ease of use and maintenance, and ease of repair made them attractive and valuable features of any house lot or land parcel. They were traditionally operated by women and young adults and remain widely distributed in rural settlements, land parcels, and along roads today. Wells did not require standardized containers to draw water. Instead, wooden buckets, ceramic jars, gourds, cattle hide containers, and recycled metal cans of all different sizes and shapes would serve. They symbolize egalitarianism and communal access and control of an essential natural resource. In addition, wells could be refitted with just about any kind of water pumping device, including pulleys, windmills, and motorized gasoline or diesel pumps. Communities that lacked resources to cover the costs of building a noria could bridge the developmental distance of new technological systems (Schiffer 2005) by fitting wells with scaled-down versions of new hydraulic technologies (a pole and pulley system instead of a noria, smaller windmills, or a simple gasoline pump for an electric turbine). If the water-lifting device or pump failed, one could always lower a bucket on a rope and draw water by hand. If the well ran dry, either because the water table dropped or because the well became clogged with debris, it could be cleaned and dug deeper. A household that had a well could supply its water independently; the household need not rely on heavily capitalized hydraulic systems controlled by a central authority. Wells were (and still are) the original fail-safe and most resilient components of Yucatán’s complex hydraulic technological system. With the second invention cascade in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, waterwheels became obsolete. They were replaced with windmills. The comparison of performance characteristics for norias and windmills presented in Table 7.2 shows that the greater costs associated with installing and operating a windmill were offset by gains in efficiency in collecting and distributing water. Once again, the gains were rooted in a fundamental shift in the energy source used to raise water— from animal traction to wind power. Windmills were valued as landesque capital, and they became a powerful symbol of modernity during the belle epoque. Even today, windmills powerfully evoke nostalgia for Yucatán’s Gilded Age in ways that norias do not. Additional differences in the performance of norias and windmills are revealed in Table 7.2. Although windmills
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require less daily supervision than an animal that turns a waterwheel, they were much more costly to maintain and repair, since specialized knowledge and nonlocal replacement parts were required. Specialized tools used to repair the windmill were carefully curated, and spare used parts were kept on hand as replacements, creating provisionally discarded deposits in the archaeological record consisting of metal fittings, vanes, and rebar. Windmills are also more vulnerable to damage from storms and corrosion than norias in Yucatán’s harsh tropical climate. Waterwheels could not be installed underneath the windmill’s tower or alongside the suction pump as fallback solution. If the windmill broke, the only other option was to draw water from the well shaft by hand. At some of Yucatán’s smaller haciendas, the need for more water for processing sugar and henequen did not always offset the first costs of installing and maintaining a windmill. This problem frequently was solved by constructing a second noria, often situated adjacent to the original one, to bridge the developmental distance between the two technologies. The second noria provided an added advantage. When the windmill broke down, a backup system was available. Further, noria platforms were flexible elements of the hydraulic system, since they could be fitted with a wide range of water-lifting and water pumping mechanisms such as pulleys, waterwheels, windmills, or electric-, diesel-, or gasoline-powered pumps. Though few noria platforms still have functioning waterwheels today, many are still used for drawing water by hand.
A rchitectu r a l Design a nd the Nor ia The archaeological record conserves telltale signs of how norias were adapted for new uses by different user groups. Architectural design is a process whereby social groups make choices about recurring activities and attempt to maximize certain goals (McGuire and Schiffer 1983:278). Because activity sets are interdependent, trade-offs and compromises among goals are reflected in the built environment (Alexander 2003; Hayden 1998; Schiffer 2008). In Yucatán, many haciendas, ranchos, and monasteries offset the goal of collecting and distributing water with the aesthetic and symbolic need for orderly green space and hydraulic and masonry constructions that reflected power and prestige (see also Stark 2014). The norias in our sample are found in three different
kinds of sites: (1) at the centers of towns and within the monasteries of those towns, (2) at small cattle ranches, and (3) at henequen and sugar haciendas. The user groups associated with the norias at these sites vary in size and composition, and the norias themselves were in use in different periods and for varying lengths of time. In rural towns and monasteries, populations swelled to several thousand in some periods, and social relations among group members were highly stratified. These are the oldest norias of the sample, and they remained in use for nearly 500 years. By contrast, the norias situated in the cattle ranches of east-central Yucatán were established and used from the 1780s through the 1850s by smaller groups of people (between 10 and 120 individuals) whose labor tasks and social roles were hierarchically organized (Alexander 2004, 2012a). The norias from henequen and sugar haciendas in our sample are mostly located in western Yucatán and date from the 1880s through the twentieth century. Social relations among the hundreds of people who lived and worked on these estates were marked by extreme economic stratification and debt peonage (see Hernández Álvarez, this vol.; Meyers 2012). A few of the norias are still in use today either for ranching operations or as tourist attractions (Williams 2013). In this section, we analyze variation in the morphology of the noria’s opening and platform, as well as its spatial configuration and architectural setting. Because in most cases the waterwheels are no longer present, the size and shape of the opening to the well shaft offers the best clues about variation in the wheel mechanism itself. Differences in the interior of the well shaft are often visible, but differences in the height of the pilasters that supported the waterwheel are rare in our sample. The different activity sets enacted at monasteries, cattle ranches, and sugar and henequen haciendas suggest that the size of the wheel mechanism and the size of the opening to the well shaft built to accommodate it should vary according to the quantity of water needed by the community. Variation in function also should be evident in the architectural setting and associated water storage and distribution features. Alternatively, if waterwheels spread throughout Yucatán as a standardized or modular variant, one would expect that the openings to the well shaft should show minimal variation in size and shape. The size, shape, and architectural setting of the noria platform provide additional information about the aesthetic and symbolic functions of what normally is considered a utilitarian device. If the noria were a strictly
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Table 7.3. Size, Area, and Volume of Noria Openings and Platforms SITE T YPE Convento
Hacienda
Cattle Ranch
VARIABLE
N
MEAN
STANDARD DEVIATION
Noria opening Platform area Platform volume Noria opening Platform area Platform volume Noria opening Platform area Platform volume
8 8 8 18 18 18 30 30 30
4.86 188.50 190.36 5.54 451.14 469.17 6.73 162.11 168.49
3.21 203.01 190.24 3.22 522.15 537.10 2.95 191.51 202.99
Note: Area and volume are expressed in square meters and cubic meters.
functional element of historic settlements, one would expect that the size and shape of the platform should be standardized. On the other hand, if the noria platform were designed to signal the power and wealth of the site’s inhabitants, it should be prominently and centrally located and demonstrate variation in size and shape. Table 7.3 presents the mean, n, and standard deviation for the size of the opening of the waterwheel mechanism, the area of the platform, and the volume of the platform. Our analysis of the well shaft indicates that the size and shape of the openings are standardized, as revealed in Figure 7.7. A nonparametric comparison of means test (Kruskal-Wallis) of the log transformation of the raw data indicated no significant differences among the three kinds of sites (KW = 3.31, p < 0.191, df = 2, alpha = 0.05). Although our analysis suggests little variation in the lifting capacity of the noria, some sites had more extensive networks of aqueducts, water troughs, and water storage tanks than others. Some sites also had greater water storage capacity than others, even though the time required to raise a standard quantity of water using animal traction was more or less constant. A full water storage tank, however, would mean that water was available for distribution to troughs and aqueducts on demand (that is, the burro could have a rest). Ultimately, the need for more rapid accumulation of water and the problem of maintaining full water storage tanks through continuous pumping was solved by replacing animal-powered norias with windmills, and in the twentieth century, with dieselor gasoline-powered pumps. By contrast, the noria platforms situated in monasteries, cattle ranches, and haciendas show significant variation (Figure 7.8). A nonparametric comparison of means test (Kruskal-Wallis) of the log transformation of the raw
Figure 7.7. Box plots of the distribution in size of noria openings.
Figure 7.8. Box plots of the distribution in size of the noria platform.
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data indicated a significant difference among the three groups for the platform area (KW = 14.54, p < 0.0007, df = 2, alpha = 0.05) and for the platform volume (KW = 12.30, p < 0.0021, df = 2, alpha = 0.05). Platforms were either circular or rectangular, but shape does not relate to variation in platform size. Both forms are found in all site types and in all areas of the peninsula. Nevertheless, our analysis shows that noria platforms were larger at haciendas dating to the late nineteenth century and located in the western half of the peninsula. These sites produced sugar and henequen cordage for the international market during the administration of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911) (Andrews et al. 2012; Meyers 2012; Millet Cámara et al. 2014). Large and grandiose architecture was an important part of entrepreneurial strategies that circulated capital, wealth, and prestige on the peninsula (Alexander 2003). Production volume, market share, and commercial success were integrally linked to conspicuous consumption and display of wealth, which were often reflected in the built environment of the haciendas. Yet, even among the modest cattle ranches in central and eastern Yucatán, noria platforms located adjacent to the main house were larger on prosperous estates owned by local elites than were the norias situated at small and architecturally impoverished livestock operations owned by middle-class farmers. Norias located in monasteries or in rural town centers also showed variation. Their centrally located settings, proximity to the church, multiple accessways to the platform, elevation above the plaza, and associated features and vegetation, such as aqueducts, arriates, fruit trees, water troughs, and pilas, all reflected the aesthetics of clerical life and the political civility instilled through Spanish colonization (Hanks 2011).
Nor ias in a L a ndscape Yet, norias are only half the story of the changes in hydrogeologic management in Yucatán. They share the landscape with numerous other kinds of water management features in similar physiographic settings. Some settlements did not require animal power or lifting devices to collect water. The historical contingencies of the last 500 years in Yucatán have created a complex hydraulic palimpsest both within rural settlements and across agricultural landscapes. Neither prehispanic water collection and storage technologies nor smaller-scale water-lifting technologies (wells) ever became obsolete. In most settings,
multiple water systems were used side by side. It is only in the late twentieth century that earlier mechanical technologies were replaced and populations became dependent on a single industrial water provisioning system (Cabrera Sansores et al. 2002; Irigoyen 1970). A useful concept that that helps explain why technologies do not advance on a single front is the technology shelf (Singer 1977:6, 11–13). This is the idea that variation in developmental trajectories among societies are contingent on each social group’s range of existing technologies: the metaphorical shelf of technical knowledge from which technologies are selected, transferred, adapted, and deployed to solve problems that emerge in different circumstances. This concept explains why smaller scale and less energetically efficient systems coexist with larger, more efficient, and more capital-intensive technologies. Technical choices are based on the needs, risks, efficiency, and costs of solving particular technical problems; they do not stem from a lack of knowledge (Greene 2008). In addition, technological choices also influence future trajectories of technological differentiation (Lemonnier 1993; Schiffer et al. 1994). In Yucatán’s Postclassic period (AD 1200–1546), the available options from the technology shelf gave rise to complex hydraulic systems that optimized water collection from cenotes, aguadas, and caves and stored rainwater in cisterns that supported large urban and rural populations (Dunning and Beach 2000; Scarborough 2009; Thompson 1897). Aguadas were constructed in depressions and low-lying areas that filled with water during the rainy season (see Figure 7.5). The bottoms of these reservoirs were modified with masonry flagstones and sealed with clay. Stone-lined wells and chultuns also were built into the bottom of the aguadas (Stephens 1962:II:144–147). Yet, all prehispanic water collection systems depended on human muscle power. Ceramic containers could be lowered, immersed, and raised using a rope, or people could walk to the bottom of the cave, cenote, or aguada to fill water jars by hand. Access to the water table was often improved by installing wooden ladders or by constructing a wooden or masonry scaffold on the lip of the cenote (Alexander et al. 2008:263; Stephens 1962:II:Plate 19). Examples of prehispanic wells have been documented where the limestone cap rock was dug out to reach the freshwater aquifer below (Kepecs 1999; Kepecs and Boucher 1996), and in the area between Valladolid and Chichén Itzá, they occur in the bottoms of rejolladas. The mouths of some prehispanic wells were improved by
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas small masonry constructions, and some have rope marks along the edges of the well (Roys 1939:Plate 14b). The large, integrated hydraulic systems fell into disuse as cities and thriving rural towns were abandoned and populations declined because of the disastrous introduction of foreign pathogens and heavy-handed labor demands after the Spanish invasion. Yet, these hydraulic landscapes were widely reused (see Figure 7.5), and subsequent technical choices about water collection, storage, and distribution systems are evident in the archaeological record. In our survey area in east-central Yucatán, most cenotes and rejolladas possess material traces of water management infrastructure that faithfully reflect changes in land use (Alexander 2012a, 2018; Alexander et al. 2008). Many, though not all, are surrounded by Postclassic (AD 1200– 1500) archaeological sites, some of which were ancestral locations occupied by Native elites who were forced to move to colonial towns after the conquest (Quezada 2014). The structures and house lots of historic-era agricultural and ranching communities (known as privately owned ranchos, independent ranchos, and ranchos de cofradía) frequently are situated around cenotes (Alexander 2004). Fragments of Postclassic redware water jars, historic-era olive jars, human and animal bone (including cattle), and ritual offerings were deposited in and around these water sources. Remnant cacao and fruit trees, including avocado, ramon, mamey, mango, anona, and banana, attest to the importance of rejolladas for Native silviculture, horticulture, and (later) Mediterranean-style polyculture (Dunmire 2004; Gómez-Pompa et al. 1990; Kepecs and Boucher 1996). The water and associated vegetation
Figure 7.9. Tontzimín water source, well at bottom of a rejollada. Photo by Rani T. Alexander.
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also attracts wild animals; these places are prime hunting locations. Archaeological traces of human use typically include stone boundary markers (wooden crosses set in a pile of stones, or mojoneras), field walls (albarradas), wells, noria platforms, wood scaffolding and ladders, beekeeping features and hives, wear on limestone surfaces from the use of rope, small dams and rock alignments that create water storage catchments, water storage features, and water troughs for livestock (Figure 7.9). Natural limestone cavities in the sides of rejolladas were sometimes walled off to form animal pens or storage facilities. Cenotes that possess small, steep openings to the aquifer are sometimes blocked with limestone rubble to prevent cattle from falling in. Rural colonial towns further reflect the complexity of colonial and postcolonial era hydraulic palimpsests. For example, the town of Mopilá, which was abandoned in the late nineteenth century, displays a wide range of preindustrial water collection and distribution systems (Alexander 2004). The settlement contains a noria in the central plaza, historic period wells situated along the streets of the settlement and within house lots, and a haltun (a small cistern created by modifying a natural depression in the limestone and adding a stone lid) (Figure 7.10). Remains of a circular vat for processing indigo dye were located on top of a prehispanic structure (Alexander 1993:135), and a cave (easily entered on foot) containing a sizeable pool of standing water was modified with stone paving, steps, and masonry piers for a pole and pulley system to aid water collection. Since abandonment, the site has been constantly reused for milpa agriculture, large and small animal
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Figure 7.10. Haltun at Mopilá, 1989. Photo by Rani T. Alexander.
husbandry, and as a citrus cooperative. In the twentieth century, a corral and water troughs were constructed adjacent to an abandoned well to support cattle production, and in the 1980s, a grid of masonry aqueducts was built to irrigate the citrus groves with water drawn from a well that had been refitted with a diesel pump. During Mopilá’s heyday from 1780 to 1847, smallholders and ranchers often dispersed from growing and economically prosperous rural towns to establish farming communities and agropastoral operations known as independent ranchos, privately owned ranchos, and haciendas, which were typically situated around rejolladas and cenotes (Alexander 2003, 2004, 2006). Expanding markets provided incentives among farmers and rural entrepreneurs to intensify local production of agricultural commodities. The hydraulic infrastructure built in cenotes and rejolladas during this period reflects both the kind and intensity of cultivation activities that occurred at these sites. Rural entrepreneurs purchased land parcels containing hydrogeologic features and established private ranches and haciendas (with norias) that produced cattle and maize. By contrast, smallholders living in dispersed independent rancho settlements pursued a mixed agropastoral strategy, cultivating maize and raising pigs, goats, and bees. In dispersed smallholder communities, cultivation infrastructure consisted of wells, small corrals, water troughs, and small water storage or catchment features. Modifications to cenotes and rejolladas generally consisted of wood scaffolding or small rock alignments that created water catchments (see Figure 7.8). Remnant trees suggest the cultivation of economically useful species for fruit and animal fodder.
Some of the dispersed farming communities, however, were dedicated to producing resources to fund the activities of religious confraternities and were known as ranchos de cofradía (Alexander 2003, 2004; Farriss 1984). Since cattle and other livestock were easy to sell in local and regional markets to raise funds for the annual celebration of the confraternity’s patron saint, the hydraulic infrastructure in these settlements often included norias. The animals also were slaughtered and cooked to supply festival foods. Yet, the large cattle ranches and haciendas owned by rural entrepreneurs showed the greatest investment in hydraulic infrastructure. Norias, wells, water storage tanks, corrals, water troughs, and other features supported commercial production of cattle, maize, and other commodities (Alexander 1997, 2003). Cenotes and rejolladas located at haciendas consequently show a substantially larger and more varied array of water management infrastructure. It follows that cenotes and rejolladas may be viewed as part of a long-standing agricultural intensification strategy whereby smallholders shifted cultivation activities (and sometimes their places of residence) to cenotes and rejolladas, which allowed farmers to diversify production and improve yields (Alexander 2006, 2012b, 2014). Land parcels containing cenotes and rejolladas were the subject of sales and purchases, inheritance, land surveys, and long-running disputes in Maya-language documents (Roys 1939). The hydraulic and ecological knowledge that underpins this management system has never been lost, but over time farmers and ranchers added new technologies to the agrarian repertoire. The spatio-temporal distribution of norias and other hydraulic infrastructure found in cenotes and rejolladas in east-central Yucatán dovetails with shifts in landtenure policy from the sixteenth century to the present that at times promoted the expansion of dye mills, cattle ranches, and haciendas but left small farmers at a political and economic disadvantage (Armstrong-Fumero 2013; Cline 1947; García Bernal 2005, 2006; Quezada 2014). Cenotes and rejolladas that show the least investment in hydraulic infrastructure—perishable scaffolding, boundary markers, and wells—correspond to stable landholdings consistently owned and managed by members of Native communities that withstood the unfavorable legislative changes to land tenure over the last 500 years. Archaeological evidence from these sites suggests that smallholders pursued resilient production strategies that conserved ecological knowledge. By contrast, cenotes and rejolladas that
Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas show substantial investment in hydraulic infrastructure— norias—correspond to parcels with unstable histories of ownership whose residents pursued commercial production of livestock and agricultural commodities that required capital-intensive hydraulic systems.
Conclusion The noria is an archetypical example of a European technology that was imposed on Yucatán’s Native inhabitants. In the sixteenth century, introduction of the noria sparked an invention cascade that led to major changes in the sociotechnological organization of water management systems. It enabled Spain’s colonial administrators to implement the policy of forced resettlement and spurred the production of commodities that could be lucratively circulated on the world market. New practices of water management, place making (the suites of practices and experience that imbue locations with meaning), and coordination of labor radically transformed the peninsula’s landscape. Severe demographic decline of the Native population during the first hundred years after European contact meant that the sophisticated, large-scale hydraulic systems that fed Yucatán’s prehispanic cities could not be easily maintained. The integration of water collection, storage, and distribution from cenotes, reservoirs, and cisterns fell to the local community. Under the sixteenth-century congregación orders, the movement of groups of households away from dispersed settlements to aggregated planned communities under the supervision of the church was made possible by centralized management of the noria, usually by clergy (Noyes 1932). The ensuing multiscalar movements of individuals, households, and household groups across the peninsula, either in compliance or noncompliance with the resettlement orders, radically altered place making and landscapes (Alexander 2017). Further, large animal husbandry and the production of dyes, sugar, and henequen fiber depended on the acquisition, storage, and distribution of water year-round and in greater amounts than was required for domestic consumption. Norias enabled the production of these commodities, which altered botanical and fauna communities, ushered in new forms of labor organization that were oppressive to Native people, and created new kinds of archaeological sites and places, to which different social groups attached a range of positive and negative
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meanings. By the late nineteenth century, another invention cascade was underway; norias were replaced with windmills. Changes to the sociotechnic relations of water management generally heightened economic disparities among both urban and rural social groups throughout the colonial and postcolonial eras (Alexander 2016; see Hernández Álvarez, this vol.). Archaeological analysis of the noria’s architectural design and performance characteristics reveals important details about how Yucatán’s hydrogeologic landscape was transformed in the wake of Spanish colonization. The trajectory of the noria’s adoption, redesign, use, reuse, and obsolescence by both European and non-European groups in various physiographic, economic, and aesthetic settings left telltale signs in the material record. Schiffer’s (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005) cascade model and analytical frameworks for studying technological differentiation have proved useful for explaining the development and change in Yucatán’s complex hydrologic systems over the longue durée. In Yucatán, norias proved compatible with other, smallscale hydraulic technologies and were often an integral part of Native smallholder agricultural practices. Prehispanic cisterns, reservoirs, water catchment features, scaffolding and ladders for cenotes, and wells were used side by side with norias. On the other hand, there are numerous examples of dispersed agrarian settlements situated around cenotes, caves, and rejolladas that thrived, even though inhabitants made no use of the mechanical waterwheel. Water management systems in these communities were designed around wells, natural water sources, and other features, which promoted autonomy and stemmed dependency on capitalized water collection and storage systems managed by a central authority. New sociotechnological systems for water management introduced to Spain’s American colonies in the sixteenth century had widely variable effects on Native agroecological practices and the conservation and loss of traditional ecological knowledge. Unlike the colonial changes to hydraulically engineered landscapes in Mesoamerica’s highlands, for example, the adoption of the noria did not radically alter tropical ecologies or produce extreme environmental degradation. In the Basin of Mexico, the desagüe (drainage) projects that drained the lakes surrounding Mexico City / Tenochtitlan wreaked havoc on marshland and lakeshore ecologies, adversely impacted salinity and drainage of chinampas (raised agricultural fields), and produced violent alkali dust storms (Gibson
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1964; Parsons 2006; Pérez Rocha 1996). In the Lake Pátzcuaro basin, Michoacán, the erosion of large-scale agricultural terrace systems affected siltation and lake levels (Fisher 2005, 2009). By contrast, some inhabitants of Spain’s colonies in the American Southwest and the Andes successfully adapted prehispanic water management and irrigation systems and reproduced the forms of social labor required to operate them to meet both community needs and colonial demands (Ford 1975; Guillet 1987; Rivera 1998; Simmons 1972; Trawick 2001). The origins of these irrigation ditches and terraces have been variously described as fundamentally prehispanic, Spanish, or Moorish. The corresponding sociotechnic coordination of labor, such as the mayordomías (stewardship organizations) that maintain New Mexico’s acequias (irrigation ditches) or the reciprocal labor obligations of the Andean ayllu (community) that sustain irrigation farming communities in Peru and Bolivia, have fostered longterm conservation of traditional ecological knowledge. Like the sociotechnological systems involving norias, they are regarded today as evidence of continuity and cultural persistence of traditional lifeways. Archaeological patterns in Yucatán reveal a more nuanced view of how Native agrarian practices became interwoven with new water management systems. A technology once regarded as “sixteenth-century modern” later became commonplace, traditional, and then obsolete. It is no surprise that social memories involving the noria are conflicted and contradictory. In many contemporary settings, waterwheels have decayed or been dismantled, and the platforms are overgrown by vegetation and forgotten (Alexander et al. 2008). At other rural agropastoral sites, norias are still in use and often serve as a critical backup system to diesel- and gasoline-powered water pumps. In still other settings, norias have become exhibits for tourists at living history museums (Meyers 2012; Williams 2013). They are touchstones that convey nostalgia for bygone eras and provide spaces where visitors and docents can grapple with positive and negative representations of the past.
Notes 1. A cenote is a collapsed limestone doline that exposes the water table, whereas a rejollada is a collapsed limestone doline
that does not expose the water table. Rejolladas are ideal locations for growing fruit trees and agricultural crops because the soil is deep and remains moist throughout the dry season. In our study area, rejolladas are often improved with the addition of wells and water storage features, since it takes little effort to dig down through the bottom of the sinkhole to find water. 2. In a water mill, the mechanical position of the two wheels that form the gear is the same as for the noria, but the flow of energy is reversed. The vertical wheel of the water mill is turned by the flow of a river or stream, and energy is transferred to the horizontal plane for the purpose of turning the millstone. Norias are also distinct from windlasses (where a rope and bucket is cranked and wound around a horizontal pole to raise water) and bucket, rope, and pulley systems attached to wells that were usually operated using human muscle power (see Braudel 1992:340, 354; Irigoyen 1970:Figure 19). 3. Congregación was a colonial policy of spatial reordering and consisted of forced resettlement involving aggregation of Native populations and rearrangement of the spatial layout of the new towns along a grid plan, focused around a church and central plaza. 4. Kathryn Sampeck in this volume refers to the large circular vats as “large basin factories” and the installation of vats in tiers as “royal factories” for the production of indigo dye. 5. In the seventeenth century, cattle ranches were known as estancias, but by the eighteenth century they were referred to as haciendas. In the nineteenth century, hacienda and rancho were interchangeable terms. Although haciendas were supposedly larger and more elaborate estates than ranchos, often these two terms signaled a difference in the social status of the owner, not a difference in the property’s size, function, or productive capacity. 6. University of Washington Library Special Collections, Ralph Roys Papers Box / Folder 1–43, Letter from Ralph Roys to Morris Steggerda, May 9, 1934, and Letter from Ralph Roys to Morris Steggerda June 2, 1934. 7. Ralph Roys (1939), who translated and described the litigation over the Tontzimín cenote in The Titles of Ebtún, visited Tontzimín and “found it to be a beautiful pool beneath a cliff at the bottom of a cup-shaped depression and easily accessible.” University of Washington Library Special Collections, Ralph Roys Papers, Box / Folder 1–43, Letter from Ralph Roys to Morris Steggerda, January 10, 1933. Subsequent correspondence with Morris Steggerda (note 6, above) describes a stone wall feature that possibly served as a walkway or a small dam that aided access to the pool of water. See also Alexander et al. 2008.
Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines during Yucatán’s Gilded Age H é c t o r H e r n á n d e z Á lva r e z
processed afford greater understanding of the effects of industrialization within a single community. The desfibradora, or decorticating machine, is a mechanical artifact that consists of knives and scrapers fastened to a wheel, which when turned removes the tough cortex of henequen leaves to yield the agave fiber used to manufacture mass quantities of rope and twine. In the beginning, the first scraper wheels were turned using human muscle power. Later, they were fitted with a winch and capstan that was operated using animal power. Finally, as wooden and metal wheels were replaced with steel, the decorticating mechanism was turned using steam-powered pulley and belt systems. I will analyze the historical and social processes that resulted in the invention, adoption, and obsolescence of this particular henequen technology at the end of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. The following discussion draws on Michael Schiffer’s and James Skibo’s frameworks for studying technological differentiation (Schiffer 1992a, 1992b, 2002, 2004, 2011b; Schiffer and Skibo 1987, 1997; Schiffer et al. 1994, 2001). They conceive of technological change as a reflexive social process that involves the transfer and differentiation of technologies through different stages, such as invention, development, manufacture, adoption, and abandonment. The basis of this framework is that human activities and behavior involve interactions between people and technology. A technology is a corpus of artifacts,
In this chapter, I examine the consequences of technological change in the exploitation of henequen based on archaeological evidence recovered from Hacienda San Pedro Cholul, a henequen plantation whose peak production period spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I discuss the adoption of the agave fiber processing machines that were invented during the second half of the nineteenth century on the Yucatán Peninsula. The adoption and spread of the desfibradora (decortication machine) influenced the growth of henequen production on haciendas and paved the way for other technological developments during Yucatán’s Gilded Age (1873–1925). My goal is to analyze the processes of invention, adoption, and obsolescence of the henequen processing machines based on written documents, photographs, and archaeological evidence. Written sources include litigation and notary records about the first decortication machines, appraisals of the values of henequen haciendas, and other miscellaneous records that document the presence and use of distinct kinds of decortication machines. The Pedro Guerra Photographic Archive of the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY) contains photographs of a wide variety of henequen decortication machines that were in use at the peak of the henequen boom. Finally, I analyze archaeological evidence from Hacienda San Pedro Cholul, a henequen hacienda in northern Yucatán. Analysis of objects and artifacts, architectural features, pieces of machinery, and the spaces where henequen was
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behaviors, and knowledge transmitted across generations (Schiffer and Skibo 1987:595). Archaeologists have shown an increasing interest in explaining the variability and change of the artifacts and technologies that underwrite production, distribution, and consumption (Dobres 2000; Hayden 1998; McGuire and Schiffer 1983; Miller 2007; Shackel 1996). In practice, these aspects of variability are segmented according to the style-function dichotomy; that is, in terms of the artifact’s utilitarian, social, and ideological functions, which are related to the material properties of the artifacts and technologies under study (Schiffer and Skibo 1987). Specifically, I explore the implications of Schiffer’s theory of technological change for understanding the development of henequen technology by applying the concepts of life history and performance characteristics to the development of decorticating machines. This machinery was invented by Yucatecans to meet the high demand for henequen fiber production on the foreign market. The technology was redesigned on various occasions to meet the needs of hacienda owners who demanded efficient and rapid decortication of the henequen leaves at the lowest cost possible. Finally, I consider how the technological developments encouraged by Yucatán’s hacienda owners contributed to the construction of modernity and the social memory of the Gilded Age. The social environment of the Gilded Age played a crucial role in solving the problems that arose with the development of technologies and the consumption of certain goods. Social groups, especially the capitalist class, were responsible for investing technology with particular meanings, like a sense of progress (Callon 1987; Hughes 1987; Pinch and Bijker 1987). On the other hand, modernization was a sociotechnic process that linked technological change to severe economic inequality, domination, exploitation, violence, forced work, indebtedness, mercantilism, ecological degradation, and religious alienation. It generated different consequences for different social groups, especially for the peninsula’s Native communities at the dawn of the modern era.
A Br ief History of Hen equ en Production On the Yucatán Peninsula, the most important and best-documented technological change during the late nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution is the
exploitation of henequen. In general terms, the henequen plant (Agave fourcroydes), called ki in Yucatec Maya, consists of long spiny leaves from which it is possible to extract a natural fiber (sosquil) that was commercialized both as a raw material and as manufactured products. Among its characteristics is that it grows well in the thin, dry soils of northern Yucatán and requires between five and seven years before the plant grows large enough for commercial exploitation. Agave fiber was used for thousands of years. The Native population of the peninsula knew that it grew prolifically in any kind of terrain, whether arid or rocky, and could be used to make rope, sacks, sandals, and cloth. In the prehispanic era, the fiber was extracted from the leaves by hand by pounding the leaves with stone or wooden tools, extracting the pulp, and allowing the fiber to dry in the sun. The recovery of spindle whorls used to spin henequen fiber is another indicator that the raw material was used to make fabric and clothes in the prehispanic period (Hernández Álvarez and Peniche May 2012; see Pastrana Cruz et al., this vol.). Henequen fiber was used during the colonial period for various purposes. It was widely used for shipping, especially for producing sacks and rigging that were exported to Cuba. Yet, the technology for extracting the fiber and the knowledge of how to grow and harvest the henequen leaves remained the same under colonial rule. Agave production was a thriving cottage industry, and fiber extraction was performed by manually crushing the leaves with wooden tools (tonkós or pakché, discussed below). String and twine were made by rolling the fiber between the hands (Cámara Zavala 1936). From the second half of the nineteenth century, and in combination with the invention of the first decortication machines, the Yucatecan henequen industry experienced extraordinary growth (Wells 1985). The most obvious archaeological vestiges of this era are the henequen haciendas, which were dispersed across the entire peninsula and whose ruins evoke nostalgia for an era of industrial and commercial splendor. The key event that sparked the growth and industrialization of henequen production in Yucatán was the invention of the McCormick Harvesting Machine in the United States in 1834. With widespread use of mechanical reaper and self-baler technology, cereal production grew in the United States, but the increase also required imports of greater quantities of binder twine used to bale the wheat. Life in Yucatán underwent a complete transformation after
Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines 1878 when the export of henequen cordage was expanded to meet the needs of North American wheat farmers. Another incentive for the industrialization and commercialization of henequen was the demand for cordage and rope used for shipping during World War I (1914–1918). Production was first developed on the haciendas located in the northwest of the state. By 1885, more than 42,000 ha were planted in henequen, and between 1890 and 1892 the area planted in henequen reached 100,000 ha (García Quintanilla 1986). By the end of the nineteenth century, new developments in communications and construction industries also appeared, as the Industrial Revolution took hold in Latin America. Yucatán’s accelerated economic growth, tied to the henequen boom, resulted in new transport infrastructure such as the railroad, which became the force behind the growth of agricultural, industrial, and commercial production on the peninsula (Barceló Quintal 1981, 2011; Wells 1992). At the same time, the industrial capitalism of the Gilded Age brought about sweeping changes in social relations that impacted Native populations in Yucatán. Economic and social inequalities between elite landlords and Native peasants became much wider by the end of the nineteenth century. One of the principal consequences of industrialization was the formation of an oligarchy that controlled and monopolized the production of henequen (Barceló Quintal 1982; Franco Cáceres 1985; Sabido Méndez 1995). The henequen oligarchy was composed of some 40 families, known as the casta divina (divine caste). This elite group of hacienda owners and merchants collaborated with the North American cordage monopoly, dominated by International Harvester Co., which controlled the commercial traffic in henequen during the first decade of the twentieth century (Peniche Rivero 1999, 2010). Another consequence of the henequen boom was debt peonage. This mode of forced labor or slavery was implemented by the hacienda owners to bind the scarce indigenous workforce to the haciendas. After the Caste War (1847), a conflict that diminished the Native Yucatecan population by more than 50 (Dumond 1997), it became imperative to secure indigenous labor on rural ranches and farms. To ensure that the labor force remained to work on the henequen haciendas, the owners encouraged the purchase of subsistence goods at the hacienda’s tienda de raya (company store). The goods were often paid for in script but more commonly offered on credit, resulting in the accumulation of debt known as the chichan cuenta (little account). Hacienda workers also were offered larger
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loans recorded on the nohoch cuenta (big account) for baptisms, marriages, funerals, and other festivities, which fostered the reproduction and religious legitimization of kin relations on the hacienda (Peniche Rivero 1999, 2010). Workers could not leave the hacienda until the debt was paid, and often wives, sons, and daughters inherited the debt of their family members. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the economic and social disparities of the henequen era were legitimated by the political ideologies propagated during the period known as the Porfiriato (1876–1911). During the administration of President Porfirio Díaz, the country experienced an unprecedented industrial, economic, and social transformation. Using the slogan “peace, order, and progress” and fomenting ideas of modernity, Díaz put in motion an ambitious national project that sought capitalist industrialization of all production sectors, the introduction of new routes of communication, and the opening of new commercial markets. Nevertheless, these changes came at the cost of economic instability and the loss of lands by indigenous communities, which became the motive for a series of conflicts and rebellions that brought about the Mexican Revolution (1910).
A rch a eologica l I n v e stigations at H acienda Sa n Pedro Cholu l Since 2009, a group of archaeologists from the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán has carried out a project known as Historical Archaeology at the Hacienda San Pedro Cholul. The first work consisted of detailed recording of the domestic house lots (solares) and dwellings of the workers who lived at the site at the end of the nineteenth century. We inventoried archaeological remains in two of the house lots at San Pedro Cholul by means of systematic collection of artifacts and materials over 100 of the surface of the lot, test excavations, and horizontal excavations of the floors of the dwellings. Our intention was to document the daily life of the debt peons who worked at San Pedro Cholul and explore what subsistence strategies were implemented to endure the complicated socioeconomic dynamics encountered inside the worker’s village of the hacienda (Hernández Álvarez and Zimmermann 2016). In 2013, as part of the second field season at Hacienda San Pedro Cholul, we sampled additional domestic house lots of the workers’ village and began a series of test excavations in the structures and buildings at the center of the
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estate, including the chapel of San Pedro. The team conducted test excavations in the main house, the machinery house, the warehouse, and the administration building and recovered ceramics, glass, metal, construction materials, and animal bone that permitted us to situate the hacienda’s buildings functionally and chronologically. Based on the archaeological information, it was possible to model the hacienda’s distinct sociohistorical and technological processes involved in the growth, peak, and decline of henequen exploitation in the northeast region of Mérida (Hernández Álvarez 2014a). Based on the archaeological information from San Pedro Cholul, we address two questions. How did the industrial mechanization of henequen fiber production change the patterns of interaction between people and their technology, and how did the social changes and inequalities that occurred during Yucatán’s Gilded Age become manifest in the archaeological record? For example, socioeconomic stratification among the workforce living at San Pedro Cholul is evident in the
estate’s architecture, the internal structure of the house lots, and the material culture associated with them (Fernández Souza 2012; Fernández Souza et al. 2016; Hernández Álvarez 2014b; Hernández González and Bolio Zapata 2012). As García Quintanilla (1986) has commented previously, the work carried out by workers on henequen haciendas was varied and included cutting the plants, scraping the fiber, and clearing land. Once the process was mechanized using decorticating machines, other more specialized tasks such as operating machinery, starting the machine, baling the henequen fiber, and operating the truc (rail cart) became common activities. As well, labor positions were organized hierarchically, and foremen were contracted to manage farming, animal care, and laborers. For San Pedro Cholul, we found a document that contains a list of payments made for specific workers on the estate in 1909. Three sources of economic differentiation are evident: the individual’s position, the amount paid for each kind of task, and the amount of work performed (Fernández Souza et al. 2016) (Figure 8.1).
Figure 8.1. Payroll list from Hacienda San Pedro, 1909. Courtesy of the Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán.
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Figure 8.2. Decorticating machine benediction at Hacienda Sacapuc. Courtesy of Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
Therefore, a difference in the hierarchy of labor tasks was one of the sources of economic variation that is reflected in the material conditions of life. The development of the machinery used to extract henequen fiber is well documented in numerous images in the Pedro Guerra Archive of the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (Montañez Pérez 2010). The great quantity of images contained in this archive includes details of the diverse machines designed and constructed in Yucatán. Further, the photographs also present a portrait of the splendor of progress, the power of mechanization, and the industrial capacity of the henequen haciendas. As such, they are fundamental sources for understanding the local significance of the decorticating machines during the Gilded Age. For example, one of the best-known photographs records the moment the new desfibradora was installed at Hacienda Sacapuc (Figure 8.2). It captured
the social transcendence of the event. Surrounding the machine were the hacienda’s debt peons, the foreman, the hacienda’s owner, and the priest providing the benediction for the smooth functioning of the machinery while the desfibradora was tested and produced samples of henequen fiber. Innovation in transportation systems at the end of the nineteenth century also transformed relations between people and technology. The development of the railroad spearheaded the push for industrialization, better communications, and modernity among Yucatán’s oligarchs (Barceló Quintal 1981; Wells 1992). The adoption of the narrow-gauge Decauville rail system fundamentally changed life on the haciendas. The platform cars (trucs) were used to transport henequen leaves, fiber, and bagasse and linked the people who lived and worked on the haciendas to Mérida, other haciendas, and to the coast as
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never before (Hernández Álvarez, Martín Medina, and Cú Pérez 2012). The railroads created greater social mobility and interaction among people across the peninsula. Implementation of new technologies at the dawn of the twentieth century created opportunities for social mobility. During the henequen boom, new knowledge, behaviors, and patterns of interactions with emergent technology offered individuals and their families a way of improving their socioeconomic condition. For example, the mechanization of henequen fiber production required the technical expertise of workers who specialized in operating the decortication machinery, steam engines, or hydraulic packing machines. New knowledge and skills permitted the families of some henequen workers to advance socially. Further, as Alexander (2003) mentions, investment in the architecture of the haciendas by the owners was as much a way of showing prestige as a mechanism to finance the social mobility of an emerging rural middle class. These observations suggest that a number of social groups shared Porfirian ideas and values about progress and modernity. Finally, as I show below, all of the changes of Yucatán’s Gilded Age are manifest in the archaeological record in the form of early twentieth-century consumer goods recovered from the house lots of henequen workers. Refined earthenwares; glass containers that contained patent medicines, wine, beer, and liquor; and imported construction materials, as well as metal tools and domestic furnishings, all constitute material evidence of sociotechnological transformation and Yucatán’s incorporation into the world of global capitalism (see Mayfield et al., this vol.).
A rch a eology a n d Technologica l Ch a nge Archaeology is a scientific discipline that studies the attitudes, relations, behaviors, and beliefs that arise from the interaction of people and their technology. From the simplest tools to the most complex machines, the study of the life history processes of a particular technology allow us to understand the social transformations that result from the adoption, modification, and abandonment of the technology. Further, it is possible to observe how life history processes involve constant negotiations within and between the social groups that share the technology (Bijker et al. 1987).
Therefore, a useful place to begin research on technological change is with the understanding of how technological knowledge is produced and how it changes. According to Schiffer and Skibo (1987), an appreciation of the complex and differentiated nature of technological knowledge can help the archaeologist build a satisfactory theoretical framework for studying technological change. Within this framework, all social processes must be expressed in behavioral terms, so that they can be addressed through rigorous archaeological analysis. For behavioral archeology, technological change denotes a long list of behavioral / social processes moving from invention to the adoption of new innovations, and not just shifts in the formal attributes of artifacts. These behavioral life histories have been tested with all kinds of technologies including prehistoric pottery, domestic architecture, electricity, cars, and even ocean liners (McGuire and Schiffer 1983; Schiffer 2002, 2011a, 2011b; Schiffer and Skibo 1987; Schiffer et al. 1994). It is not surprising that these general principles from behavioral archeology are informed by cases emanating from the study of industrial technology (Schiffer et al. 2001). For behavioral archaeologists, the main focus of technological change lies in the “functional field,” conceptualized as three types of functional categories that account for the complex relations that exist between people and artifacts; namely, techno-functions, socio-functions, and ideo-functions (Schiffer 1992b). Once a technology is adopted, feedback comes into play, and the conditions of use are modified such that they follow an experimental path that culminates in a satisfactory design. A third source of change is the “pressure of the producer,” which becomes especially important when artisans, working part time or full time, take action to expand the market for their benefit. Producer pressure is manifested significantly when there is competition between artisans (Schiffer and Skibo 1987). Once the elements that generate technological change are established, it is important to acknowledge that each technological process involves a sequence of behaviors that are the result of specific decisions. Such technological decisions determine the formal properties, or artifact attributes, of the designed technology. Also, each technological decision affects one or more formal properties as well as the performance characteristics of the technology (Schiffer and Skibo 1987). For example, McGuire and Schiffer (1983) previously drew attention to the necessity of compromise in the design
Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines of domestic structures. They argued that social organization as well as basic lifeways influence the activity patterns and performance characteristics in specific cases. As such, even when the formal properties serve as the window for the archaeologist to study the process of technological change, one must operate analytically at the level of performance characteristics (Schiffer and Skibo 1987). In addition, behavioral archaeologists view the life history of a technology as a useful heuristic tool. A life history is a sequence of processes that includes the acquisition of raw material, manufacture, use, reutilization, deposition, and archaeological recovery and analysis. Analysis of artifact life histories dovetails with the sequences of invention, design, replication (or commercialization), adoption, and abandonment of a technology or artifact (Schiffer 2002, 2011a; Schiffer and Skibo 1997; Schiffer et al. 1994). Behavioral theories about the process of manufacture and design, for example, link behavioral chains to the technological decision of the artisan. It is worth pointing out that many behavioral analyses of technological change and innovation rely on information drawn from historical archaeology and include the detailed historical narratives that explain the origin of particular industrial technologies that are comparable to the case for henequen (Orser 1996; Schiffer 1992a; Schiffer et al. 1994; Shackel 1996). Once invented, technologies are replicated. That is, they undergo a process of manufacturing and exchange. Questions about replication focus on the commercial chains in the industrial world, as well as on the organization of production and exchange. Replication leads to adoption of the technology by diverse user groups, which steers the researcher to consider the effects of social class, ethnicity, gender, sex, age, and ideology on technological decision-making. The central idea is that groups who adopt new technologies base their decisions on comparison of competing technologies used for carrying out similar activities (Schiffer et al. 2001). Finally, technologies become obsolete, fall into disuse, and are abandoned. To address technological change, Schiffer and Skibo (1987:601) suggest that research must start with the construction of a performance matrix for each competing artifact or technology. The performance matrix is a table in which the researcher can visually compare two or more competing technologies in relation to a set of performance characteristics or relevant behaviors. For example, researchers have developed performance matrices to contrast the variability of technologies such as the earliest
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pottery in North America (Schiffer and Skibo 1987), electric automobiles (Schiffer 1995), and the adoption of electric light in lighthouses used for navigation at the end of the nineteenth century (Schiffer 2004). The next step involves building a model that addresses the performance matrix and the commitments that it involves as a set of consequences that result from specific technological decisions. Technological decisions are influenced by the functional field as well as other variables such as lifeways, social organization, and the social environment. The social groups that constitute social environments play a crucial role when problems arise in technological development. Social groups invest technology with meanings, but they also contextualize those meanings that come into play during adoption of the technology (Callon 1987; Hughes 1987; Pinch and Bijker 1987). I now turn to the processes of technological change for the exploitation of henequen using the case study of the decorticating machine. I explain how each stage of technological differentiation unfolded—invention, experimentation, redesign, replication, and adoption. I also discuss the performance matrix for henequen decorticating machines to illuminate the adoption and change of industrial technology on the Yucatán Peninsula from 1856 to the present day.
The In v ention a nd Dev elopment of the Decorticating M achin e The industrial development of henequen as a complex technological system unfolded as five clearly defined productive phases: (1) domestic production, (2) industrialization, (3) intensification, (4) commercialization, and (5) decadence and new experimentation. It is important to note that the most crucial step in the production of the fiber is the way the pulp is extracted from the leaves and processed. As Aznar Mendoza (1977) mentions, the shift from manual to mechanized decorticating is the first and most important phase in the development of the henequen industry, since it affected the quality of the fiber that was obtained from the leaves of the plant. However, the process of invention of such technology was arduous, and it required the technological modification of a suite of practices used in antiquity for exploiting agave in Yucatán. According to Magaña Toledano (2011), the domestic
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Figure 8.3. Pakché, a manual device used by the indigenous population to decorticate henequen. Photo by H. Suaste.
production phase dates from 1733 to 1752. Exploitation was accomplished within households using simple wooden tools, known as tonkós and pakché (Figure 8.3), for decorticating the henequen leaves and extracting the fiber, which was then used to produce cordage and sacks. The pakché consisted of a thick wooden beam on which the henequen leaf was placed and secured at one end. The henequen was scraped using a sharpened wooden plane, the tonkós, which had handles at each end. Once the pulp was extracted, the fiber was placed to dry in the sun (Cámara Zavala 1977:666). In the first half of the nineteenth century, almost all henequen products were handmade, similar to the way they were manufactured in prehispanic times (Suárez Molina 1973). It was more profitable to manufacture bags and sacks, hammocks, or rigging as a cottage industry than to extract and sell the fiber. Merchants would acquire
these items from Native pueblos and later export them (García Quintanilla 1978:52). The succeeding preindustrialization phase dates from 1753 until 1852. This period is characterized by experimentation with various ways of cultivating and exploiting henequen plants, including the design of different apparatus for decorticating the leaves to supply the growing market for henequen fiber and its products (Villanueva Mukul 2009). The invention of the decorticating machine became a necessity with the growing demand for rope in the United States to bale wheat. In 1838, Cyrus McCormick invented the selfbaling wheat harvester. Originally, the machine bound the wheat sheaves with wire, but by 1878, the McCormick Harvester was modified to use henequen binder twine. This created an enormous international market for henequen cordage to be used in mechanical harvester machines. Yet, the invention of a machine capable of producing the necessary quantity and quality of cordage for the North American market was not problem-free. A group of foreigners took the first steps, and the first Yucatecan patent was granted to Henry Perrine in 1833. But his machine was “too difficult and delicate to manage using native laborers” (Cline 2010:94). Similarly, the machine designed by a pair of New Yorkers, James K. Hitchcock and E. S. Scripture, was not efficient and destroyed part of the fiber. The complicated mechanism also made operation and maintenance practically impossible (Cline 2010:94). These failures discouraged foreign inventors but encouraged Yucatecans. Industrialization and the boom in production, distribution, and consumption of henequen fiber and fiber products on a global scale were made possible by the invention of the decortication machine. The industrialization phase dates from 1853 to 1892. This step is characterized by the redesign of different kinds of henequen decorticating wheels, as well as the intensification of practical experiments that led to a definitive classification of the different qualities of the henequen plant. Various decorticating machines were installed in haciendas. By 1892 there were at least 1,300 decorticating wheels and 200 presses to compress the bales of henequen fiber. In 1852, the government of Yucatán offered a 2,000peso prize to whoever could invent a decorticating machine that met the following specifications (Trujillo 1977:629):
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1. Each man operating the machine could produce 20 pounds. 2. The quality of the product would not be inferior to that produced manually. 3. The cost of the apparatus would not exceed the value of the product. 4. Construction of the machine should be simple. 5. The machine should be transportable from one location to another. 6. There should be no waste of the fiber upon decorticating the henequen leaves. 7. The parts used in operation should be low cost. All the American inventors commented that such a machine was almost impossible to build. Therefore, the machinery had to be invented by Yucatecans, because only they could gauge the strength and the structure of the henequen leaves (Trujillo 1977). During the same year in which the award was announced, Cecilio Villamor applied for a patent on the machine he invented, and in 1855 he was granted a patent for 10 years. The machine was built in New Orleans, financed by Yucatán’s hacienda owners, and installed in a hacienda in Conkal, where it was examined by the award commission. However, the commission declared that the machine could be improved. With continued use, the machine began to destroy the henequen leaves, and eventually it began to destroy itself. With this failure, the spirits of the hacienda owners fell and the machine was dismantled. The inventor conserved his patent, but without resources and support, he could not redesign the machine (Trujillo 1977:631). Villamor, however, faced stiff competition from other inventors. In 1856, Esteban Solís applied for patent over a decorticating machine he invented, naming it “Rueda Solís” (Solís Wheel) (Figure 8.4). Yucatán was on the verge of inventing a machine that complied with the necessary performance characteristics for the industrial exploitation of henequen. Nevertheless, Villamor accused Solís of stealing his idea. By 1863, Yucatecans Cecilio Villamor and Esteban Solís begin an eight-year-long dispute over the rights to the invention of the first henequen decorticating
Figure 8.4. The Solís Wheel in use. Courtesy of Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
machine. Solís asked the state government to extend his privileges for an additional 10 years, given that he had not been able to sell enough machines. He argued that the henequen industry had surged as a result of his invention, and given that henequen plants require at least five years to mature, it had not been possible to offer more than 64 machines. Although the state government did not grant him the extension on his patent, the state congress did award him the prize for the invention of the decorticating machine in 1868. In 1882, Manuel Prieto invented another wheel for decortication called “La Vencedora” (The Victor), which could strip up to 20,000 henequen leaves per hour and reduced waste (Figure 8.5). This machine was adapted with a system of chains that drove a conveyor belt that fed the leaves into the wheel. From this time forward, many adaptations and improvements on decorticating machines resulted in an increase of production from the initial 1,000 henequen leaves per hour, on average, for the first machines (Solís, Villamor, and Millet) up to 20,000 henequen leaves per hour (more or less) by some machines (Vencedora, Torroella) at the end of the century. Also,
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Figure 8.5. La Vencedora (The Victor) working at Hacienda Sacapuc, circa 1913. Courtesy of Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
Villamor’s sons were among those who designed new auxiliary mechanisms to improve output. Cline (2010) comments that by 1876 there were 600 decorticating machines and at least 400 were working with steam power. According to Garcia Quintanilla (1978), by 1883 in Yucatán, there were 1,024 decorticating wheels. In 1895, the sources indicate that there were also 200 presses for the bales, and by 1892, there were 1,300 steam-powered machines in operation across the peninsula. Henequen cultivation was expanded and intensified (García Quintanilla 1978:56). New lands including the forests and fields of indigenous communities were appropriated by the hacienda owners (Ortiz Yam 2013). The fourth period, the peak of the henequen boom in which decorticating machines were commercialized, began in 1893 and lasted until 1933. This period was characterized
by fine-tuning the design and fiber-stripping capacity of the decorticating machines to keep up with demand on the international market. One of the initial problems with the decorticating machines was the source of power used to move the rasper (Table 8.1). The first machines were turned by hand and by human muscle power. Later, a winch and capstan was added to the machines to be turned by oxen or mules, and finally, when the machines were made of iron, a new system was invented in which the machine was turned by a steam engine (Figure 8.6). The adaptation of the steam engine (motora) in 1861 represented a significant improvement in the work of decorticating henequen (Cámara Zavala 1936; Millet Cámara 2006:88). Generally, decorticating machines functioned as follows. First, the henequen leaves were tied together in
Table 8.1. Performance Matrix for Decorticating Machines (ca. 1855 –1955) ACTIVIT Y Manufacture Installation Use Quantity of fiber produced
Management Repair and Maintenance
Additions
PERFORMANCE CHAR ACTERISTICS
HUMAN / ANIMAL MUSCLE POWER
STEAM POWER
Ease of fabrication and availability of materials Cost Special infrastructure and requirements Quantity of leaves processed Speed − Purity of product Drying fiber Operation Ease of use Ease of repair Cost of maintenance Ease of management Auxiliary mechanisms
+ − − − − + − − − − + − + −
− + + + +
Figure 8.6. Decorticating machine with conveyor belt. Courtesy of Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
+ − + + − + − +
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bunches and transported from the fields to the machinery house via the mule-drawn truc. The leaves were untied, separated, and placed on a conveyor belt to move them to the machine. Next, the operators at one end fed the leaves one by one into the wheel, which separated the cortex, the fiber, the pulp, and the juices. The waste fell below into bagasse carts, which were hauled to a dump on the outskirts of the hacienda. Finally, the wet fiber emerged from the other end of the shredder wheel, and there, other operators would remove it from the platform and take it to be hung and dried in the sun. Once dry, the henequen fiber would be brought to the baling press to form packets of 150 kg and made ready for export. Among the new adaptations was a roller-disk system that straightened the henequen leaves as they moved toward the blades of the shredder. One of the biggest
challenges was an automated feeding mechanism for the decorticating wheel. Some of the manufacturers like Torroella, Prieto, Mola, or Lanaux were devoted to refining the process and achieved a satisfactory delivery device after numerous attempts (Millet Cámara 2006:93–94; Figure 8.7). Also, special attachments removed impurities from the henequen fiber as it exited the machine. Hoppers were also added to assist in the picking of bagasse and removing residues of the leaves, as well as a system of movable rails (Magaña Toledano 2011). The performance matrix of the decorticating machines is a useful tool for identifying the importance of these changes at a technological level. In Table 8.2, the matrix lists the performance characteristics of three of the principal decorticating machines and component activities that are relevant for processing henequen. For example,
Figure 8.7. Torroella machine built in Mérida, Yucatán. Courtesy of Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
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Table 8.2. Performance Matrix of Three Decorticating Machines ACTIVIT Y Manufacture Installation Function
Operation
Repair / Maintenance
Additions Discard and Reuse
PERFORMANCE CHAR ACTERISTICS
SOLIS WHEEL
VILLAMOR
VENCEDOR A
Ease for its fabrication (availability of materials) Cost Infrastructure special requirements Fiber extraction capacity Velocity Quantity of fiber processed Time efficiency for fiber extraction Cleanliness Fiber drying Symbolize modernity Energy use Safety for the user Operator requires specialized training Hierarchical administration Ease of repair Maintenance cost Ease of management Ease of acquiring replacement parts Auxiliary mechanisms Disposal of broken parts Reuse of metal hardware Curation
+ − − − − − − − − + − − − − + − + + − − − −
+ − + − − − − − − + − − − − − − + + − + − −
− + + + + + + + − + + + + + − + − − + + + +
the Solís Wheel and the Villamor machine were easy to construct, maintain, and repair, while the Vencedora was more complex and efficient but needed specialized operators and costly maintenance. Ideally, those machines symbolized modernity. It may be noted that none of the different decorticating machines met all of the desired characteristics. This is why such a variety of machines and their attachments were “modified” during the henequen boom. In the late nineteenth century, the adoption and availability of one of the many decorticating machines depended on equipment cost (approximately 2,000 pesos), performance, ease of maintenance, and its ability to work and not waste the fibers (Table 8.2). Because of the diversity of size and quality of the henequen leaves, numerous models of decorticating machines were developed. The flurry of new models exemplifies the so-called Imelda Marcos Hypothesis. This means that in a particular community, members with greater wealth or economic possibilities are able to enhance the performance of favored activities by acquiring numerous artifacts with narrow or specific functions (Schiffer 1995:32). Among the most commonly used machines were the Torroella, Rosita, India, Ciclón, and Reforma, among
others. I think that these desfibradoras were adopted as an example of Schiffer’s experimentation and redesign phases of technological differentiation before henequen producers settled on specific functional variants. Yet, the adoptions also responded to the owner’s desire for prestige that coincided with having the newest and fanciest technology (Figure 8.8; see Mayfield et al., this vol.). This behavior reinforces the idea that social groups invest technology with meaning (Hughes 1987; Pinch and Bijker 1987). Because social groups define the problems of technological development, there is also flexibility in the way things are designed. Technologies are open to more than one interpretation (Bijker et al. 1987:12). After 1933, henequen exploitation entered a new stage of decline and experimentation. In the early twentieth century, about 500 decorticating machines were in operation in Yucatán, but by 1972, only 208 machines were still in operation (Villanueva Mukul 2009). Following the changes of the Mexican Revolution, the agrarian reform (which expropriated landowners’ property and returned it to Native communities), and a shift in the Yucatecan economy during the Great Depression, henequen haciendas ceased operations (Echeverría 2005). A last attempt was made to revive the decline of the henequen industry
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Figure 8.8. A complex decorticating machine ready to be installed. Courtesy of Fototeca Pedro Guerra, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
in 1953, when the engineer Candelario Reyes, then head of the Agricultural Credit Bank (Banrural), ordered the building of a huge Krupp decorticating machine from Germany at the cost of half a million pesos. This machine could process 35,000 henequen leaves per hour (Figure 8.9). But because spare parts had to be imported and maintenance costs were high, the machine was only used for a few years (Echeverría 2005). The last stage of technological differentiation of the decorticating machine and the henequen industry is the use and modification of these machines for tourism. The Hacienda Ochil, a popular stop on the way to the archaeological site of Uxmal, has a henequen desfibradora exhibit in the machinery house. Visitors may walk up on the platforms and look closely at the machine. Also, Sotuta de Peón is another example of a living history
museum of Yucatán’s Gilded Age. The Decauville rail system is another element that is reused as a tourist attraction. Tourist trains and truc lines have been redeveloped to transport tourists to haciendas and cenotes, such as those that connect the Hacienda Chunkanaan, still in use, to three beautiful cenotes in the Cuzamá region. As these examples show, some of the technological innovations of the Gilded Age have been used by the government and individuals to construct a social memory that reifies a glorious past and denies the socioeconomic conflicts derived from its implementation. Today, new uses of the henequen plant are under development, and additional experimentation is underway. Cottage industries are producing new artisanal crafts for sale to tourists. Other businesses are distilling liquor from the pulp and juices, such as the Izamal or Lukum
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Figure 8.9. Processing capacity of different henequen decorticating machines.
brands produced exclusively from henequen in the Izamal region. Finally, new experiments suggest that henequen could be the new sustainable biofuel (ethanol) to move Yucatán into the twenty-first century.
Technologica l Ch a nge at H acienda Sa n Pedro Cholu l Currently, the henequen industry is nothing more than a memory of what it once was. In this section, I examine the consequences of technological change among the residents at San Pedro Cholul, based on the results of archaeological investigations at the hacienda. I begin by summarizing the documentary evidence of changes to the estate in the context of the development of Yucatán’s henequen industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Next, I discuss the transformation of architecture and machinery and at the hacienda’s core that occurred in response to increased demand for henequen fiber and the industrialization of the productive process. Finally, I explain how archaeological evidence recovered from the workers’ house lots reflects the social changes of the Gilded Age at San Pedro Cholul. San Pedro began as an estate belonging to a religious confraternity in 1709, where cattle were raised to finance the feast day celebrations of the patron saint of the town of Cholul. In 1782, it became private property, and around 1811, the documents indicate that a maize and cattle ranch was established at the site. Between 1822 and 1847, the cattle ranch grew; it became a means of accumulating capital for rural elites and supported a resident population (Medina Suárez and Cámara Gutiérrez 2016).
The earliest historical information about the industrialization of henequen at San Pedro is found in a document entitled Relación de haciendas de la ciudad de Mérida 1880. The document states that San Pedro was a quarter league in size (1.2 km) and included 3,000 mecates (6 ha) planted in henequen, one four-horsepower steam engine, three decorticating wheels, one lever-operated press, 130 head of cattle, 25 horses, 30 indebted servants, and a total population of 160 persons. The owner was Juan José Herrera. During the time San Pedro first became a henequen hacienda, we see the most demographic, architectural, and economic growth at the site (Hernández Álvarez 2014a). Another principal source of historical information is an appraisal recovered from the Archivo General del Estado. The valuation of the estate was requested by the wife of Juan José Herrera, Mercedes Irigoyen de Herrera, who inherited the estate when her husband died. This document provided an inventory of the standing architecture, the machinery, the facilities and their condition, furniture, and the amount of land planted in henequen in 1898 but provided no information about the people who lived and worked there. This document shows that San Pedro operated machinery for exploiting henequen, including a 12-horsepower “Marshall” boiler, a “Villamor” decorticating machine, a “Blake” pump, a corn mill, another boiler in poor condition, and 1,110 m of Decauville rails. The 1898 appraisal also described the condition of the machinery house (Figure 8.10). The building was constructed of stone masonry and roofed with timbers oriented to the north with a long corridor that faced the rail lines leading to the rasper. To the south was another,
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Figure 8.10. San Pedro Cholul chimney. Photo by Héctor Hernández Álvarez.
smaller corridor, and to the west another that housed the Marshall boiler and the Blake pump. The decorticating machine situated in the north corridor was an old Villamor machine powered by animal traction but adapted for use with steam power. Steam power was used after 1881 when Florentino and Timoteo Villamor made alterations to the original machine invented by their father. The improved machine worked well but required significant resources for installation (Trujillo 1997:652). It seems that Juan José Herrera acquired one of the improved Villamor machines to supplement the three decorticating wheels (possibly Solís Wheels) acquired in 1875 when the business was founded. The social changes of the Gilded Age are also reflected in the demographic information available for the hacienda. According to the censuses of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática, San Pedro Cholul reached its maximum population around 1900 with a total
of 158 residents. The economic problems and conflicts of the era are likewise reflected in the demography of San Pedro. After the 1940 agrarian reform, the hacienda lost more than half of its resident population (46 persons) and was completely abandoned by 1980 (Table 8.3). Archaeological investigations in 2013 recorded the remains of the machinery house and chimney as part of a program of survey and test excavations conducted in the principal buildings of the hacienda (see Figure 8.10). The machinery house is a rectangular building north of the hacienda’s main house where henequen fiber was processed. It had its own well, and at the north end, it had a shed for loading and unloading the trucs of henequen leaves and carts of bagasse. The test excavation situated in one of the rooms of the machinery house revealed the construction sequence of the building and yielded artifacts that confirmed its specialized use. The building was constructed on an elevated
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Table 8.3. Demographic Information from San Pedro Cholul during the Twentieth Century LOCATION
CATEGORY
CENSUS
MEN
WOMEN
INHABITANTS TOTAL
San Pedro San Pedro
Finca Hacienda; Political category change Hacienda Hacienda Hacienda Hacienda Hacienda Hacienda Hacienda; Location abandonment
1900 1910
85 62
73 40
158 102
1921 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980
39 53 25 27 34 − −
40 42 21 19 20 − −
79 95 46 46 54 45 −
San Pedro San Pedro San Pedro San Pedro San Pedro San Pedro San Pedro
Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), Archivo histórico (www.inegi.org.mx)
platform that had two clearly defined and superimposed floors. The first construction phase was represented by a floor that had been dismantled so that only traces of the stucco on which it was laid remained. The first floor was covered with fill containing medium-sized stones leveled with stucco that provided the base for the second floor that consisted of red mosaics, which, although they were found in situ, were deteriorated (Figure 8.11). It is likely that the first floor corresponds to the first construction phase of the henequen hacienda around 1875. Similarly, the second floor corresponds to the remodeling that occurred at San Pedro Cholul around 1910. As it grew in size, more resources were invested in its infrastructure (Hernández Álvarez 2014a). The material culture recovered from the machinery house consisted almost exclusively of metal parts, which indicate a suite of specialized functions for processing henequen. Under the mosaic floor (Level II), we found nails, screws, machinery parts, and a cattle (Bos taurus) tooth fragment. Under the first floor (Level IV), we recovered heavy metal pieces that probably were part of some machinery (Figure 8.12). Generally, architectural modifications and the material culture coincide with the technological changes experienced within the hacienda San Pedro Cholul at the beginning of the twentieth century (Hernández Álvarez 2014a). As part of the archaeological investigations at San Pedro Cholul in 2010–2011 and 2013, we completed studies in three house lots that were inhabited by henequen workers
and their families. We performed surface collections of artifacts over 100 of the area of the lot, excavated test pits in specific areas of the patios, and completed extensive excavations of the occupation floors of three houses and a kitchen. We recovered a large quantity of objects that reveal patterns of consumption and discard, economic status, foodways, and the conditions of life for the workers and their families (Hernández Álvarez 2014a; Hernández Álvarez and Zimmermann 2016). Among the most common materials were ceramics, glass, construction materials, faunal remains, and metal. The ceramics yielded information about the chronology of the habitation areas, as well as the adoption of new technologies of consumption, such as the low-quality wares imported from Mexico City that the workers acquired in local markets (workers’ consumption patterns at the Lamanai sugar mill and at indigo obrajes in El Salvador are quite similar; see Mayfield et al., this vol.; Sampeck, this vol.). In San Pedro, glass is another abundant material found in the house lots that reveals that the workers’ families had access to manufactured products such as patent medicines, liquor, soft drinks, and kitchen and beauty products. The glass became more prevalent at the beginning of the twentieth century with the industrialization of glass production in Mexico and the standardization of the consumption of bottled products (Hernández Álvarez et al. 2016). In the workers’ house lots, we also found various pieces of metal, which were part of hacienda machinery such as
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Figure 8.11. Excavation at the interior of the machinery house of San Pedro Cholul. Photo by Héctor Hernández Álvarez.
chain links, bolts, nuts, nails, and rail parts, probably destined to be recycled. But we also found finished tools used by agricultural workers such as machetes, coas (a specialized tool for harvesting maguey), and files for sharpening them. For domestic use, we recovered different kinds of tin containers and cans for food service, as well as spoons, buckets, chamber pots, a hand mill, various coins, and candle bases (veladoras). The archaeological remains from San Pedro Cholul provide evidence of social change during the henequen boom in Yucatán. We have documented socioeconomic differences within the hacienda’s labor force that are reflected in the internal structure of domestic space (Fernández Souza 2012; Fernández Souza et al. 2016; Hernández Álvarez 2014b), in domestic architecture (Hernández González and Bolio Zapata 2016), and in the material culture of the henequen workers (Hernández Álvarez et al. 2016). Technological changes in the exploitation of henequen fostered specialized divisions within the workforce of Yucatán’s plantations. The divisions are evident in the
residential spaces of the families who lived at San Pedro Cholul. Although the 31 house lots of the hacienda were similar in size, they contained different internal features. For example, in Solar 1 we recorded a corral and masonry water trough, a well, and a sascabera for the extraction of construction material (sascab). By contrast, Solar 15 also contained a corral, but it had a large orchard and a separate kitchen within the structural core of the lot. Finally, Solar 30 lacked auxiliary structures and features, even though it was located in front of the orchard of the main house and alongside a lime kiln. In addition, the domestic architecture recorded at San Pedro reveals certain differences among those who lived and worked on the estate. Cristian Hernández González and Catalina Bolio Zapata (2012, 2016) recorded a total of 24 dwellings, which they divided among five architectural types that ranged from houses constructed completely of masonry to houses of perishable materials whose only remains consisted of stone foundation braces. A similar pattern of architectural differentiation among the labor force was observed by Allan Meyers and David Carlson
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Figure 8.12. Machine metal pieces recovered during excavation at the machinery house. Photo by Héctor Hernández Álvarez.
(2002) for Hacienda Tabi. Further, as Tracie Mayfield, Elizabeth Graham, and David Pendergast (this vol.) argue for the sugar mill at Lamanai, Belize, the built environment served as a reminder of who controlled access to certain areas. Each settlement zone presented discrete features where inhabitants utilized different technologies, which suggests socioeconomic variability. Lamanai’s sugar mill was a failure, but the transformation of material culture among the workers who lived there shows parallels to Hacienda San Pedro Cholul. In both locations, workers maintained the consumption of local products, like ceramics and animals, and implemented new consumption patterns derived from the circulation of global commodities, evident in high quantities of chemical / medicine glass bottles and alcoholic beverages.
Finally, archaeologists working on Mexican haciendas have proposed that material culture recovered from domestic assemblages can tell us about differentiation and stratification between hacienda sites (Meyers 2012, 2017; Newman 2014; Sweitz 2012). Pottery found in Solar 1, Solar 15, and Solar 30 at San Pedro Cholul, despite being from separate locations of the hacienda, is not different in this regard. For example, the simple decoration and ceramic surface treatment, as well as the locations in which it was recovered, confirm that the fragments belonged to common, low-cost wares used by the workers of Hacienda San Pedro Cholul (Burgos Villanueva et al. 2016; see also Burgos Villanueva et al. 2005). Further, the reuse of glass bottles and metal machinery parts suggests recycling behavior among the workers (Hernández
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Álvarez et al. 2016). Toys and children’s material culture from San Pedro address their socialization processes and their incorporation into the workforce (Hernández Álvarez 2017). Also, zooarchaeological analysis of domestic and wild specimens recovered from Hacienda San Pedro corroborates material patterns that indicate profound social change during Yucatán’s henequen boom. Zooarchaeological remains, as a reflection of past foodways, are strong indicators of the social stratification that pervaded among workers and their families at San Pedro Cholul (Alexander and Hernández Álvarez 2018). The consumption of manufactured products within the haciendas, especially those that were imported, generated power relationships and class differences derived from a growing industrial capitalist system. Through the analysis of the material culture left by these households at San Pedro, those differences became evident through the access, quantity, and quality of the consumed and discarded goods like coarse and refined earthenware, metal, and glass. These socioeconomic disparities at San Pedro Cholul were legitimated by the political discourse and the capitalist ideologies circulated during the Porfiriato. During this epoch, the peninsula experienced an unprecedented industrial, economic, and social transformation. Fomenting ideas of modernity, the capitalist class and hacienda owners introduced new routes of communication, the development of railways and ports, and the opening of new commercial markets. But these changes were implemented at great cost to Native communities.
Fina l Consider ations The behavioral framework used in this chapter is useful for understanding a range of technological decisions that led to the adoption of henequen decorticating technology. This theoretical approach allows us to discern general patterns regarding henequen exploitation over the long term in the historical and archaeological record. Moreover, the performance matrix for henequen decorticating machines is a useful tool for comparing the competing technologies in the study of technological adoptions. Yet, it is also necessary to address the social implications of the adoption of henequen decorticating machines among the diverse social groups that were involved in the industry. The consequences of industrialization were not the same for the
designers / builders of the machinery as they were for the owners of the haciendas or the workers. Henequen industrialization produced profound socioeconomic impacts on Native communities that were closely related with the haciendas. The adoption of the decortication machine influenced the growth of henequen production and promoted other technological developments at the turn of the twentieth century. It also represented ideas of industrialization and modernity for the federal government and Yucatecan elites. Technological developments encouraged by Yucatán’s hacienda owners, like railways, ports, new roads, and small tramway lines, contributed to ideas about modernity during the Gilded Age (Andrews et al. 2012). As scholars of technological systems suggest (Bijker et al. 1987), diverse social groups play a crucial role defining and solving the problems that arise during the development of new technologies, but they also invest technology with meanings. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, San Pedro Cholul experienced its greatest growth due to the increase in the resident population, the investment in new machinery, and the remodeling of the built environment. Increased henequen production, thanks to the implementation of decorticating technologies, resulted in an increase in the number of buildings and facilities at the center of Hacienda San Pedro Cholul. Principal structures, such as the machinery house, were remodeled during the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, after 1940, the henequen industry became entangled in social, political, and economic conditions that led to the ruin of most of fiber producers. San Pedro Cholul was no exception. Rapid industrialization had drastic social and cultural repercussions within Yucatecan indigenous communities in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on the presence of ceramic fragments, glass bottle remains, metal artifacts, and machinery parts, along with architectural and residential spatial patterns, the archaeological team identified the consequences of shifts in labor organization and consumption among different households. The analysis of the archaeological remains from the workers’ house lots at San Pedro Cholul shows that the henequen workers were not conspicuous consumers but conservative recyclers. Most of the goods consumed inside the domestic spaces corresponded to manufactured products that appeared in Yucatán at the dawn of the twentieth
Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines century. The consumption of sodas, beer, wine and liquor, medicines, beauty products, spices, metallic tools, and refined earthenware became part of a social process that brought social inequality, exclusion, and the unequal distribution of wealth to the Maya people. New sociocultural identities, resistance tactics, and social mobility patterns emerged. Household and settlement patterns, new landscape configurations, and different architectural patterns challenged older ideas about tradition and modernity. Meanwhile, material culture attests to strong class differences and the innovative strategies needed to survive the oppressive conditions of industrial capitalism. Modernization and technological change generated negative consequences for the peninsula’s Native communities. For them, industrialization linked technological adoptions to severe economic inequality, domination, exploitation, violence, forced work, and ecological degradation during the Gilded Age.
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Notes 1. Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán (AGEY), “Índice del fondo Municipios,” vol. 1, Abala-Teabo (1887–1927). 2. Imelda Marcos was the wife of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. She was considered one of the richest politicians in the Philippines, famous for her collection of clothing and shoes. She claimed that she wore a pair of shoes for every occasion once, and hundreds of them were found in the presidential palace when she and her husband fled the Philippines in 1986. 3. Anonymous, 1886, Relación de haciendas de la ciudad de Mérida 1880. Centro de Apoyo para la Investigación de la Historia de Yucatán, Mérida. 4. AGEY, “Testamentaría del Lic. Juan José Herrera,” Justicia, Civil, Mérida, 1895–1899, Vol. 133, Exp. 27. 5. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, archivo histórico (www.inegi.org.mx).
Cane and Consumerism Nineteenth-Century Sugar Growing at Lamanai, Belize
T r ac i e M ay f i e l d , E l i z a b e t h G r a h a m , a n d Dav i d P e n d e r g a s t
interpreting the structure of lifeways at colonial period sites. At the global scale, the Industrial Revolution (1750s) introduced production and distribution-related technologies that facilitated export market growth of European wares unknown in earlier centuries. Increased production required large amounts of raw materials, which in turn necessitated greater numbers to work at industrial and extractive sites. Changes in the speed and quality of manufacturing both created and maintained regional and local markets for European products. Not only could objects and materials be more quickly produced and distributed but also European goods became better crafted and often less expensive than they had been in the previous century and ultimately entered regional and local economies at an increasingly exponential rate within all socioeconomic levels. Old World flora, fauna, and prepackaged consumables brought to the New World made their way into regional and local systems, along with the plates, bowls, cups, and pitchers used to serve such items. Time and energy previously expended in procuring wild foods or tending to house gardens could be refocused on the productive needs of the colonial industrial complex. Although ratios of imported to locally produced artifacts can show that European products entered local markets, they are not enough to demonstrate why, where, and when certain materials appeared in regional and local economies. Price, availability, and performance characteristics must therefore be considered in tandem with
This chapter presents archaeological research focused on the nineteenth-century British plantation settlement at Lamanai, Belize (known in the nineteenth century as Indian Church). The analysis centers on technological dialectics of consumption and aims to highlight similarities and differences among discrete contexts. Our study utilizes nineteenth-century material recovered at Lamanai since the 1970s and seeks to elucidate techno-productive aspects of historical, cultural, and socioeconomic convergence or connectedness among feature / activity areas within the larger plantation household. Owing in large part, however, to the often clandestine nature of British activities in Belize for a significant period of postcontact history, little is known about the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the northwest part of the country. To remedy this, the project’s focus on Lamanai and northwest Belize aims to answer questions regarding how life at this particular site was structured materially, spatially, and socioeconomically during the 1800s. This project has, thus far, been focused on (1) analyzing previously excavated nineteenth-century materials, (2) recovering / analyzing new data from areas of known British activity, (3) researching the documentary record, and (4) promoting nineteenth-century focus and recovery at Belize sites more generally in order to create a comparative data collection. An understanding of technology and tradition at variable scopes, scales, and standpoints plays a key role in
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M ay fi e l d, Gr a h a m, a n d Pen de rga st
the social and cultural repercussions of the entry of new materials into in situ cultural, economic, and historical structures. For example, cooking and storage pots were heavy and subject to breakage during transit, so procuring such wares locally would be a financially prudent choice for colonial entities. Buying locally could, however, also introduce and ultimately embed colonists into local subsistence economies, while at the same time create market economies for other imported materials. Alternatively, choosing imported products over locally produced objects could create intraregional conflict between indigenous groups who had previously relied on reciprocal subsistence exchange. In such a case, the repercussions of the sources of materials had to be carefully considered. Colonial-era plantation and extraction activities left behind unique opportunities for archaeologists to study the ways in which variable groups created, inherited, maintained, and modified their respective lifeways and related technologies while actively living and working within a bounded space, and having variable access to technologies, objects, materials, and spaces. During the nineteenth century, power relationships between indigenous and European groups in Central America and Belize were undergoing rapid change driven by the increased commodification of labor after emancipation (1838), the hunt for natural resources not yet exploited by industrial enterprises, and the void left by the fall of the Spanish Empire in the Americas (see Hernández Álvarez this vol.; Sampeck, this vol.). Archaeological and historical investigations are clearly needed to add information inaccessible by any other means, such as the discrete material and social infrastructures of small-scale, colonial-administered enterprises, established to extract raw materials including mahogany, fruit, and sugar. Indigenous and European peoples as well as other groups such as Chinese and Irish immigrants, post-emancipated slaves and Maroons of African descent, and merchant-adventurers from the United States incorporated or rejected objects, technologies, and spatial practices differently, depending on time and place. Little is known about the nineteenth-century activity at Lamanai, and to this end, the study aims to answer questions regarding how residential and industrial life was structured, including but not limited to the relationship of Britons and Anglo-Belizeans with other groups such as the Ycaiche, Santa Cruz Maya Indians, Maroons and other pre- / post-emancipated peoples of African
descent, Miskito, and immigrants from Amoy, China, who may have provided labor at the settlement. Of great importance to the project are data centered on frequently performed and often mundane daily practices (Bourdieu 1977; Braudel 1992; Hodder 1985, 1991a, 1991b; LeFebvre 2004) and behaviors (Schiffer 2010) of individuals and groups operating at Lamanai during the nineteenth century. We are interested in the material and documentary remains that allow us to elucidate the rhythms (LeFebvre 2004), connectedness (Thompson 1966), and structures of daily life (Braudel 1992) as experienced by individuals and groups in the past. This study focuses on how technology and tradition, both local and colonial, affected behaviors and performance (sociotechnic dialectics) to determine whether or not there is observable variation between contexts at Lamanai that might give us clues regarding the day-to-day experience of different socioeconomic and / or culture groups who occupied the site during the 1800s. The following chapter provides an overview of the project’s theoretical and methodological considerations, a discussion of the raw archaeological data, and an interpretive synthesis that includes comparative site data and case studies. Even though the study data span more than 30 years of recovery, very little research has focused on the nineteenth century at Lamanai thus far. The archaeological and historical records have elucidated much about the nineteenth-century plantation settlement, but the data have also proved frustratingly oblique with regard to intrasite variability among known British colonial activity and habitation areas owing to the homogeneity of British imported goods recovered at the site. The most recent phase of archaeology at Lamanai is therefore a foundational effort, which aims to set the stage and narrow the research foci for future historical-archaeological studies at Lamanai and more generally in Belize.
Histor ica l a n d Geogr aphic Context Lamanai is a site in the southern Maya Lowlands, located on the western shore of the New River Lagoon in the Orange Walk District of Belize. The site is situated on shallow limestone soils within a lowland broad-leaf, moist forest, categorized as a subtropical to tropical environment. The region is known for its biodiversity and hosts more than 150 species of mammals, 540 species of birds,
Cane and Consumerism 151 species of amphibians and reptiles, nearly 600 species of freshwater and marine fishes, and 3,408 species of vascular plants (Belize Tropical Forest Studies 2012:1). Lamanai is located in an area of moderate flood risk, and high waters are moderately likely to have disturbed archaeological deposits located on or near the lagoon ridge from time to time. Direct access to the New River has arguably been one of the reasons for the site’s continuous occupation for more than three millennia. Lamanai was settled by the Maya long before the arrival of Spanish and British colonists, but the culture and identity of the people who lived at Lamanai over the centuries certainly fluctuated. Radiocarbon dates point to occupation activity as early as about 1500 BC (Metcalfe et al. 2009; Rushton et al. 2012). The settlement seems to have been active as a political and economic center by the Middle Preclassic (900 to 400 BC) and occupation continued—albeit at varying intensity—until the midseventeenth century, when Spanish influence was waning and at which time Maya population levels were significantly lowered owing to the effects of European diseases (Graham 2011:107–109). Throughout its history, Lamanai maintained inland, riverine, and especially coastal connections, which made it a vital hub for material and information exchanges even as other sites in Petén and the Yucatán Peninsula lost power and influence (Graham 2011:43–45). The official colonial history of Belize began when the “the coast was discovered by Columbus in 1502, and its early settlement is supposed to have been effected from Jamaica, by adventurers, who were attracted by the fine timber (logwood and mahogany) which grew on the banks of the Hondo and other rivers” (Butter 1879:29). Before the arrival of Spaniards in Central America and Mexico during the sixteenth century, the Maya were in contact with early, largely undocumented seafarers who explored the region during the latter part of the fifteenth century (Graham 2011:107–109). With regard to the Belize missions, which include Lamanai, Spanish colonial history extended from 1543–1544 to 1707 (Graham 2011:195–196, 203–204; Jones 1989:71, 1998:420), and by 1544, Lamanai was first mentioned in historic documents (Jones 1989:71). The first Spanish church at the site was built between 1544 and 1550 (Graham 2011:231–232); a second church was constructed north of the original structure, probably in the 1560s, although it is possible that construction may date to the early seventeenth century
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(Graham 2011:236–238; Pendergast 1991, 1993). Spanish military control waned after 1638–1641, and at times Lamanai was reported to have been abandoned, visited only occasionally by a priest (Graham 2011:189–260; Jones 1989:214). The chapel of the second church became a residence of a Maya family, and the disused churches served as sites for caches and even the erection of stelae (see Graham [2011:208–218] for full list of references; see also Pendergast 1986:5–6), which point to strongly continued occupation in the area. By the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Graham 2011:239–260), Spain’s economic hold on Belize weakened owing partly to Maya resistance but also to a century of “illicit [British] commerce that rolled over the shores of Spanish America . . . , which challenged Spain’s commercial monopoly of its colonial dominions and ultimately weakened Spain’s political control” (Brown 1928:178). One source of contention between Britain and Spain was the Mosquito Shore, which “together with Belize and Jamaica . . . formed an important triangular British power base, threatening the weakest link in Spain’s New World Empire” (Dawson 1983:678). This weak link in effect became a commercial and economic void for all but pirates, buccaneers, and merchants of illicit trade. As a result, the British in Central America slowly began to band together to form extraction and trade monopolies that filled the void. By the late eighteenth century, a few individuals and groups succeeded in monopolizing the market, trade routes, and local economies that had developed both in the interiors and along the waterways of Belize. It is likely that British colonists arrived at Lamanai in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. However, no formal records of the occupation exist until 1837, when Hyde, Hodge, and Co. was granted “two hundred acres . . . under ‘The Indian Church Plantation Grant’ in order to plant sugarcane and build a sugar mill at the site” (Pendergast 1982:57) (Figure 9.1). The original owners declared bankruptcy in 1858 (Bankers’ Magazine 1858:933; Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review 1858:343), and in 1864, the estate was purchased by the British Honduras Company Ltd., a conglomeration of original Honduran landholders, including Hyde, Hodge, and Co., and new money from a financial backer in London (Pendergast 1982:62). In 1883, the investor group and its holdings were purchased by the Belize Estate and Produce Company (Pendergast 1982:66), which would become the largest private landholder in Belize over the next 100 years.
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Figure 9.1. The nineteenth-century sugar mill at Lamanai, Belize, 2009. Photo by Tracie Mayfield.
Although the documentary record points to little more than a decade of sugar production at Lamanai and only one large-scale structure may have been constructed during the occupation, the archaeological record is replete with technologies, objects, and materials that attest to a formal, long-term commitment to resource extraction. Such extraction is likely to have included cutting logwood and mahogany along with the short-lived attempt at sugar production. The colonists built a sugar mill and imported medicines for use in an on-site apothecary (Rogers 1885:211), converted 200 acres of forest to sugar cultivation, and brought in a vast amount of imported British materials from food and drink to bricks and cement that were used to service the day-to-day needs of estate management and labor. The owners of the plantation must have had reason to believe—like many others imbued with a sense of colonial optimism—that the time, effort, and money spent constructing and equipping the space
would prove profitable and sustainable. But we now know the outcome was quite different, at least for sugar production at the Lamanai settlement.
R esea rch Setting Nineteenth-century political, cultural, and economic organization in Belize was distinct even though the colony was connected to extraction and mercantile institutions in the broader West Indies. Both Spanish and British colonists found the land and its people difficult to administer (Graham 2011), owing to geographic obstacles and maintaining overland transportation infrastructures in a humid tropical environment. In addition, the region was populated by powerful, locally embedded indigenous communities whose members demanded large payments of cash and arms from colonial landholders
Cane and Consumerism (Rogers 1885:201–212) who lived under the continual threat of attack from the local Ycaiche and Santa Cruz Maya Indians. To the north, the Caste War (1847–1901) of Yucatán was a reaction by Native peoples “to expanding state authority and the shifts in macroregional political economy” (Alexander 2004:6). Creeping capitalism disenfranchised Native farmers and subverted the longstanding power of Maya nobility over local resources and distribution, which in turn created tenuous relationships between colonists and indigenous groups, often resulting in violent ends. Further, control of Belize had long been a matter of dispute between British settlers and the Spanish, which slowed efforts by European colonists to consolidate Native peoples into administrative and productive centers such as missions and plantations. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, British privateers, buccaneers, and merchants of illicit trade who had once enjoyed relative autonomy from homeland governmental oversight had to contend with the more bureaucratic and structured nature of sanctioned, monitored, and taxed enterprises. Severe labor shortages and oscillating power dialectics among indigenous factions, labor groups, and Europeans were further driven by the abolition of slavery in 1838. Emancipation in Belize forced colonists to broaden their search geographically for workers and make organizational, material, economic, and political concessions to laborer populations in order to maintain and expand their enterprises (Andrews 1981; Armstrong and Hauser 2004:9–10). Plantation activities, such as farming, processing of raw materials, and general site management were labor intensive and required a large number of workers to produce and process enough materials to create surplus to make a profit. Habitation and subsistence-related resources, as well as the degree of difficulty of assigned tasks, were not, however, distributed equally among plantation household inhabitants, a practice that created a socially and materially stratified local community. Although the documentary record alludes to certain labor and immigrant groups at Lamanai during the nineteenth century, it is not yet clear who was at Lamanai and when. The written records lack details about who was doing what for whom at the estate. Afro-Caribbeans (term used here very broadly) working in British Honduras had historical ties to the logwood industry and were familiar with inland landscapes. They likely migrated to work in the emerging inland sugar industry, but there is currently no documentary record of these groups at
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Lamanai. Additionally, Chinese from Amoy (China) had been brought over to work during the plantation rush that occurred in the mid-eighteenth century. The documents describe a visit with the “Chinese Christians in Honduras” by F. de. P. Castells (1870:110), who remarked that the Chinese were doing well in Honduras and that it spoke “well of their Christianity that, though it is five years since they left Amoy, and though they have no stated preacher to guide and instruct them, they have not lost their faith, in the strange land whither they have gone to dwell.” Castells wrote of his visit with the Chinese congregation at Indian Church and noted that he “believed all the other Chinese on the estate were present” (1870:110). Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean laborers could also have come from other areas, such as Barbados, Jamaica, Honduras, and Guatemala. However, it is difficult to identify ethnicities other than British, Spanish, and Maya in the material record at Lamanai because the objects and materials used by individuals and groups who provided labor for agricultural and industrial ventures were the same as those used by the British and Maya. To this end, there are currently not enough data to infer which cultural or ethnic groups resided at Lamanai during the nineteenth century. Relationships between owners and laborers shifted during the nineteenth century, which led to changes in the technological, material, social, and spatial organization of colonial settlements. For the archaeologist, such shifts are most likely to be visible at the single-household or discrete activity–area level (see Hernández Álvarez, this vol.; Sampeck, this vol.). For example, a culturally or ethnically mixed labor force might be expected to produce variability in the amounts and types of faunal / food remains, ceramic forms, and decoration and to have employed a variety of health and hygiene practices, along with variable household spatial arrangements (Meyers 2012:139–161). Colonial practices and behaviors created similarly organized spaces with increasingly ubiquitous objects and materials, and colonial contexts began to look similar over time. Archaeological methods focused on discrete spaces and variation between and among particular contexts can, however, shed light on the day-today realities and experiences of past peoples. Focusing on particular contexts in relation to others allows researchers to look at high-frequency activities, especially those activities related to consumption and foodways. Such practices are vital in the study of spatial distinctions because consumptive behaviors are intimately connected to cultural,
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socioeconomic, and historical communities of practice. In other words, groups of people who interact regularly, sometimes over many generations, and tend to do things similarly, use the same materials, and organize landscapes in like ways.
Study Data In 2009, the total assemblage of previously excavated nineteenth-century artifacts associated with the British occupation at Lamanai was analyzed (Mayfield 2009). Seven feature / activity-area artifact and specimen concentrations were identified as robust enough for further analysis (Table 9.1), of which four (the sugar mill, residential feature N12-30, citadel, and the Spanish Church zone) are discussed here, along with data recovered from excavations focused on the British colonial settlement conducted in 2014 (Table 9.1 and Figure 9.2). Most of the previous archaeological investigations at Lamanai have centered on Maya and Spanish contexts, which generally lie beneath or apart from the nineteenthcentury materials. The British-era objects, when encountered, were collected and stored for future study, but excavations span 30 years, and the assemblage as a whole has issues related to recovery and spatial control simply because very few studies focused on the British occupation. Because the assemblage is substantial, however, a picture of day-to-day life at Lamanai during the nineteenth
century has begun to emerge, and future work will benefit from new questions raised here. Of the 7,350 individual artifacts in the assemblage, 89 are either from surface collections or can only be traced to a feature and its surrounding activity area. Nevertheless, the data are sufficient to establish relative feature / activityarea occupation dates and support preliminary, if limited, observations about what kinds of activities were taking
Table 9.1. Feature / Activity-Area Concentrations with Relative Occupation Dates FEATU R E OR ACTIV ITY ZONE
MEAN OCCUPATION DATE
Hunchback Tomb Area Sugar Mill* Residential Feature N12-30* Citadel* Overall Site Occupation 2014 Excavation Site* Spanish Church Zone* Surface Collection† Residential Area N12-8 Residential Area N12-17
1838 1841 1843 1847 1854 1861 1862 1873 n/a n/a
Sources: Mayfield 2009, 2015 Note: Feature / activity-area artifact and specimen concentrations featured in this chapter are starred and indicated in bold. †
Surface collection was used for mean ceramic dating; this assemblage did not contribute to the overall site timeline apart from general information because the data could not be placed into archaeological context.
Figure 9.2. Map of Lamanai, Belize, with highlighted areas of British occupation. Adapted from Lamanai Archaeological Project 2014.
Cane and Consumerism
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Figure 9.3. Artifact categories by number of individual artifacts (total combined assemblage).
place and where. The data clearly reflect the presence of imported and local technology and materials associated with day-to-day behaviors related to consumption such as cooking and eating, health and hygiene, and recreational ingestion (e.g., alcoholic beverages and smoking pipes) (Figure 9.3). Although few artifacts are useful for absolute dating, ceramics can be used to establish mean ceramic dates for seven feature / activity areas and surface collections, and they provide a median site occupation date (Table 9.1). A curious aspect of the assemblage is the small amount of imported British cookware and serving ware, which includes stoneware, yellow ware, and coarse earthenware vessels. The lack of British cooking and storage vessels suggests that suitable alternatives were readily available from a local source. However, the high frequency of Maya ceramics (e.g., 3,500 years of disposal concentrations, general scatter, and construction fill) and the overall homogeneity of imported goods within the archaeological record has, thus far at least, obscured key nuances of the technological dialectics between contemporaneous local and British wares and forms within discrete contexts. Intrasite variation is observable within the assemblage, but the current data shed more light on the socioeconomic
(e.g., labor vs. owners / supervisors) makeup of temporal, behavioral, and spatial groupings at Lamanai than on sociocultural or ethnic group specificities.
Household- Lev el Technologica l Dia lectics of Consumption: Theor etica l a nd Methodologica l Consider ations Clearly, the recent past informs the present, which makes the study of colonialism worthy of cautious, systematic investigation (Hodder 1991a, 1991b) to contribute to the reflexive, ongoing refinement and active discourse about who owns history and how the past should be studied and interpreted (Little 1997; Orser 2010; Sahlins 1983; Shackel 2001; Trouillot 1995). Historical archaeologists have the unique opportunity to “give voice to those who were muted by the colonial system and counter the longstanding legacy of colonial ideology that categorized the colonized as uncivilized and unworthy” (Little 2007:54). Because race, ethnicity, and gender are social and historical constructs expressed through practice and behavior,
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“it follows that [these] difference[s] [are] created through processes that are discernible in the archaeological and documentary record” (Epperson 1999:159; see also Delle et al. 2011). Studies of race, ethnicity, and gender can, however, be problematic because terms such as “race” or “ethnicity” or “gender” are “highly mutable, often situationally defined designation[s]” (Orser 1999:663). Yet, difficulties in reading ethnic, racial, economic, or gendered difference into the material record do not mean that there are no clues to the relationships between people, technology, objects, and space within the archaeological and historical records (Beaudry et al. 1996; Joyce 2001; Lightfoot et al. 1998; Voss 2008; White and Beaudry 2009). Technological, socioeconomic, and cultural distinctions in the form of objects, materials, and spatial organization in particular contexts have been “demonstrated to reliably assess and explain social issues such as power relationships and questions of gender, age gradation, diet and health, and economic contexts” (Armstrong and Kelly 2000:375). Assemblages recovered from discrete contexts, if considered carefully alongside other lines of evidence, may elucidate unique or historically persistent cultural, symbolic, economic, technological, or aesthetic practices and behaviors (Bloch 1953, 1961a, 1961b; LeFebvre 2004), including reactions to material and socioeconomic structures of power and control as realized by groups operating within and among colonial spheres of influence. As communities of practice engage in production and reproduction over time, new technologies are added to the mix, but these technologies are not necessarily disruptive to historically situated lifeways. More often than not, technological changes are incorporated into existing spheres of activities. Adoption of new technology is dependent on the usability, availability, and price of a particular commodity. With careful recovery and analysis, it is possible to study how and why European consumer goods and technologies were used in particular settings and to make contextual interpretations as to why, for example, certain colors, patterns, materials, and forms were chosen or were present as opposed to others (Beaudry et al. 1996). Household archaeological methods, which focus on discrete activity or residential spaces and minor variations in contexts, can shed light on the socioeconomic, material, and cultural experiences of particular individuals and groups by providing the framework for researchers to recognize local meaning–related patterns of behavior, practice, and performance (Alexander 1999; Beaudry et al. 1996; Voss 2008) in tandem with sociotechnic processes (Majewski
and Schiffer 1987, 2009; Schiffer 2010) such as chaîne opératoire (Eschbach, this vol.; Leroi-Gourhan 1957) and variation in the technological styles of “householding.” The colors, patterns, forms, and organization of objects and spaces directly correspond to the productive, economic, political, and technological realities of past peoples. At first, consumer products imported from Europe were brought to remote locations to re-create familiar homeland comforts, but as these products began to make their way into non-elite, enslaved, conscripted, and Native contexts at local and regional scales, the meanings (internal and external) behind consumer accumulation necessarily changed (Mintz 1985). Colonial material culture may have originally “constituted the tangible embodiment of foreign power and possible long-term domination” (Orser 2006:36), but the injection of new objects often created new markets instead, as European materials entered into variable spheres of manifest, symbolic, historical, and ideational production and reproduction.
Plantation Archaeology Nineteenth-century plantations represent ideal locations for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological and material data (Andrews 1981; Armstrong and Hauser 2009; Delle 1992; Epperson 2001; Hernández Álvarez this vol.; Sampeck this vol.). For one thing, plantations were bounded, pluralistic spaces that were specifically designed for a particular function: to create profit by producing surplus. The infrastructure needed to achieve these goals required a financial and ideological commitment to the material and social aspects of an industrial venture because “social relations of power and privilege were often codified through the material world” (Nassaney et al. 2001:222–223). As Europeans colonized the globe, they constructed buildings and material environments that were familiar, functional, and used to facilitate capitalist goals by creating spaces for industrial and mercantile activities. Such environments also facilitated importing and acquiring local materials for the people who provided management and labor for the plantation household (Edwards-Ingram 2001; Hauser 2009; Hauser and Hicks 2007). Objects, materials, and technologies were not, however, distributed, chosen, or utilized equally, a phenomenon that provides clues to the active nature and use of particular spaces within the larger plantation household, and also indicates how individuals and groups, both socioeconomic and racial, were using space
Cane and Consumerism and materials (Delle 1992; Epperson 2001; Leone 1995:251; Majewski and Schiffer 2009; Orser 1988, 1989). Plantation landscapes, spatial organization, types of objects and technologies used, and the performance characteristics of materials used within these spaces would have been designed to communicate the power and wealth of the planter but could also be used to project group or individual difference and / or simply be adopted into nonEuropean traditions (e.g., foodways / cuisine, medicine, hygiene) owing to ease of use, material attributes, or availability (Andrews 1981; Lightfoot et al. 1998; Mintz 1985). The built environment of the plantation would have been a constant, unrelenting reminder of who ultimately controlled access to the physical spaces, foodways, technologies, and other material culture utilized by the individuals and groups providing on-site labor. This is not to say that the day-to-day realities of this landscape followed ideal colonial social and material protocols, especially if technologies were dependent on nonlocal replacement parts. Plantation owners, especially those in isolated areas, had little recourse against insubordination from labor or indigenous peoples and were usually heavily outnumbered by these groups. The planter could deny access to food or goods, but laborers could decrease profit by “malingering, feigning ignorance, sabotaging machinery or tools, running away, or outright rebellion” (Orser 1988:741). The day-to-day existence of the planter, laborers, and non-employee local residents would have been extremely complex, but clues to local, variable practices and behaviors can be observed within the archaeological and historical records of colonial industrial contexts.
Household Archaeology The study of households is the study of the “suite of habitual practices . . . that is broadly diachronic and comparative in scope” (Lightfoot et al. 1998:200) because “people repeatedly enact and reproduce their underlying structural principles and belief systems in the performance of ordering their daily lives” (Lightfoot et al. 1998:201). By studying the internal use and layout of unique residential units and activity areas—the “minimum spatial unit of the archaeological record that has social meaning” (Manzanilla and Barba 1990:41)—in tandem with the materials, objects, and evidence of spatial organization located within and between these spaces (ParkerPearson and Richards 1994:21), researchers can access the “basic organizational principles of individuals in action”
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(Lightfoot et al. 1998:202). Household archaeological data include technological, social, material, and behavioral elements, which when combined represent the “product of a domestic strategy to meet the productive, distributive, and reproductive needs of its members” (Wilk and Rathje 1982:618). Household archaeology seeks to facilitate an understanding of discrete technological, socioeconomic, and cultural styles by utilizing spatial layout, materials, and objects located within specific activity areas and their associated features (Armstrong and Hauser 2004; Hauser and Hicks 2007; Pauls 2006; Wilk and Ashmore 1988; Wilk and Netting 1984; Wilk and Rathje 1982). The household is used as the primary unit of measure with which to survey and compare internal variables, such as foodways, leisure activities, health and hygiene practices, sleeping arrangements, storage and disposal behaviors, and the locations, types, and frequencies of daily tasks (Braudel 1992; Lightfoot et al. 1998:201). Characteristics include house or feature layout, direction and number of entrances and exits, types and frequencies of activities taking place, and the separation from or connection to other households and activity areas (e.g., distance / closeness, pathways, roads, tunnels, bridges), including natural and environmental barriers and distance between activity areas. Barriers and “defensive circuits” (Parker-Pearson and Richards 1994:21) around and among activity areas, household groups, villages, and cities served to protect and preserve lifeways (ideological and material), but they also “contribute[d] to the very definition of those [same] entities” (Parker-Pearson and Richards 1994:21). Of great interest to household archaeology are data centered on the “transitions between domains such as inside / outside, sacred / profane, female / male / [child], public / private, enemy / friend, elite / commoner, initiate / uninitiated” (ParkerPearson and Richards 1994:21), roofed / open (Manzanilla and Barba 1990:42), new / old, and isolated / connected. Although there is infinite variation, household archaeology has been able to detect and analyze even very slight variations in material and contextual frequencies with a great deal of success.
Cuisine and Consumption at Nineteenth-Century Sites Foodway and consumption data make up 79 of the study assemblage (Figure 9.3). Such evidence constitutes one of the few data sets that can elucidate both internal
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meaning and external connections and also allow for a better understanding of specific technological dialectics (socioeconomic, cultural, and historical) occurring within and between intraplantation feature / activity areas. Foodway and consumption data—which include faunal elements as well as ceramic, metal, and glass materials related to cooking, eating, health / hygiene (e.g., bottled medicines vs. bush medicines), and recreational consumption (e.g., smoking and drinking)—are a key data set with regard to historical-archaeological analysis and work well in tandem with historiography and household archaeology (Wilk 2005; Wilk and Ashmore 1988; Wilk and Netting 1984; Wilk and Rathje 1982). The proliferation and well-documented distribution of mass-produced consumer goods during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enable archaeologists to date occupations, connect producers with consumers, and explicate patterns of material, socioeconomic, political, and ideational experiences of past peoples. What people were consuming at the site and household level as well as how they were storing, preparing, and serving food and drink can shed light on the daily life, availability of materials (environmental and socioeconomic movers), technological dialectics, and broader social ideologies / unique histories of past peoples. Although foodway materials make up the seemingly mundane and monotonous stuff of life, the types of activities associated with the data ultimately allow for some of the more meaningful and specific interpretations of daily life, practice, performance, and behavior within the archaeological record (Majewski and O’Brien 1987; Majewski and Schiffer 2009; Mintz and Du Bois 2002; Reitz 1994; Reitz and Honerkamp 1983; Scott 2008; Yentsch 1990). Whereas socioeconomic, cultural, and racial distinctions are problematic lines of inquiry, faunal remains in particular can facilitate certain types of data comparison with regard to individual and group access to animal foods, including cuts and quality of meat, specific cuisine or recipes, and preparation or butchering preferences. What people ate, whether out of necessity, cultural practice, or simply individual taste, was an intimate and personal act, which operated conterminously with local and regional preferences and historic systems (Sahlins 1983). In addition, vessel forms serve as an extremely important interpretive component because African, indigenous American, and South Asian foodways are distinct from those of Europeans. In contrast with European food preferences, which included roasted meats and savory pies that required intensive supervision during preparation
and construction of large ovens, other possible labor groups or indigenous populations at Lamanai would have utilized open fires or braziers to cook “one-pot meals, combining meat, vegetables, and broth, [which] had the advantage of stretching meat portions and, because they could be left simmering over a fire, required less work than roasted meat dishes” (Samford 1996:96). Soups and stews are a specific form of cuisine and not necessarily a sign of socioeconomic position, but if labor groups or indigenous populations were active in certain spaces, it is likely that the locations will yield a higher percentage of bowl-shaped vessels, used for both food preparation and serving relative to plates and flatware.
Data A na lysis a n d Discussion Most British nineteenth-century structural remains revealed through excavation at Lamanai occur in the form of brick platforms and low walls. The single standing structure is the sugar mill, constructed in the 1860s. Further investigations may reveal, through the preservation of burned daub, the presence of nineteenth-century features constructed of local perishable materials such as wood and thatch. Nineteenth-century construction at Lamanai appears to be limited, but this may reflect the fact that the major focus of excavation at Lamanai has been Maya monumental architecture and not British period remains. Based on present evidence, however, we suggest that the rarity of nineteenth-century construction is atypical in comparison with many profit-making enterprises in the New World in which both the land and the built environment, such as the plantation household, were divided into discrete and stratified zones of inclusion / exclusion, both industrial and social (see Hernández Álvarez, this vol.). As an interesting contrast with the lack of nineteenth-century standing architecture, the data gleaned during the study clearly show that the groups living and working at the Lamanai settlement during the nineteenth century were utilizing local products (both ceramics and wild fauna) but were nonetheless surrounded by and immersed in British material culture. The tools they used; the vessels from which they ate and drank; the buttons, snaps, and buckles that were part of the clothing they wore; and even the beer, gin, and medicines they consumed came from European manufacturers. The results detailed below are focused on five feature / activity areas at Lamanai. All structures
Cane and Consumerism except the sugar mill, which is situated approximately a quarter-mile inland, are located on or near the shores of New River Lagoon.
Results: Sugar Mill The sugar mill has a mean occupation date of 1841, and 60 of the recovered artifacts are related to foodways and consumption. Foodway-related forms recovered from the sugar mill area include plates, tea cups / saucers, a bonehandled serving / eating knife, a serving bowl, a stoneware bottle, and a shallow iron pot. These forms may represent British food preferences (e.g., roasted meats served on plates) as compared to African or indigenous foodways (e.g., stews and soups served in bowls). Ceramic types include soft-paste porcelain, pearl ware, whiteware, and coarse earthenware. Ceramic decorations include banded (annular ware), white / no decoration, painted, sponged, shell-edged, and transferprints. The most common type of ceramic decoration comprises transferprints (42). An abundance of imported serving vessels (as opposed to storage and cooking vessels) is also noted at Hacienda Pancota (Sampeck, this vol.). Sampeck notes a short supply of indigenous serving vessels may have been the impetus for this particular trend. The sugar mill area had the second largest area percentage of ale bottles (20) after the citadel (58). Twenty-three percent of the sugar mill glass assemblage consists of medicine / chemical bottles. Much like findings at San Pedro Cholul (Hernández Álvarez, this vol.), imported patent medicines represent a particularly robust technological category, which quickly made its way into the daily lifeways and practices of individuals and groups during the nineteenth century. Other forms of glass artifacts recovered include ale, whiskey, wine, soda, and gin bottles. Clothing objects include buttons of various types and sets. Two faunal elements were present in the sugar mill assemblage: a pig or peccary (Sus scrofa or Pecari tajacu) long bone and canine tooth. The only English specie in the assemblage was recovered from the sugar mill: a three-pence piece dated 1838—a year after the date of the land grant—with a leftfacing female bust and the words “Victoria DG Brittannia Regina FD” (Mayfield 2009). The dates of the artifacts recovered from the sugar mill range from 1745 to 2000, but almost half (45) of the artifacts date to before 1820, which is curious because the mill ironworks were marked with a date of 1866 and cane production is thought to have been brought to the northwest district in 1847
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(Gibbs 1883:127). It is believed that the sugar mill was not built until 1867–1868 and may have remained unused after the boiler explosion in 1868; however, a machinery retrofit in 1868 suggests that sugar was still a major focus at the settlement even though no evidence of sugar production—other than the mill / millworks—has been recovered to date. Hernández Álvarez (this vol.) notes a similar phenomenon with regard to mechanization (e.g., desfibradoras). Hernández Álvarez (this vol.) suggests that installation of new time-saving / bulk-production or mechanization technologies may have also been constructed as a response to “to the owner’s desire for prestige that coincided with having the newest and fanciest technology.” To this end, the construction of the sugar mill could have been such a response by the owners of the settlement—more about optics than usability. The mean occupation date of the sugar mill may indicate an early British presence, prior to the 1837 land grant and the construction of the feature that remains standing. The sugar mill and surrounding activity area are close to the land where the sugarcane was planted, and the area may have included a camp for those working the fields, which could account for the disconnect between the mean ceramic date, artifact dates, and the date of mill construction. Additionally, a preceding more rudimentary sugar mill, or trapiche, could have been built at or near the site of the current mill, but this possibility has not yet been explored archaeologically. Although additional information will be needed before a more concrete interpretation can be made, the sugar mill data recovered thus far indicate that residential foodway activities ceased or at least slowed as industrial practices became the dominant activity at the mill site soon after an influx of capital from the purchase of the estate by the British Honduras Company Ltd. in 1858.
Results: Residential Feature N12-30 Residential feature N12-30 has a mean ceramic date of 1843, and 54 of the recovered artifacts are related to foodways and consumption. N12-30 contains the largest site percentage of bone china (33), along with the Spanish Church zone, and the second highest percentage of porcelain (36) after the citadel, which may indicate the presence of an owner or supervisor living in the structure during the life of the estate and / or possibly British military personnel who were stationed at Lamanai during the wars of 1867 and 1868. Pearl ware and whiteware, which
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make up 35 and 42 of the area assemblage, respectively, are also present. Other items recovered include medicine bottles, ceramic pipes, wine and gin bottles, two glass tumblers, a plate, a bowl, saucers, and teacups. Teacups and saucers make up 28 of the N12-30 assemblage. Ceramic surface treatment includes white / no decoration, painted, shell-edged, and transferprinted; ceramic colors are limited to blue, green, and polychrome (hand painted). No animal remains are present in the N12-30 assemblage. Of note is a metal pendant containing the Windsor crest and the words “George V” that was recovered from the feature. George V was crowned in 1910, and the pendant could not have been deposited until after this date. The object suggests continued British use of the site after 1868, or at least sufficient British influence for someone to have had a commemorative pendant in his or her possession. The dates of the artifacts recovered from residential structure N12-30 range from 1775 to 2000. In a pattern similar to that encountered at the sugar mill, the pre-1820 date of 68 of the recovered artifacts suggests an early presence at this feature that was followed by a short-lived later occupation in the mid-nineteenth century. Of all the contexts described in this chapter, only the residential structure N12-30 assemblage indicates the presence of elite or supervisory residents. The fact that very few serving vessels for solid food occur in the assemblage suggests that the resident(s) took their meals elsewhere but enjoyed liquid refreshment in and around the structure. Teacups and saucers and two small, clear-glass tumblers associated with whiskey, wine, and gin drinking were recovered; the porcelain and bone china vessels indicate the presence of persons of high economic status. Residential structure N12-30 yielded a much smaller total assemblage than was recovered from the other contexts reviewed here: N1230 (N = 93), sugar mill (N = 155), citadel (N = 304), and Spanish Church zone (N = 6,253). The small assemblage suggests the structure served as the residence of a single person or a small number of individuals. As is the case today, private space was a commodity reserved for those who were in the position to have such a luxury.
Results: Citadel The citadel has a mean ceramic date of 1847, and the assemblage has the largest total site percentage of personal and clothing-related objects (48) and sewing materials (63), which includes buttons, hooks and eyes, a thimble, and a boot heel. Sixty-six percent of the assemblage is
related to foodways and consumption. Artifacts recovered from the citadel make up 15 of the medicine / chemical site total. Three taxa are present in the citadel assemblage: pig or peccary (Sus scrofa or Pecari tajacu), crocodile (Crocodylus sp.), and deer (Odocoileus virginianus). It is notable that 19 of the objects recovered from this context are whole or partial smoking pipes. The assemblage includes the largest total site percentage of porcelain (64) and 100 of the recovered coarse earthenware, Spanish majolica, and dry-bodied earthenware. Pearl ware (29) and whiteware (54) make up the majority of the ceramic ware types recovered from the citadel context. Vessel forms include a coffee cup, a pitcher, plates, a pot, saucers, and teacups, but no bowls. The vessel forms indicate British food preferences, much like those in evidence at residential feature N12-30 and the sugar mill. Surface treatment types in this area include transferprints, banded, no decoration / white, painted, sponged, shell-edged, and flow blue. The citadel has the largest site percentages of ale bottles (58), wine bottles (36), medicine / chemical bottle (28), and gin bottles (33). The dates of the artifacts recovered from the citadel range from 1600 to 2000, although the majority (92) date from 1796 to 2000. Unlike the sugar mill and residential feature N12-30, the citadel does not seem to have experienced a break in occupation or major changes in general use during the nineteenth century. The glass assemblage recovered from this feature is extensive compared to those from the other study areas and, together with the presence of clothing and sewing items, suggests that the citadel was utilized as a gathering place of some sort, a location where drinks and food were served, clothing could be mended, and medicine was available. The varied forms, wares, and objects recovered from the citadel indicate either extensive, long-term domestic residence or perhaps a common area or company store used by the plantation household and / or village residents. Only three faunal elements were recovered, so it is unlikely that food preparation was an activity in this particular area. The dearth of food debris may, however, mean that the locale was kept clear of trash and debris or that the remains of animals cooked in or around this feature were disposed of in a location that has yet to be excavated.
Results: Spanish Church Zone The Spanish Church zone has a mean ceramic date of 1862. Eighty-nine percent of the recovered artifacts are
Cane and Consumerism related to foodways and consumption. Only one clothing item is present: the eye portion of a hook and eye set. The zone has the largest total site percentages of bone china (33), pearl ware (62) and whiteware (43). Vessel forms include at least six different kinds of specialty serving bowls, a coffee cup, plates (N = 138), saucers, teacups, and teapots. The collection also includes smoking pipes and a bone-handled serving / eating knife. The only chamber pots and window glass recovered thus far at Lamanai are from this zone. The artifact data, mean ceramic date, and ware and form types suggest a later occupation of British individuals with access to luxury goods (chamber pots, window glass, wide variety of serving vessels, and porcelain) and a preference for individual place settings (plates). The surface treatment of ceramics in this area include all types except for shell-edged (1790–1830), an absence that suggests that the space represents a later settlement because shell-edged plates were not in fashion by the mid-nineteenth century. Very few bottle fragments are present in the zone assemblage, but the few that are present come from a wide variety of forms: gin, soda, and wine. The minimal amount of bottle glass associated with the Spanish Church zone and residential structure N12-17 as compared with the sugar mill and citadel suggests that these areas were not spaces where large groups of people spent their leisure time. The high frequency of plates (N = 138) suggests, however, that large groups were being fed within or near this space, an issue that will be further explored during upcoming field seasons. The zone contains a small percentage (4) of pig or peccary (Sus scrofa or Pecari tajacu) elements, 100 of the total site assemblage of cattle (Bos taurus) remains, and 86 of the turtle (Testudines) specimens present in the assemblage. The cattle remains are interesting and may speak to the social class of the residents, either during the active life of the estate or when the British soldiers were present from 1867 to 1868 (Colburn’s United Service Magazine 1868; Grey 1869; Rogers 1885). Cattle would have been more difficult to transport to an inland location than would pigs; they would also have produced fewer offspring less frequently than pigs for future consumption and would have taken more effort to maintain as a stable resource. Cattle need grazing areas, water, and hands-on upkeep, but pigs will eat almost anything and can be set loose to find subsistence, mix with the wild pigs, and reproduce with little to no intervention (Mayer and Brisbin 2008:8; see also Albarella 2004). The dates of the artifacts from the zone range from 1775 to 2000 with
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no outstanding percentages weighted toward any particular period, much like the citadel. Future archaeological investigations may, however, uncover other structures of less durable materials located near and possibly connected to the activities taking place within the zone.
Results: 2014 Excavation Site Other than a few modern artifacts deposited during a brief occupation directly southeast of the 2014 excavation area (1980s–1990s), the assemblage dates to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of note, very few imported serving vessels (e.g., plates, cups, bowls, bottles) were recovered during the most recent archaeological investigations (N = 16), which, unlike the other British colonial activity areas at Lamanai, suggests that the 2014 excavation site was not a residential or domestic unit, at least not for a substantial period of time. The paucity of imported ceramics is unusual for a nineteenth-century site. Much like the other feature / activity areas at the site, very few cooking and storage vessels were recovered in 2014, which suggests dependence on locally produced wares for these types of activities. The 1,610 faunal specimens recovered from all lots and operations during the 2014 field season represent 25 distinct taxa. The largest percentage of meat foods (Number of Identified Specimens [NISP] / biomass) recovered during the 2014 field season came from large mammals (7.58 / 51.33) and reptiles (58.63 / 39.02). Of note, turtle constitutes 97.1 of the reptile specimens. Butchering marks were only observed on four elements, which suggests that meat foods were being cooked in liquid and not roasted. Forty-two burned and 18 calcined faunal specimens were recovered (3.6 of the total faunal assemblage), which also suggests that meat was not often prepared over an open flame. Only two domestic fauna were noted in the assemblage (NISP = 3). Ten (NISP) fish specimens were recovered. Two cattle (Bos taurus) elements, a long-bone fragment and a nearly complete metatarsal, and one chicken (Gallus gallus) humerus were recovered. Along with butchering and cooking trends, the lack of domestic fauna may point to a labor or non-elite domestic and / or habitation activity area where wild meats were a more cost-effective method of procuring protein foods. Pig / peccary (Sus scrofa / Pecari tajacu) made up 18.27 of the site faunal assemblage biomass. However, it is very possible that pig made up a much higher percentage of the meat foods consumed at the site than the bones suggest.
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The groups living at Lamanai during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries likely also ate salted pork, a common preserved food packed and distributed in wooden barrels. Barrel stays were recovered from all areas of the 2014 field season excavation site, although large barrels were a common packing container for basically anything that could fit into a barrel, including the dry cement mix used to make concrete known to have been utilized at the site. The 2014 site is fundamentally different than the other feature / activity areas studied at Lamanai. In addition to a lack of food and beverage serving vessels (e.g., ceramic and glass materials) compared to the other sites, the 2014 excavation site was replete with construction and architectural materials (Mayfield 2015). The assemblage included cut (hand forged) and wire nails, concrete flooring, window glass, mortar / stucco, and brick. Interestingly, the feature was constructed on top of a traditionally built Maya platform, but the fill (all the way to bedrock) contained both Maya and British rubbish, at least in the areas excavated. Of note, the platform fill did not contain any Spanish materials or pre-1875 artifacts, which places the construction around the turn of the century or slightly before. This suggests that while the Maya may not have been providing agricultural or extractive labor, they may have been architects and construction workers hired by colonial entities. This would, clearly, make sense. The local environment is very wet and rainy and slopes downhill to the lagoon, so structures, if not built to drain properly, will fail and be pulled apart due to water and soil movement. It would have been a prudent business decision to hire local architects to build structural foundations using traditional, indigenous technology. To this day, the platform drains and dries very quickly after a rainstorm.
Discussion a nd Sy nthesis Even with the aforementioned recovery and control issues, the technological variations between the Lamanai contexts outlined here permit a few limited observations. First, very few European imported cooking and storage pots were recovered, but many Maya ceramics are present in the assemblage, which suggests that locally made pots were being utilized. Certain objects, including smoking pipes, tools, architectural hardware, medicine bottles, eating and drinking vessels, and beverage bottles, were recovered from all contexts, but inconsistent recovery
techniques, including lack of screening of British deposits prior to excavations carried out in 2014 (very few objects were smaller than half an inch) combined with little focus on faunal specimen retrieval, have unavoidably left gaps in our overall understanding of household-level technological dialectics of consumption in play during the nineteenth century. For example, although the site is located on a large lagoon, very few fish remains are present in the assemblage. It is unlikely that fish were not an important food staple for the residents of the plantation household across all socioeconomic strata, but further excavation and refined retrieval are needed to make assessment of this issue possible.
Va r iation in Technologica l Dia lectics a n d Discussion of Compar able Sites This chapter encompasses the entirety of postcolonial, British material and documentary data from Lamanai that has currently been analyzed. To this end, interpretations are necessarily based on restricted data sets, both from intra-Lamanai recoveries and comparable nineteenthcentury sites within the British Caribbean colonial socioeconomic biome, because very little systematic research has focused on the nineteenth century in the western Caribbean (Figure 9.4). With that said, the data are robust enough for a limited interpretive and comparative discussion here. Currently the greatest distinctions observed among feature / activity areas at Lamanai are (1) continuous versus interrupted occupations, (2) frequency of luxury and specialty items, (3) presence or absence of clothing repair and maintenance objects, (4) variability in animal taxa, and (5) residential or nonresidential occupation / activities. The sugar mill and residential feature N12-30 both had clear breaks in occupation—a late eighteenth- to early nineteenth-century presence and subsequent short-term reuse in the 1860s–1870s (object temporal percentage ratio ~3:1)—whereas the citadel and Spanish Church zone assemblages do not exhibit clear breaks in occupation. It is interesting that the temporal-occupational variation between the two classes of occupations corresponds with geographic proximity within the Lamanai estate (Figure 9.2). Each “time” zone has discrete feature / activity areas where inhabitants utilized specific technologies, which suggests socioeconomic variability within the
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Figure 9.4. Yucatán, Bay of Honduras. Map by Debora Trein.
larger plantation household, although why these technologies were chosen (e.g., availability, choice, supplied by the owners) is currently unknown. Objects recovered from N12-30 and the Spanish Church zone include fine ceramics, chamber pots (a very specific and personal technology!), and specialty items related to food and beverage service, technologies that were not available from local sources during the nineteenth century. The feature / activity areas that produced these finds
may have housed plantation owners or supervisors who chose these items as a reflection of their position and to project social distinction or difference from individuals and groups providing labor for the enterprise. Objects recovered from the citadel and sugar mill feature / activity areas include a significant number of clothing repair and maintenance objects, which suggests a local population, presumably labor groups, in need of such objects and services. Although repair and reuse of objects (Geneste 1985;
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Leroi-Gourhan 1957; Schiffer 2010) could have been practiced at all socioeconomic levels, having supplies on hand suggests that the individuals residing in these spaces may have needed repair services, either owing to an inability to replace items or because they could not travel easily, if at all, outside the Lamanai plantation household. Very few faunal remains are present in the assemblage other than those recovered during the 2014 excavations. Wild animal remains are most frequent within the citadel assemblage, and domesticated animal remains are present only in the Spanish Church zone and 2014 excavation site collections. This suggests there were different groups residing in these contexts who (1) had variable access to domesticated meats and who utilized local, wild resources and / or (2) had variable meat-food preferences. Although few studies have focused on the foodway preferences and technologies of nineteenth-century Belize, a recent study of faunal and food remains (Thornton and Cackler 2014) also elucidated variable wild versus domesticate food strategies between socioeconomic and ethnic groups at Holotunich during the nineteenth century. The authors note that whereas both Maya and post-emancipated labor groups preferred or supplemented their protein intake from wild sources, documentary evidence suggests that hardwood extraction teams in particular consumed salted pork and other prepackaged food items that would have left very little skeletal evidence.
Comparative Site: The Maya at San Pedro Siris, Belize San Pedro Siris, in northern Belize, was an independent site occupied by Maya rather than the British, which had “almost no earlier occupation” (Jason Yaeger, personal communication 2011). Although the site was occupied by Maya and not a colonial group, the San Pedro Siris study (Yaeger et al. 2004, 2005) is one of the few focused on the nineteenth century in Belize. Yaeger and colleagues (2004:110) argue that “Maya milpa agriculture [technologies] impeded the system of dependency and debt peonage favored by colonial powers and made the Maya unsuitable employees, at least in the early period of occupation.” Although the population was agriculturally independent, the archaeological material culture “speak[s] strongly to participation in a cash or barter economy of some sort” (Yaeger et. al. 2004:110), and excavations recovered evidence that the inhabitants of the autonomous hinterland village were actively using both imported British and local
indigenous technologies within their households. But, in addition to trade, there was also conflict between the San Pedro Maya and colonial entities (Church et al. 2011; Kray et al. 2017). British woodcutters would routinely attack and loot the villages and fields, and the cattle used by the woodcutters frequently trampled San Pedro agricultural fields (Kray et al. 2017:59). Much like at Lamanai, excavations in 2004 recovered imported serving and eating wares, scissors, buttons, pipes, and medicines (Yaeger et al. 2005). The residents were incorporating imported goods, actively participating in outside trade, and even using the Spanish church that Vatican funds had paid for, but like their predecessors elsewhere in the country, they remained in charge of their own production and distribution. Even after colonial contact, there is evidence that Maya groups continued in their predecessors’ household and hinterland traditions. The lack of evidence for Maya agricultural or extractive labor at Lamanai in tandem with the San Pedro data and documentary evidence of labor shortages suggests that, generally, the Maya did not need to sell their labor in order to survive in the nineteenth century. They were integrating imported technologies into traditional lifeways where it suited them but were clearly surviving well outside the colonial labor sphere.
Comparative Site: Augusta, Roatán Island, Honduras A recent study by Mihok and Wells (2013; also Mihok 2013) notes a paucity of artifact variation at Augusta, Honduras, a British colonial mercantile site staffed mainly by Miskito laborers during the 1740s that is similar to the pattern encountered at Lamanai. The authors note the site’s uniqueness compared to other colonial-era sites in the Caribbean, “namely plantations and other resource extraction ventures, where boundaries and partitions (social and material) actively segregated natives and slaves from the English” (Mihok and Wells 2013:117–118). The study data show that “European and Miskitu artifacts were intermixed across the settlement . . . [and that the researchers were] unable to detect any patterning in the spatial distribution of artifacts or assemblages” (Mihok and Wells 2013:117–118). Mihok and Wells posit that the lack of intrasite artifact and technological variation may be the product of habitation units that were “used or occupied by more than a single group” (2013:117–118). Another similarity between Augusta and Lamanai is evidence that
Cane and Consumerism “indicates that the Miskitu occupants of Augusta continued to use indigenous tools and pottery while apparently having access to English products” (Mihok and Wells 2013:117–118).
Comparative Site: Xuxub, Yucatán, Mexico Similar to Lamanai, Xuxub was a nineteenth-century sugar estate in eastern Yucatán that employed immigrant laborers (Mathews and Gust 2017; Sullivan 2006), although the majority of laborers at Xuxub were of German descent and there are no mentions of German laborers at Lamanai during the nineteenth century. At Xuxub, laborers were allowed to grow corn for their own subsistence while producing sugarcane for the plantation owners (Sullivan 2006:23). While the presence of subsistence farming by labor groups at Lamanai has not been documented to date, it is likely that those living and working at the site full time would have tended small gardens and hunted local fauna, in addition to consuming imported (e.g., canned or bottled) foodstuffs, such as salted pork, alcoholic beverages, tinned meats, and condiments. Although further research is needed to understand the makeup of labor at Lamanai, there is little evidence of Maya labor at the site. Similar to the Lamanai and San Pedro Siris data, Sullivan notes that the local Maya near Xuxub were “unlikely to toil for whites” (Sullivan 2006:31) because they could support themselves “on their own lands” (Sullivan 2006:30). Much like the socioeconomic and historical framework at Lamanai, Xuxub experienced labor shortages due to emancipation and lack of interest or need by the local Maya to work for colonial entities. As mentioned earlier, the nineteenth century has not been systematically researched in Belize or at Lamanai to date. However, what we do know suggests that British technologies were being adopted by the Maya (e.g., medicines, serving and eating wares) and Maya technologies were being adopted by the British (e.g., construction, cooking and serving wares). All adoptions depended on what worked and was economically viable or available within traditional lifeways.
Concluding Thoughts The interesting part of the story is not that there was a British plantation in Belize during the nineteenth century, but rather that the people residing and / or working
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at the Lamanai settlement lived their daily lives within the mélange of technologies, objects, materials, voices, activities, and expectations that had both internal (local) meanings and external (regional and global) connections. The archaeological record provides technological, structural, social, economic, and functional information, having been deposited by groups and individuals in the past by necessity and / or choice as well as through unconscious action or reaction to the world around them. Although events such as battles, treaty signings, and coronations are important historical phenomena, the data needed to understand past people more fully as agents, actors, and subjects (Trouillot 1995) have much more humble beginnings. The material remains of day-to-day behaviors related to technological dialectics of consumption are found in locations of frequently performed systematic activities, such as kitchens, pathways, trash dumps, and outhouses (Braudel 1992; LeFebvre 2004). As researchers have successfully implemented household archaeological models, methodological approaches, and theoretical frameworks, the protocols and formulae have also been tested, questioned, and refined over time. One of the primary theoretical concerns is the lack of definitional consensus regarding a “household” or “family unit” (Yanagisako 1979). Households are not just material and spatial contexts; “household” and “family unit” are concepts and constructions that entail variable performative, historical, and cultural behaviors. It is this level at which persistence of behavior, practice, and ideology is visible. High-frequency practices and behaviors such as eating and drinking are performed so often that large amounts of materials become deposited. To this end, this chapter’s treatment of the Lamanai plantation landscape as a “household” aims to highlight the interconnectedness of this space as both a traditional household (read: where people live, sleep, and eat) and, at the same time, an industrial space for producing surplus and profit—different types of activities happening at the same time and within the same space. Work and residential behaviors, motivations, and materials were intimately intertwined and did not exist separately from the other. Nineteenth-century sites were teeming with the monotonous stuff of daily life, but these seemingly mundane objects, materials, and spatial data have the ability to elucidate specific and personal day-to-day practices and behaviors when analyzed at the discrete scale. Ceramics, glass, food, medicines, leisure consumables, and faunal remains represent coherent segments
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of material culture that can tell us about sociotechnic practices and persistence of behaviors in past societies (Bourdieu 1977; Little 2007; Majewski and O’Brien 1987; Silliman and Witt 2010; Voss 2008). Features and activity areas were used and reused over time (in the case of Lamanai, over thousands of years by different groups and individuals), and cultural and environmental processes, such as flooding and new feature construction, continue to affect the archaeological record over time (Schiffer 2010). As a result, the definition of “households” at Lamanai remains somewhat fluid at this point and will remain so until we have more data with which to make a better assessment of when, by whom, and in what capacity (e.g., a communal eating area vs. long-term / transient personal housing) feature / activity areas were utilized and how this may have changed over time—a space may well have been a “household” but possibly only for a short period of time. While there is technological variation within the Lamanai assemblage as a whole (e.g., different ceramic forms and decoration, types of tools, meat-foods, packaged foods, smoking pipes, alcoholic beverages, etc.), very little variation occurs between activity-area contexts and very few personal objects have been recovered at Lamanai to date. The current lack of variation within the assemblage suggests a lack of consumer choice, which may point to a restricted market economy and / or a local, subsistence economy centered on the technological- and usevalues rather than diversity of products. There is much to be learned about life at Lamanai during the nineteenth century that will elucidate the local impacts of regional and global technological trends that necessarily affected those living and working at the settlement. Lamanai was clearly an important site in the region throughout its long history of pre- and postcontact occupation. In fact, many of the corporations first established during the early part of the nineteenth century in the Orange Walk District—including the Lamanai settlement—through buyouts and consolidations are still active participants in the Belize economy, and the landscape of Lamanai continues to be a pluralistic, multicultural space, currently utilized as an archaeological and ecological park visited by tourists and researchers from all parts of the globe. Ultimately, Lamanai was and continues to be a Maya site that was briefly administered by the Spanish and briefly occupied by the British. As archaeologists interested in the nineteenth century, we are quite literally studying the interlopers and a brief, temporal
anomaly in the grand scheme of things. It was, nonetheless, an anomaly that would have an impact on the cultural and social makeup of modern-day Belize. The ongoing historical-archaeological study at Lamanai aims to advance our understanding of the nineteenth century in Belize, Central America, and the Caribbean more generally. Investigations that combine archaeological excavation with what is known through historical research can add chronological information as well as provide alternative perspectives on internal dynamics and external connections of British colonial plantation and extraction enterprises. Furthermore, studies of smallscale, for-profit landscapes can add important information to our knowledge of recent history. Many times such sites are archaeologically messy, frequently still occupied, poorly documented, and not as architecturally or materially massive as the sprawling, high-output plantations in the southern and eastern United States and Caribbean. Yet, the implications of small-scale and, by implication, more flexible enterprises are what make these spaces exciting study prospects.
Notes 1. For the purposes of this chapter, consumption refers to practices and behaviors related to consumable objects and materials. Consumable objects or materials include items that entered the body (e.g., flora, fauna, medicines, beverages, condiments) as well as objects and materials used in ingestion, storage, cooking, and serving consumables (e.g., vessels, smoking pipes, bottles, cans). 2. “Plantation household” refers to the entire estate complex including objects, materials, structures, activities—both residential and industrial—and spatial organization. 3. The majority of excavations at Lamanai have focused on the Maya and Spanish occupations, but nineteenth-century materials were collected and stored for future study. 4. Coarse earthenware and porcelain do not contribute to mean ceramic dates because the production techniques of these ware types did not change to a significant degree over time, whereas other ware types provide a basis for dating according to observable, quantitative technological timelines. 5. Includes types of foods, cuisine and cooking preferences, vessels forms, and vessel decoration. 6. The end date of 2000 noted in this section is somewhat misleading. Although the objects and materials were recovered within a nineteenth-century context, some items, such as
Cane and Consumerism whiteware ceramics, wire-cut nails, and steel or iron artifacts, are currently produced with the same technology as that employed during the nineteenth century. The production date spans reflect the true production dates of the objects in relation to the latest dates that can be assigned on the basis of archaeological excavation or surface collection. 7. Update: window glass was recovered within the remains of a wooden feature during recent excavations focused directly north (~90 m) of the Spanish Church zone. 8. Faunal remains recovery and zooarchaeological analysis had not been a focus of excavations before 2014; therefore, this particular data set, while seeming inordinately more variable and robust, is most likely unremarkable. A mix of wild and domestic fauna is to be expected at a forest site located next to a large river lagoon.
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9. More research is needed in order to understand how, where, when, and by whom Maya ceramic objects were utilized during the nineteenth century. Locally made wares were not the focus of Mayfield’s 2009 and 2015 studies, and because most of the Maya artifacts were separated from the nineteenth-century assemblages during previous analyses, the author was not able to view the combined data as whole contexts. 10. All field season 2014 excavated materials were ¼-inch screened. Screening significantly increased glass and faunal frequencies but made less of an impact on the types and amounts of ceramic and metal objects recovered (Mayfield 2015). 11. Although several different cuts, including sides and snouts, were salted, at least some salted pork product would have contained pigtails; however, no caudal vertebrae have been recovered to date.
An Archaeology of Indigo Changes in Labor and Technology in the Izalcos Region of Western El Salvador
K at h r y n E . S a m p e c k
combined archaeological and historical evidence from the Izalcos region instead indicates that the drastic difference between cacao and indigo in technology transfer resulted from enduring legacies of production. Indigenous people of Izalco were already producing cacao at industrial levels before Spanish invasion. Spanish hands-off policy toward cacao management facilitated higher production, but no such indigenous cultural and economic infrastructure existed for indigo. Furthermore, the aptitude for indigo processing to be centralized and standardized was underdeveloped by Izalqueños, who achieved cacao intensification through dispersion of labor for cultivation and little to no centralization in processing. This difference in technology transfer intensified contrasts across the region of colonial Guatemala that is El Salvador today, such that cacao and indigo cultivation zones hardly overlapped, with the west devoted to cacao and the center and east to indigo during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. This chapter will evaluate the social, economic, and technological environment of indigo dye production by providing a summary of information from notarial documents (including legal complaints, land titles, laws, acts, fines, and tariffs) that indicate key actors, timing, and locations as well as governmental policy relating to indigo production and commerce in the Izalcos region. Archaeologically recovered evidence of spatial organization (locale and architecture) and patterning in quotidian ceramics of two historically documented indigo production areas, El
Why did Spanish colonization effect great changes in the technology to cultivate, harvest, and process some American agricultural products and not others? Spanish redesign of Mesoamerican technology for xiquilite (also spelled jiquilite), or indigo (Indigo suffruticosa), radically altered the ecological, craft, and laboring (who, how, and where) environment for indigo. The technology transfer in manufacturing indigo dye was multiscalar and multidirectional in Central America, spurred by indigo’s paramount place in global trade during the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries. People purchased the brilliant blue cakes of dye for tinting cloth, but it also served as medicine and was so valuable it functioned as an alternative currency. This drastic technological reorientation took place even in regions much better known for agricultural products that largely remained under the domain of indigenous material and social practices, such as the cacao-producing Izalcos region of western El Salvador (Figure 10.1; Andrews [this vol.] discusses other trajectories in technology). The Izalcos region thus provides an important case for evaluating why the indigo industry changed, while that of other commodities—in this case, cacao—did not. Each was a commodity of the century; the cacao boom of the sixteenth century was comparable to the indigo boom of the seventeenth century in the Spanish American colonial economy. Neither the intransigence of the former nor the radical shift of the latter relies on a dramatic difference in the push of the market. The
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Figures 10.1a and 10.1b. Map of the area of contemporary El Salvador showing the Izalcos region and locations discussed in the text. Map by Kathryn E. Sampeck.
Bebedero (also known as El Chupadero) and Pancota, both located in what is today the Department of Sonsonate, provide specific instances of the natural, social, and economic environment of indigo. With this information at hand, indigo manufacturing can be considered in light of the cacao industry in the same region. The combined evidence shows that indigo technological transformation was one of the first venues in Central America of industrialized, factory labor. Indigo shifted from the intimate, small-scale, even personal multiple precolumbian uses to colonial commodification for a world market, changes involving elements of standardization, mechanization, labor control, racialization, and violence (Figure 10.2). The socioeconomic context for these technological changes, what Latour (2005) and others call “entelechy,” was complex; this chapter focuses on elements crucial to the degree of irreversibility (Callon 1993; Collingridge 1992), how earlier technological choices guide subsequent development (Rosenberg 1994). Such choices are not always conscious but depend on the array of, integration among, and design of individual artifacts as well as the trajectory of innovation—social, political, and historical contingency (Alexander, this vol.; Williams and Edge 1996:2).
Technologies of Indigo Precolumbian Indigo Precolumbian Americans used the Central American dye plant añil, or xiquilite, during the Late Postclassic
Figure 10.2. Depictions of the labor, equipment, and facilities for processing indigo. From Fazendeiro do Brazil (1806) by José Mariano da Conceiçao Velloso. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
An Archaeology of Indigo period (AD 1200–1520) to dye cloth, and Spaniards were enamored of its relatively permanent, vibrant blue color (Coima 1933; Legrand 2013; Turok 1996). The genus Indigofera includes hundreds of species native to tropical and subtropical regions of the world, but two, I. tinctoria and I. suffruticosa, are well-known for producing blue dye. Indigofera suffruticosa is known as “Guatemalan indigo” and is likely the main species cultivated in colonial Guatemala (Carranza 2003). Sixteenth-century chroniclers defined xiquilite as a paste or cake for dyeing things blue / green: “xiuhquilitl. pastel para teñir” (Molina 1571:Part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, fol. 159v. col. 2). Integral to the definition of the blue dye was its processed state: a cake. The name for the plant was the name for the product. Mesoamericans did not distinguish blue and green as separate colors; the hue blue / green was a way to indicate precious value (Houston et al. 2009). In precolumbian Maya inscriptions, yax also connoted freshness or newness, a beginning or origin (Taube 1993). Blue / green thus had many meanings; associations by virtue of color created cultural value among many Mesoamerican constituencies. At the same time, Mesoamericans linked green / blue—not purple, not red, for example—specifically with exquisite value itself. The semantic realm of blue provided a context for indigo to be economically and socially important. This semantic weight, however, did not completely predetermine the ways xiquilite was a part of Mesoamerican life. Mesoamericans used indigo for many purposes.
Mesoamerican Uses of Indigo The great cultural value probably multiplied for xiquilite because Mesoamericans used it for more than a blue colorant. Nahuatl speakers also called indigo “MŌZŌ-TL, a plant that produces indigo dye and from which an antidysentery medicine is made /mozote” (Karttunen 1992:154). As a medicine, añil also treated diseases of the head. Francisco Hernández (1615) stated that indigo powder cured old ulcers, if previously washed with urine. Indigo had the potential to serve two highly critical needs—medicine and dye. Its use as a colorant won out by the mid-seventeenth century with its rise as a preeminent commodity in global trade. American indigo was so important in seventeenthcentury Caribbean commerce that Spanish officials pled for its official use as a medium of exchange and turned a blind eye to illegal direct trade with French and English merchants for Spanish indigo (MacLeod 2008). The colorants produced with indigo were not necessarily
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brilliant blue. Hernández (1959:112–113) described how Nahuas used this plant to produce a blue colorant known in precolumbian languages as tlacehoili, or mohuitli, “that gives the hair a black dye.” This instance also underscores that indigo served any dyeing need, not just for textiles. Previous research tends to emphasize that indigo was valued because of the vibrancy of its blue, its permanence, and that blue was valued by elites, especially nobles. Sociocultural reasons for the popularity of blue undoubtedly shifted from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century (Feeser 2013; Feeser et al. 2012; Legrand 2013). These tropes, however, present a top-down view that poorly explains the expansiveness of its trade. Who was wearing blue, when, and why in fact are not even the most important points, because indigo was a key ingredient for a surprising range of colors. Multiple dye uses—not just for noble robes—provides a reasonable logic for the spectacular florescence of indigo commerce. For example, Auguste Zindel, a chemist from Mulhouse, Alsace, recorded numerous dye recipes spanning 1825–1837 of colors as diverse as olive green, hazelnut, grays, and other browns that had indigo as an ingredient (Figure 10.3). Zindel (1827–1837) also devoted his most detailed discussions to ways to manage indigo dye—the right kinds of containers, how the dye was to be mixed with other chemicals, and other elements of processing and preparation of various colors. Aniline, an important chemical agent for durable, vibrant dyes, was first synthesized from I. suffruticosa; the ‘anil’ morpheme derives from ‘añil.’ As the anthropologist Ralph Nicholas (personal communication 2017) explained, ‘nil’ (neel) means “blue” in Bengali and is the Bengali the name for indigo. ‘Indigo’ is derived from India, and ‘añil’ (as well as ‘aniline’) is derived from the Bengali word ‘nil.’ Zindel’s recipes were for aniline dyes, so it is not surprising that he devoted so much attention to indigo even though his recipes were for a wide range of colors. Alexander von Humboldt provided further evidence of indigo as a black or dark dye for purposes other than tinting cloth. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Humboldt was told that dye from the plant was used to paint codices and that the Spaniards, 30 years after their arrival, used it for ink because they could not find the ingredients they usually used (Rubio Sánchez 1976:15). Molina (1571) recorded Nahuatl terms for dye makers (tlahpaqui, tlapani ‘tintor’ and ‘tintura’ tlapaloni) as well as equipment: ‘tina de tintor’ tepuzapaztlapaloni (Molina 1571:Part 1, fol. 133r. col. 2). While these terms for the vats
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Figure 10.3. Color swatch book with color dye recipes of Aguste Zindel, a nineteenthcentury chemist in Alsace. Courtesy of the Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.
and specialists did not exclusively refer to indigo processing, they commonly did. These brief vignettes illustrate how indigenous use and understanding of the blue dye and the plant were multivalent. Colonial adoption of indigo fit neatly within European canons of color value and use, yet also brought new understandings of indigo into play (Figure 10.4).
Regions of Dye Sources in Mesoamerica Despite these other possible uses for indigo-based substances, dye for cloth was an early and enduring focus
for colonial enterprises. Other major American sources of dye each had different trajectories in the development in technological and laboring environments. American indigo is a tough cultivar that can tolerate a range of environments and fairly poor soils. Several species grow in Guatemala (Petén, Alta Verapaz, El Progreso, Izabal, Zacapa, Chiquimula, Jalapa, Santa Rosa, Escuintla, Guatemala, Sacatepéquez, Suchitepéquez, Sololá, Jutiapa, Quiché, Huehuetenango, and San Marcos). In El Salvador it grows practically throughout the country, though the larger yielding areas are the departments of San Miguel, Chalatenango, San Vicente, Cabañas, and Cuscatlán. The
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Figure 10.4. Frontispiece illustration of “Tinturaria Indigo,” from Fazendeiro do Brazil (1806) by José Mariano da Conceiçao Velloso. The royal coat of arms of Portugal is shown surrounded by indigo flowers and leaves. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
Izalcos region—today’s Department of Sonsonate—was a main producer of añil corte, the lowest quality (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería de El Salvador 2004). In Honduras, indigo grows abundantly in the departments of Francisco Morazán, Choluteca, and Valle, while in Nicaragua, the regions of Chinandega, León, Managua, Masaya, Rivas, Carazo, and Granada have the cultigen (Figure 10.5). Indigo also occurs in Costa Rica in the Nicoya corregimiento as well as several islands in the Caribbean (Clará de Guevara 1975:773; Maldonado Polo 1992:82; Rubio Sánchez 1976:22–23; Standley and Steyemark 1946:270). Because indigo readily colonizes
disturbed habitats in areas from full sunlight to partial shade and tends to replace native vegetation, it has risen to the classification of an invasive species on many Pacific islands where Spanish colonists introduced it for dye making. Indigo will not tolerate full shade or cold and grows only in the tropics, subtropics, and warm temperate conditions (CABI 2017). Purple dye from shellfish, typically Murex trunculus, was never fully industrialized. Purple dye production is labor intensive, done by “milking” a gland of the living shellfish (MacLeod 2008:700). Evidence of Murex processing is ancient along the Oaxaca coast, also the
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Figure 10.5. Map of Central America showing leading indigo-producing departments. Map by Kathryn E. Sampeck.
principal source area for purple shellfish dye during the colonial period (Pankonien 2008). Dye from wood was a logging operation and did not foment extensive technological changes in the Americas in dye extraction itself. Palo de tinte, or logwood (Campeachy wood, Haematoxylum campechianum), common in the forests of the Yucatán Peninsula and Tabasco in Mexico and in Belize, yields black or blue dyes. Brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata) and other soluble redwoods were the source for a common botanical dye of reds and browns in Europe before the sixteenth century. Vast stands of these trees in Brazil gave the colonial commodity its name. Dyewood is processed by cutting the debarked heartwood into small logs, grinding the wood into powder, soaking, and fermenting, often with a mordant (a chemical agent that bonds the dye molecule to the fabric) of metal ore such as aluminum (MacLeod 2008:700). The soaking and fermenting are similar to steps in indigo dye making, yet the parallel in technology was not enough to foster finishing the wood dye-making process in the Americas. Instead, the labor and technology for wood dyes involved that of logging, employing wage-labor crews who were often migrant workers. Both Spanish and British merchants legally and illegally shipped both Brazilwood and palo de tinte dyewood lumber across the Atlantic for processing (Contreras Sánchez 1987). Brilliant, durable red dye comes from the cochineal (Coccus cacti) beetle, which feeds on the nopal cactus
(Opuntia cochenillifera). Cochineal dye became popular in the sixteenth century and prospered in zones that were good environments for the cactus that they needed for survival. Central Mexico, and particularly Oaxaca, were prominent producers of cochineal, where indigenous residents had generations of experience growing and harvesting the insects and creating the dye (Donkin 1977; Phipps 2010). Notable failures in cochineal production occurred in unpredictable and often unsuitable environments without a resident tradition of dye production, such as Spanish imperial initiatives for the industry in Honduras (MacLeod 1973). Cochineal cultivation requires intensive hand labor: establishing the fields by infesting cactus pads with the beetles; protecting nests from predation, cold, and rain; then harvesting by individually knocking or picking the insects from the cacti and placing them into bags. To extract the maximum amount of dye, the insect bodies have to be heated through exposure to sunlight, steam, or an oven (Phipps 2010). Tens of thousands of cochineal insects create a single pound of dye (MacLeod 1973). Cochineal dye production, much like cacao, relied on indigenous knowledge yet reached exponentially high production levels during the sixteenth century despite its low technological and high labor demands. The result, like cacao, was a substantial payoff: per unit weight, cochineal was one of the most costly items in transatlantic commerce (MacLeod 2008:700). Industrial-scale production of these other dye sources was difficult or at least unsuccessful in many of these cases, paralleling dilemmas of labor, environment, and technology found in cacao and indigo cultivation and processing. Compared to these other examples of dye manufacture in the Americas, technological change in creating añil powder dye was the most comprehensive and dramatic.
Florescence of American Indigo in Transatlantic Commerce The rise of indigo in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in world markets is indicated briefly by Francisco Antonio Fuentes y Guzmán (1932–1933 [1642–1699]) in Recordación Florida and confirmed by Rafael Landívar in his Rusticatio Mexicana (1782), where he devoted Book V to the description of the plant and the process of sowing, growth, harvest, and production of indigo dye. In noting the three alcaldías mayores (municipal provinces) of Guatemala, Vázquez de Espinosa (1942:222–223) stated that Sonsonate had large yields of cacao, while San Salvador
An Archaeology of Indigo had indigo obrajes (factories, literally “works”), mule ranches, and large crops of cacao; the economy farther east was more diversified, and its greater investment in indigo buffered San Salvador against the vicissitudes of commodity booms and busts. Compared to the district of San Salvador, Sonsonate and the greater Izalcos region focused overwhelmingly on cacao, yet the evidence presented in this chapter shows that indigo was consistently present. Did this lesser role in the regional economy affect the who, how, and what of the local scheme of indigo technology? The archaeological evidence from the Izalcos region demonstrates the presence of technological innovations of indigo industrialization, no matter the extent or success of the industry in the locale. Between 1606 and 1620, an average of 240,000 pounds per year of indigo dye arrived in Seville by the fleet system, almost all from the audiencia (jurisdiction) of Guatemala (Escalante Arce 1992:2:48). By 1625, the indigo industry made up the main income for the cajas reales (royal coffers) in the province. Around 1631, about 4,000– 5,000 quintals (a quintal is 100 pounds) were exported from Sonsonate per year, for a total value of about 406,000–507,500 pesos. In 1631, 140,000 arrobas (35,000 quintals) were imported from the colonies to Seville, resulting in duties of more than 175,000 pesos (Escalante Arce 1992:2:48). These figures give the relative place of the Izalcos region in Spanish Atlantic exports—an impressive sixth of all indigo in 1631. The portability, high price, and semantic value of the dye fostered its use as a commodity money. When the trade of indigo blossomed in the seventeenth century, not just colonists but also governmental entities used indigo cakes as a form of payment. Ladino (Christianized, often mixed-descendant people who adopted Spanish practices) entrepreneurs made loans in the late sixteenth through eighteenth centuries to Indians to be repaid in indigo dye (Escalante Arce 1992:2:150–152). A plea in 1683 by the Guatemalan ayuntamiento (town council) asked for permission to use indigo to pay for wine from Spain (Escalante Arce 1992:2:61–63). Crown regulations during this time prohibited free trade, even within colonies, yet officials sought an exception for añil dye: “Remitiendo á México, cacao, vainilla, achiote y tinta añir; al Perú, brea, tinta y jarcias; á Sevilla, y á Cádiz, tinta, corambre, bálsamo zarzaparilla, mechoacán . . . y más en estos tiempos, que tienen los Olandeses trato, y factoria con la China” (Sending to Mexico, cacao, vanilla, annatto, and indigo dye; to Peru, tar, dye, and rigging; to Seville, and to Cádiz,
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dye, hides, balsam, sarsaparilla, mechoacan [bindweed, a purgative], and more during these times, that the Dutch have in trade, and factors with China) (Escalante Arce 1992:2:67). According to this plea, each year a ship was to come from Peru with 200,000 pesos’ worth of goods value to sell in Guatemala, including wine and other products (except cacao) from Guayaquil. The Guatemalan ayuntamiento fiercely fought the influx of cacao from other regions, especially the relatively cheap and abundant Ecuadoran product because it was destroying the Izalcos region’s dominance in the market. The 1683 plea advocated raising funds with the permission for one ship per year to leave from Guatemala with products of Castile and China and local products (cacao, vanilla, achiote, and indigo) equaling 200,000 pesos to be sold in Mexico for money (Spanish reales) and thus alleviate the regional monetary crisis. Under this arrangement, the province would also be allowed to receive up to 55 quartillas (one-fourth of a cántara, slightly more than four liters) of wine from Spain, paid for by indigo dye (Escalante Arce 1992:2:61–63). Paying in dye ensured that what little money the province had would stay there, while the Crown could profit in the higher Continental price of indigo. An example of indigo as a de facto commodity money at a personal scale is that of Francisco López de Salazar, who sent two containers (cajones) of indigo dye to his sister so she could emigrate to Sonsonate from Talavera de la Reina in Spain and buy two slaves as well (Escalante Arce 1992:2:33). By 1636, the Crown assessed an export duty of four reales per cajón of indigo dye, double that imposed per carga (load; 24,000 cacao seeds) of cacao, the other prime commodity of the region. Although export taxes typically mean money flowing out of the colony, in this case the Crown reinvested the funds in Guatemala. The indigo duty income funded protection against pirates (Escalante Arce 1992:2:84). In colonial Guatemala, indigo was a means of financial stability and military safeguard. The sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century bureaucracy in colonial Guatemala is well characterized as a “república de comerciantes” (republic of traders), in part because the acaldía mayor was in the hands of merchants who used their power to enhance, or even exploit, the potential for profit (Escalante Arce 1992:2:173). This potential with indigo was great: an investment of 5,000 pesos in two years earned at least 6,000 pesos. Alcaldes (mayors) were what Actor-Network Theory would identify as mediators, multiplying the potential for corruption,
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linking producers and the market, and employing strategies of coercion, legal and illegal. Mayors facilitated profit because they dealt directly with the typically ladino or Spanish producers and processors as well as key actors in the system of distribution—the ship owners responsible for exporting indigo (Escalante Arce 1992:2:157). The fueling of corruption in the Izalcos region appeared early and only grew with the rising importance of indigo in global commerce. A 1582 regulation prohibited buying xiquilite from indigenous populations in exchange for overpriced clothing (Escalante Arce 1992:1:194). Complaints lodged in a 1579 letter by the treasurer and regidor (councilman) Francisco Montero de Miranda against the alcalde mayor of Sonsonate Juan de Torres included the grievance that he engaged in illegal transactions, such as bribing merchants and paying for imports from Guatulco—including cloth from Mexico, silks, and satin—with indigo dye. These seeming luxuries and indulgences from documentary evidence are not particularly unusual; the identification of a tavern that Card and Fowler propose in this volume is in line with the contemporaneous and slightly later activities of colonists in the Izalcos region. In this case, indigo as payment was a sign of taking advantage in illegal intercolonial trade. With the inception of the Manila galleon trade, the Crown declared Acapulco the legal port. All commerce between colonies was explicitly forbidden by 1580, but indigo remained a part of the Spanish colonial economy well into the nineteenth century.
Indigo Production in the Izalcos Region of Colonial Guatemala The Izalcos region of colonial Guatemala was the heartland of a political and economic precolumbian dynastic state whose power and influence derived in part from its astronomical production of cacao, a tree seed, which Mesoamericans used as currency, food, and drink, including chocolate (Fowler 1991; MacLeod 1973; Sampeck 2010). Cacao was one of the first monocropped sources of wealth in the Spanish Empire (see also Castillo and Gasco, this vol.), making the Izalcos region one of the richest encomiendas (a Crown reward of products and / or labor tribute) in all the Indies. Although the Izalcos region was famous for cacao, it also produced other commercial crops such as balsam (a fragrant sap from the tree Myroxylon balsamum, which grows along a mountainous section of the coast of western El Salvador) and
indigo (Escalante Arce 1992; Fowler 1987; Sampeck 2010). In 1572, John Chilton came to the city of Sonsonate to trade in cacao, but he bought indigo dye instead to take to Puerto Caballos for export (Escalante Arce 1992:2:47). Some of the earliest land titles in the Izalcos region indicate the existence of indigo obrajes (factories) in the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century. The location of these factories show that the Spanish-dominated economy expanded novel ventures into relatively remote zones of the Izalcos region. For example, Diego Sánchez Gallardo, a vecino (official resident) of Villa de la Santisima Trinidad de Sonsonate, owned an obraje in 1615 that he bought sometime earlier from Diego de Guzmán in the “paraje de Cuyoamate.” This certainly refers to a region on the edge of mountainous terrain in the southeast portion of the current-day Department of Sonsonate. The nearby Pipil settlement of Cuisnahuat would have provided a ready pool of labor for obraje or mill work in a generally sparsely populated zone (Figure 10.1). The slightly later Hack (1698) atlas depicts several “works,” or obrajes, in the region (Figure 10.6). These works tend to be located in valley floors near springs or other reliable sources of water, with obrajes fairly evenly spaced from each other. Several are privately owned, designated by landowner’s names. Interestingly, the two “King’s works” could well be the archaeological remains under discussion in this chapter. The location of these royal factories in relation to the town of Caluco and the Río Ceniza and its tributaries match the locations of Pancota and El Bebedero fairly well. The consistent documentation of indigo processing areas demonstrate that indigo production had an early start in the Izalcos region as an attempt to diversify the local Spanish economy. Early involvement in indigo cultivation in the Izalcos region was no guarantee for a secure, long-lasting foothold in the colonial market, however. Merely having demonstrated fertility for indigo increased land values. For example, part of the legal process of an eighteenth-century composición moderado (moderated settlement) conducted in the area of the Izalcos town of Caluco to give indigenous residents permanent title to their land compelled witnesses to assign prices to the land. In 1753, Blas de Amaya, a vecino of Izalco, valued the land of the ejidos (municipally held communal land, a term used at the time) at La Ensenada, a region to the south of Caluco, at 25 tostones per caballería (a land measurement that varied according to climate and soil quality, typically about 105 acres) because
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Figure 10.6. Navigation map for Sonsonate from the late seventeenth-century William Hack atlas. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
indigo was grown there. This price was about double that of adjacent, non-indigo bearing land (Sampeck 2014a).
Steps of Industrial Indigo Dye Making With the entrance of añil into the colonial market, the process of making dye profoundly changed from its precolumbian roots. Luciano Biart, in Les Aztéques (1885:240), briefly described Aztec manufacture of indigo: “They tossed the leaves of the plant one by one in a container full of tepid water, then, after stirring the liquid for a long time, they allow the extracted substance to dry in the sun, and then they heated it to harden it.” This is a household, even individualized, technique similar to that described by Hernández (1615). In the seventeenth century, Vázquez de Espinosa (1942)
wrote about each step of the large-scale fabrication of dye as part of an effort to show the manufacturing of value. The Spaniards industrialized the spaces for extracting the dye by using one or a series of masonry troughs placed in open spaces they eventually called mills. The mill or factory consisted of a set of several troughs, depending on the size of the industry, some of them connected to each other, plus one or two basins where the final stage of colorant filtering and purification took place. Indigo obrajes are usually one of three kinds and first appear at about the same time, but some became outlawed (Batres et al. 2004). Large Basin Factories, a type banned by the Crown in 1581 in Yucatán, had a single large trough. Royal Factories, a common plan, consisted of three troughs placed in tiers (Chinchilla Aguilar 1975:475–476; Clará de Guevara 1975:784–794; Rubio Sánchez 1976:319–321;
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Wisdom 1940:183). Hydraulic Factories occurred on the largest indigo haciendas, such as the obraje at San Andrés, El Salvador. These complexes include five to seven large troughs as well as a gutter for a hydraulic wheel. Each step of colonial indigo processing involved new technologies, including waterwheels, canal and drainage systems, and large vats—truly a complex factory. This high-volume, industrial processing depended on laborers, often slaves, working in a factory setting. Zacateros were workers in charge of cutting and transporting the xiquilite to the mill and helped keep the vat contents moving constantly in the maceration process. According to Vázquez de Espinosa (1942:236, section 675), laborers first placed from 30 to 40 (Batres et al. 2004) or as much as several hundred loads (cargas) (Vázquez de Espinosa 1942:236, section 675) of harvested indigo leaves into large stone basins (pilas) filled with cold or tepid water that at times had added sulfur. Each carga consisted of three bundles, and 100 cargas of indigo plant typically yielded 100 pounds (a quintal) of dye (Vázquez de Espinosa 1942:237, section 676). Workers weighed down plant matter with a timber lattice and / or other kinds of weights to submerge it completely. Plants soaked for 24 hours. This initial work thus involved management of time and effort that was a relatively slow and easy start compared to the relentless and increasingly toxic subsequent processing steps. Maceration required constant movement for up to 24 hours, and many times the most effective way to do this was by laborers in the vat (Vázquez de Espinosa 1942:236, section 675). After maceration, workers drained the water into another basin. In a hydraulic factory, a water- or horse-powered wheel agitated the water during maceration and helped the water drain more rapidly (Vázquez de Espinosa 1942:236, section 675). In multiple vat systems, the first and second vats were usually connected by a bitoquera (canal), which prior to initiating work was sealed by a clay or wooden plug (bitoque). After finishing the maceration of the xiquilite, laborers broke the bitoque and the liquid flowed from one vat to the other. The liquid in the second pila had to be agitated with enough vigor to form waves that produced foam to oxygenize the mixture, often done by two people using large wooden paddles (Contreras Sánchez 1996). In other cases, a water- or horse-powered wheel mixed the processed water, creating a blue-tinged foam. The amount of time churning the water was a matter of judgment and greatly affected the quantity of dye finally extracted (Vázquez de Espinosa 1942:236, section 675).
The crew chief watched for the sign that the solution had reached the “point” or precipitation of the dye, indicated by the foam turning blue and the solution looking almost transparent and purple. At that moment, agitation stopped, allowing the dye to rest and settle to the bottom of the basin, a process that typically lasted a couple of hours. A long period of constant movement had just a short pause. Workers strained the concentrated liquid to remove large particles, then used guacales (gourds) to transfer the decanted dye by hand from the second basin to the smaller third tank. In this stage, labor shifts from large-scale movement of paddles, water, and dye to small-scale, careful transport. The dye solution was left to rest for one day, then filtered through cloth suspended on hangers until the last of the water dripped through (Vázquez de Espinosa (1942:236, section 675). Next, the dried indigo paste was formed into cakes and placed on planks to dry in the sun for another four to six days before being packed into sacks, pouches, or boxes and transported to market (Vázquez de Espinosa 1942:236, section 675). The dye could also be dried in a pot over a fire, which probably was the case at Pancota (discussed below), as indicated by the ovens. Workers formed dye cakes with gourds or banana leaves. The cakes had to be fully dry before they were transported to the market. Once drained and cleaned of soaked plants, the initial soaking basin was once again ready for fresh ones to start the process again. These historically recorded steps confirm that indigo obrajes had to be located near sources of water, and large, distinctive tools or devices were associated with its manufacture (see Alexander and Williams, this vol.). At this scale, each step required numerous laborers in a centralized location. The small and portable, what could be managed in a household, became large, permanent, highinvestment constructions. In this new industry, large vats and numerous laborers served in the stead of an individual’s cups and fingers to work the leaves and branches of the xiquilite. Because processing was at an exponentially larger scale, workers labored inside the trough to agitate the water.
Toxicity One of the greatest dilemmas of indigo processing was that it was lethally toxic, a main reason that the Crown rejected the single-vat method so quickly. Contemporary
An Archaeology of Indigo medical studies suggest that indigo dye appears to have detrimental health effects by catalyzing toxic effects of other compounds as well as being a non-genotoxic carcinogen (Rannug et al. 1992). The extract, but not the powder, is mutagenic (Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products Intended for Consumers 2004), although limited exposure appears to have no risks of cancer (Hesbert et al. 1984). A dose of 1,000 μg / mL had a toxic effect on mammalian cells (Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products Intended for Consumers 2004). Medical studies of indigo also indicate that it causes significant eye irritation, is a sensitizer following skin contact, and induces delayed contact hypersensitivity (Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products Intended for Consumers 2004). Colonial treatises typically refer to poor health effects, as if it were a poison, but did not list specific complaints except the likelihood of death. Subsequent medical study provides some insight into possible effects, but contemporary studies do not replicate the extended exposure of high levels of liquid dye over a long period of time that colonial indigo workers likely faced. Complaints and debates about its health effects show who was commonly an indigo laborer. The Crown passed laws as early as 1563 to prevent Indians from working in obrajes because of deleterious health effects both from contact with the dye as well as overly harsh labor demands. Working in indigo factories also took people away from subsistence agriculture, presenting the possibility of food crisis. The alcaldía mayor of Sonsonate encouraged instead the use of mestizos, negros, and mulattos for indigo work (Escalante Arce 1992:2:48). Fuentes y Guzmán (1932–1933 [1642–1699]) recounted the high death rate in indigo obrajes during the late seventeenth century. Despite these legal protections, in 1694 the alcalde mayor of Sonsonate fined several people for employing Indians in indigo obrajes, and a complaint in 1768 charged that the alcalde mayor had made the Indians in Izalco work in the obrajes, preventing them from planting their summer crops (Escalante Arce 1992:2:145). Evidently, the labor of choice for indigo processing was coerced, often illegal.
A rch a eologica l Ev idence of Indigo Obr ajes Archaeological examples of indigo obrajes provide direct evidence of spatial organization, the exact kinds and form
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of technology, and the sorts of activities that took place in that setting. Two archaeologically preserved obrajes are Pancota and El Bebedero, both recorded as privately owned haciendas in the earliest Spanish documents from the Izalcos region. Historical documentation for both includes land title surveys, maps, and legal pleadings. The hacienda of Pancota was adjacent to large cacao orchards as late as the mid-eighteenth century, though the ejido of Caluco communally held those fields. The haciendas of Pancota and El Bebedero both produced a variety of commodities, including cattle. Today, the main cash crops at both places, which are still active haciendas, are sugarcane and coffee. Cattle ranching dominated activity in the hacienda of Los Lagartos, located adjacent to El Bebedero. In fact, the area that eventually became the Hacienda los Lagartos was the site of the most intensive cattle ranching in the entire Izalcos region. In contrast, indigo production is the main reported activity at El Bebedero. While the remains at Pancota are highly visible, substantial, well preserved, and abundant, the evidence for indigo processing at El Bebedero is ephemeral at best. It is possible that El Bebedero, which was the earliest mentioned indigo obraje, was less well preserved in part because the blueprint for durable infrastructure was not yet common. The growth in size, elaboration, and investment in durable architecture and mechanization of obrajes may have lagged behind much earlier changes in labor recruitment. The combined historical and archaeological evidence indicates a more significant indigo industry in the region than previously suggested.
The Hacienda Pancota The archaeological site of the Hacienda Pancota has extensive sixteenth-century remains, including a hilltop residential complex (El Jícaro), all built in typically Pipil style and organization, such as symmetrically paired structures and a large plaza surrounded by substructural platform mounds that appear to have been elite residences and a temple (Sampeck 2007, 2009). The indigo obraje was located well to the south and east of the hill of El Jícaro, a setting adjacent to and east of a sizeable quebrada (ravine). The obraje is in a distinct ecological zone that has a swampy area to the south and a plentiful water source on the south side of a principal road in this vicinity (Figure 10.7). Despite abundant sixteenth- to seventeenthcentury remains in many nearby zones, the area of the obraje has no archaeological evidence that clearly dates
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Figure 10.7. Map of the Pancota region showing the location of the indigo factory (obraje). Drawing by Kathryn E. Sampeck.
prior to the early nineteenth century. This presents a dilemma that occurs also in the case of El Bebedero— historical evidence indicates long-standing colonial indigo production in these two locales, yet early colonial archaeological evidence is more conjectural than incontrovertible. A focus on technology transfer highlights that while these haciendas undoubtedly produced indigo, the technology of infrastructure, particularly building with durable materials, changed substantially in the Izalcos region during the colonial period.
Archaeological Methodology Tulane University sponsored the Izalcos Archaeological Survey Project with the guidance of William Fowler of Vanderbilt University. From 1994 to 1997, Salvadoran crew members, Howard Earnest Jr., and I completed an intensive, systematic survey of the Río Ceniza valley, including all of the Hacienda Pancota property and adjacent smallholdings and communal lands (mostly agricultural cooperatives) (Sampeck 2007). We recorded all occurrences on topographic maps of surface concentrations of artifacts as well as architectural features and photographed standing architecture. The area of the obraje was in a thin, second-growth forest, which provided enough shade to inhibit the growth of grasses. In short, surface visibility was very good. Systematic surface collections showed that beyond the immediate area of the obraje,
few archaeological remains were visible. The construction seems to date to the nineteenth century, based on the occurrence of imported English refined white earthenwares (discussed in more detail below).
Architecture The obraje structure is sophisticated and generally well preserved because of its masonry construction using cement, stone, brick, and plaster. All of the plastered stonework associated with the obraje has roof tile fragments as part of wall construction; nevertheless, the cement was crumbling. One drainage canal was in especially good shape (Figure 10.8). The spatial arrangement of different elements at Pancota conforms best to a Royal Factory, but the vats did not have a great difference in elevation to help move the water along, nor did we recover any evidence of a waterwheel (Figure 10.9). A large, square pila joined the first of the tanks by a cement-lined canal. The implication is that water agitation and transport, the critical process for extracting dye, relied on human power. Pancota’s obraje thus never took on a mechanized form of indigo dye preparation; industrialization depended on centralization, increased scale, and high labor demands, all elements that appear in documentary evidence for indigo production in the region. A technological aid for shortening the time for
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Figure 10.8. Drainage canal for dye soaking vats at Hacienda Pancota, Department of Sonsonate, El Salvador. Photo by Kathryn E. Sampeck.
Figure 10.9. The dye soaking vats at Hacienda Pancota, Department of Sonsonate, El Salvador. Photo by Kathryn E. Sampeck.
finishing the dye-making process by forming marketable dry cakes was oven drying. A set of brick ovens had vents / passages underneath, with arching braces on the east and flat ones on the west side. The ovens’ orientation is the same as the north end of the obraje. The increased investment in this step also implies some degree of skill so that the dye became dry but not burned. Considering the lack of mechanization of the maceration process, the Pancota obraje was an environment that emphasized human labor.
ceramics in nearby areas where laborers for the hacienda probably lived, a series of hills along the Río Chiquihuat. These hilltop settlements were located just east, north, and south of a complex of domestic sixteenth-century deposits located on the hill named El Jícaro to the north of the obraje (Figure 10.7). A legacy of labor at Pancota appears to be the kind of setting—a hilltop—but not exactly the same place as in earlier periods. This shift in location in the nineteenth century moved some settlements closer to the obraje, but others were actually farther away than the dense settlement covering much of the summit of El Jícaro. In terms of access, the later, eastern locales were less convenient. This settlement contemporaneous with the obraje had no Spanish-style majolica, with the most common ceramics being locally made coarse earthenwares and Spanishstyle lead-glazed redwares (Table 10.1). What occurred in the vicinity of the obraje at more than double the
Ceramics While the vats, canals, and ovens indicate processingrelated suites of activities, portable material culture—in this case ceramics—show that preparing and consuming food also took place at the work site. These domestic remains are similar to patterns in the kinds and amounts of
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Table 10.1. Ceramic Ware Type Frequencies at Pancota Hilltop Settlements and Pancota Obraje by Minimum Vessel Count T YPE
Imported Fine Ware Majolica Unglazed Local Coarse Earthenware Lead-Glazed Redware
HILLTOPS % OF TOTAL N =
OBR AJE % OF TOTAL N =
12 0 67
29 4 35
21
32
frequency of the hilltop settlements were imported refined white earthenwares, including transferprint and hand-painted Staffordshire (compare also to Mayfield et al., this vol.). That relatively costly ceramics occur in a laboring area presents several possibilities. One is that these more expensive wares were the property of the obraje owners, or perhaps overseers. Another possibility is that these relatively costly wares were hand-me-downs. Preliminary analysis of patterns, flaws, and colors in the Izalcos region transferprinted wares do not indicate any tendency for marred or otherwise less desirable factory seconds (Newman 2014). The strong preference for hand-painted refined earthenwares surpasses even the much cheaper plain examples (Table 10.2). A distant third in occurrence was the relatively costly transferprints (the most common refined earthenware at Lamanai as Mayfield et al. show in this volume; Baugher and Venables 1987; Miller 1991). Altogether, the assemblage indicates an 1820–1880 time span. What is clear is that local ceramics for serving were less common than imported wares, about 8 of identified forms. Many of the dishes for eating were purchased. What of other vessel forms, for preparing and storing food and drink? More than one-third of identified vessel forms for local coarse earthenwares were comales, with water bottles a distant second (Table 10.3; compare with Eschbach’s [this vol.] discussion of wares from culturally plural neighborhoods with Afromestizo residents). The picture given by the co-occurrence of these food preparation forms along with lead-glazed and refined white earthenwares is that people were cooking food in the obraje vicinity, and local wares were appropriate for those activities. People regularly consumed food and drink, however, in light-grounded, thin, colorful vessels. Ceramic frequencies taken together are then a balance between serving
Table 10.2. Percentage Frequencies of Imported Refined White Earthenwares at Pancota Obraje by Minimum Vessel Count T YPE
% OF TOTAL N =
Sponged Molded Transferprinted Undecorated Hand Painted
1 8 11 31 49
Table 10.3. Percentage Frequencies at Pancota Obraje of Unglazed Local Coarse Earthenware Forms by Minimum Vessel Count VESSEL FORM Comal Unknown Holloware Water Bottle Bowl Flatware Industrial Tecomate
% OF TOTAL N = 36 2 13 12 6 2 1 1
and preparing, English imports and local coarse earthenwares, glazed and not. The price paid for dining in the obraje environment was likely poor health. The people using these ceramics were consuming food in an environment saturated with toxic dye. Meals did not mean time off of the job, even when taking meals in that environment undoubtedly increased the likelihood of illness or death. The spatial organization of labor—sequenced vats, canals, and drying ovens—were all in a fairly compact space, nucleation that depended on human labor rather than mechanization of hydraulics for efficient flow (see Alexander and Williams [this vol.] for capital-intensive hydraulic systems in Yucatán). The spatial organization of sustenance so that those very labor tasks could be completed was fit in the interstices between principal theaters of labor: the vats, ovens, and canals. The nineteenth-century obraje at Pancota shows a commitment through durable architecture to industrial, high-volume production through a set order to the sequencing and kinds of tasks, and equally to the collateral commitment to industrial production by sustaining laborers within the workplace. This nineteenthcentury investment in highly durable means to foster
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industrial production stands in contrast to earlier periods at Pancota; archaeological evidence from the contemporaneous indigo-producing hacienda of El Bebedero shows that this chronological difference was not a unique occurrence.
Hacienda el Bebedero The archaeological remains of El Bebedero were recovered on the contemporary hacienda that still bears the same name. The greatest amount of colonial evidence was in the form of surface scatters of ceramics adjacent to the colonial camino real (royal road) from San Salvador to Sonsonate, on the southern edge of a large plain that abuts recent volcanic hills of rough, vesicular lava. Just north of the current casco (principal hacienda residence) lies the intersection of the municipal boundaries of the Izalcos towns of Caluco, Izalco, and San Julián, a point of reference in colonial documents for clarifying the location of indigo works in the region. On the southwestern edge of the modern casco compound are ruins of the colonial hacienda, whose occupation spanned the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries (Figure 10.10). Most of the seventeenth-century materials occurred on a hilltop to the east and a gentle slope to the southwest of the current colonial casco complex. Despite the evidence of domestic activities, and the fairly intact remains of the hacienda center, we did not encounter the troughs, canals, and other infrastructure for indigo processing as we did at Pancota. If not for the historic documentation of indigo factories, it would be difficult to identify that indigo processing occurred at El Bebedero. The documentary evidence of interest and investment in indigo in the El Bebedero region is substantial. Hacienda el Bebedero was known as Chupadero in the sixteenth century. Land title descriptions refer to the indigo obraje in the area of Chupadero, described as being in the valley of Tecpa, a league and a half from Guaymoco, two from Tecpa, and four from Coatepeque (Escalante Arce 1992:1:202). Two rival encomenderos, Juan de Mestanza Ribera and Diego Guzmán, were the principal landowners in this region in the sixteenth century. Mestanza Ribera established the Chupadero obraje in 1580, an action that positioned him at the leading edge of the rise of indigo as the next hot commodity in transatlantic commerce (Escalante Arce 1992:1:202). Juan de Mestanza owned three caballerías adjacent to the estancia (estate) he already possessed, described as, “En el camino
Figure 10.10. Map of the region of El Bebedero showing the location of excavation units. Drawing by Kathryn E. Sampeck.
de guaymoco y cacaluta un cerro arriva y en una bega que estava frente de su obraje que tenía para hacer tinta añir, en terminos de los dichos pueblos de guaymoco y cacaluta, junto a la ciénaga que dicen cacaluta, desta otro parte del río” (On the road between Guaymoco and Cacaluta, a hill above and a plain that was in front of their obraje that they have had for making indigo dye, at the edge of said towns of Guaymoco and Cacaluta, adjacent to a swamp they call Cacaluta, on the other side of the river) (Escalante Arce 1992:1:201). The three caballerías were located on the banks of the Río los Lagartos, or Ojushtal, which later became the site for the Hacienda San Antonio los Lagartos, at one time the property of the Dominican convent of Santiago de Guatemala (Escalante Arce 1992:1:201–202). Another notable mention of indigo processing in the vicinity of El Bebedero is that of Las Lajas, located at the north end of the same valley. In 1607, María Barahona de Loaysa arranged for Miguel de Cáceres, vecino
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of Sonsonate, and Juan de Alfoys, Guzmán’s mayordomo (foreman) in Izalco, to secure the rights to six caballerías of land that bordered the other four that the Guzmáns already owned in Las Lajas, a cattle ranch. The six caballerías had boundaries of the barranca of Tecpa to near El Bebedero. While cattle ranching was a common activity in this area, the young Guzmán asked for permission to plant and process indigo (Escalante Arce 1992:1:269). After the land was measured, it was nine and not six caballerías. In order to own these tierras realengas (lands taken over by the Crown because they were deemed abandoned or unused), the Guzmáns declared that the Indians of Guaymoco and Tecpa should not contest their rights to the land, to which the communities acquiesced (Escalante Arce 1992:1:269). These land titles and legal disputes show not only that indigo was produced early and consistently but also reveal fairly precise information about the location of the obraje and the areas of indigo cultivation. The eastern reaches of the Río Ceniza valley, in and around El Bebedero, had much more documentary evidence of indigo production than the regions to the south and west, near Pancota.
Archaeological Methods A comprehensive and systematic survey of the valley floor, vesicular lava fields, and upland regions in the eastern portion of the Río Ceniza valley encountered several locations with colonial period remains, mostly ceramics, some brick and roof tile, and burned bajareque (daub) fragments (Sampeck 2007). Surface collections recovered materials in many of these regions that related to domestic activities. The concentration of colonial materials to the southwest of the casco complex at El Bebedero seemed a likely place for hacienda-related work, specifically indigo processing, as that was the primary documented activity for the hacienda early in its history, particularly the six caballerías of Barahona. The lack of nineteenth-century obraje facilities and documentary evidence later than the seventeenth century suggests that this emphasis did not last long and that the hacienda shifted to sugar and coffee agriculture. In an effort to encounter evidence of indigo dye production, we conducted test excavations in the area of cultural materials southwest of the casco. Four 2 × 2 m units were excavated in the general area of the region with the highest concentration of seventeenth-century pottery (Figure 10.10).
Architecture Each excavation unit exhibited slightly different stratigraphy below the plow zone, with varying amounts of organic material, artifacts, and culturally deposited rock. A dark feature excavated into a pure, reddish clay and alongside a bedrock high appeared to be a ditch or drainage feature uniformly filled with debris of a relatively dark and loose soil with high organic content, numerous small pieces of charcoal and burned bone, and small sherds, perhaps from sweeping. These ceramics were the same size and type as encountered in the plow zone but in higher concentration. The other excavation units did not exhibit remarkable stratigraphy nor identifiable features. The troubling results from excavations in this area were the relatively deep deposits and their homogeneous nature, with small sherds of majolica of the same age near the base of excavations and on the surface, vertical stratigraphic mixing perhaps due to plowing for sugarcane for a very long time. Cultural deposits were not entirely destroyed, however, as shown by the persistence of the drainage feature, which was probably sheltered from plow disturbance by the adjacent bedrock high. Excavations extended well below the contemporary maximal plow zone, but perhaps the area was subject to regular plowing during steady deposition, so that a “minimax” plow zone (Dunnell and Simek 1995) never really developed—that is, all the soil was subject to a consistent amount of turbation. The other possibility is that the area was subject to rapid deposition so that most of the soil is the result of a single deposit, thus the lack of discernable stratigraphy and the homogeneous size of cultural materials. The Bebedero inhabitants appear to have taken advantage of natural bedrock lows for refuse disposal, filling in discontinuities rather than, or perhaps in addition to, disposal immediate to structures. The consistent deposition of both cultural materials and soil suggest the persistence of practice over time, a stability in the organization of space. So, even though no durable architectural remains were recovered, the stability of practice so strongly indicated at Pancota also seems evident at El Bebedero, and at an earlier point in time. The lack of easily identifiable obraje remains in an area that matched historical descriptions suggests, however, that durable construction materials such as brick may have been reused, or components were made of mobile, perhaps perishable materials. Bajareque was recovered in excavations. The deep deposits also make it possible that
An Archaeology of Indigo obraje structural remains are buried. Historical descriptions could also be inaccurate. Only further testing will help solve the puzzle. Archaeological evidence from survey and excavations indicates that the technological shift to extensive, permanent facilities did not occur at El Bebedero. Excavations do, however, show consistency in the use of space, suggesting that at least in the area of excavations, the built environment remained stable in the face of other changes in the hacienda and nearby places.
Ceramics The ceramic distribution from El Bebedero has a preponderance of coarse earthenwares (Table 10.4). This distribution, however, is deceiving, as the vast majority of coarse earthenware is olive jar (botija), storage jars for wine, oil, and olives (Table 10.5). Botijas were likely made either in Spain or Peru, although supplies for a 1580 armada to deter Francis Drake that encomenderos launched from Acajutla, the port town of the Izalcos, included olive jar reportedly made in Izalco. The porcelain included Kraak porcelain plates and cups, and the majolica forms were likewise plates and cups. The majority of majolica was
Table 10.4. Percentage Frequencies of Ware Types at El Bebedero by Minimum Vessel Count T YPE
% OF TOTAL N =
Majolica Porcelain Coarse Earthenware
14 3 83
Table 10.5. Percentage Frequencies of Ceramic Types at El Bebedero by Minimum Vessel Count COARSE EARTHENWARES Olive Jar Pantaleon Brown Unidentified Local Coarse Earthenware
% OF TOTAL N = 91 1 8
MAJOLICA
% OF TOTAL N =
Guatemala Majolica, Variety A Guatemala Majolica, Variety B Panama Blue-on-White Seville Blue-on-White Unidentified Dark Green
53 29 6 6 6
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Guatemala Variety A, which dates from 1580 to 1650 (Sampeck 2015a). Other seventeenth-century types, including Guatemala majolica Variety B, support a date of the mid-seventeenth century. Overall, the vast majority of ceramics in this context at El Bebedero are imported. Compared to Pancota, this location at El Bebedero emphasized serving wares for eating and drinking even more than the nineteenth-century obraje area. The ceramic evidence leaves little doubt that people nourished themselves using colorful, popular wares, and the diet included wine and / or olive products. Whether this was an indigo-processing environment is unclear. Nevertheless, the low visibility of early indigo processing at Pancota and El Bebedero suggests that investment in substantial masonry architecture for xiquilite work did not happen or was not allowed to stand in these places until later in the hacienda’s history, after the seventeenth century. Why would this be, given that in other regions of Mesoamerica, single vat obrajes were outlawed as early as 1580? Colonists utilized centralized, factory-like technology early in the colonial history of indigo in the Americas (Andrews, this vol.). Reasons for this lack of evidence could lie in the region’s emphasis on cacao, the dominant commodity already being intensively produced before the Spanish arrived (Sampeck 2007). Cacao then became the first colonial agricultural economic boom commodity in sixteenth-century Central America (MacLeod 1973). The cacao grown on the Pacific slopes of what are today El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Chiapas was highly sought after by a wide, well-established market of indigenous, and by the sixteenth century, Spanish, and mixed-race (casta) consumers. On both sides of the Atlantic, cacao was progressively incorporated into consumption patterns, reaching both the highest levels of society as well as working classes (Sampeck and Schwartzkopf 2017). Over the next two centuries, cultivation expanded across the tropics to satisfy rising demand. Today, the top cacaoproducing countries are in Africa and Southeast Asia (Indonesia), with Brazil and Ecuador the leading Latin American producers; the Izalcos region is not a significant participant in either the commodity or fine cacao trade today (Sampeck and Schwartzkopf 2017). The apogee of cacao production in the Izalcos occurred in the late sixteenth century, when indigo was just beginning to surge as a colonial commodity. Global cacao commerce continued and expanded, but the Izalcos lost its place as a main player to other upstarts: Costa Rica, Ecuador, and
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Venezuela, then West Africa and Indonesia by the nineteenth century (Lohse 2014; Martin and Sampeck 2016). In comparison, indigo was a very familiar product for colonists, as varieties of the plant occurred in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, particularly Southeast Asia (Nadri 2015; Vatsyayan 2014). In fact, genetic studies indicate that Indigofera probably originated in Africa around 16 million years ago (Schrire et al. 2009). Spanish, British, and Dutch merchant colonizers encouraged the cultivation of a few varieties that produced especially high-quality dye by supplying plants to farmers. In the eighteenth century, the Dutch VOC were agents of planting and cultivating indigo in southeast Asia, and in the nineteenth century, introduced I. guatimalensis to places such as the Kerek subdistrict of Tuban, where it is still cultivated today (Heringa 1989:113), as well as in other parts of Java (Fokkens 1910:45–48). As noted in the earlier discussion, dyestuffs from different kinds of sources (insects, shellfish, trees, plants) were a persistent and usually significant part of global trade. A couple of developments in the nineteenth century led to a major expansion of indigo production in southeast Asia, a sign of the burgeoning global market for indigo. For example, in Java, British, then Dutch colonial policy from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century required peasants to cultivate one-fifth of village land with cash crops such as indigo or sugar on behalf of the government (Wahid 2013:35). This push for commercial export crops was further bolstered by the 1830 cultivation initiative of the Dutch Cultuurstelsel (Culture System), which was modeled after the British colonial plantation system and established expressly to cultivate indigo, sugar, and coffee for export. Cultivation and processing of the new indigo varieties drew on heterogeneous knowledge and practices relating to indigo dye production, some ancient (Kumar 2014). The overall trajectory at a global scale was of a steadily blossoming market until an abrupt shift beginning about 1860 to synthetic dyes with the discovery of an inexpensive process that Germans applied to extract massive amounts of aniline dyes rapidly (Perkin 1861). The spread of indigo industries across Latin America and their strong emphasis on mechanization mirrors both the increasing devotion to mechanization of many different kinds of agricultural products (Alexander and Williams, this vol.; Hernández Álvarez, this vol.) as well as an attempt to compete within a widening sphere of global dye consumption in the nineteenth century. That the most enduring and substantial evidence
in the Izalcos region dates to the nineteenth century is not so surprising within this context. The place of the Izalcos as a leading indigo producer is also, from this perspective, an early flash in the pan, with 1631 the high point, as described earlier. Places farther east—San Salvador, San Miguel—held a much more stable role in the ascendant commodity (Asociación de Añileros de El Salvador, 2002; MacLeod 1973). This wider context also begs the question of why the technology transfer in the Izalcos occurred when and how it did. A brief comparison of cacao technology and labor systems and that of indigo in the Izalcos offers the insight that radical technology transfer in indigo did not happen until after the golden age of cacao had passed. This reluctance had its roots in the social relations of industrial-scale precolumbian and early colonial cacao production. These relations relied on dispersed, skilled labor, a mismatch for indigo industrialization. It took some time for the producers in the Izalcos region to adopt indigo transformations because it required reversing or profoundly altering what cacao had built. The most successful moment in Izalcos indigo production applied elements of cacao legacy labor relations, emphasizing human power rather than mechanization (in contrast to the mechanization of henequen shown by Hernández Álvarez [this vol.]). This moment for Izalcos indigo evidently was unsustainable in the long run, while in adjacent regions without the production legacies of the Izalcos, places slightly farther east, a more successful transformation and reorientation took place. Rather than actors creating the world anew (Latour 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988), this analysis points to intransigence due to social and economic dynamics of power and interests; in this case, indigenous labor organization, technology, and economic relations (cf. contrasting trajectories in obsidian industries in Pastrana Cruz et al. [this vol.] and in ceramics in Fournier García and Otis Charlton [this vol.]). At the same time, the slow adoption of some technology (large vats, sequenced tasks) and not others point to the consequence of the material characteristics of the cultivar itself (indigo vs. cacao), and the elements of technology (no hydraulic wheels for maceration), and perhaps time management (the pace of slow-rapid-slow work demands) (compare with Alexander and Williams, this vol.). Technology was malleable to local actors, but in this micro-level study, the micro-, especially legacies of labor and technology, potently affected the extent, timing, and manner of technological transformation.
An Archaeology of Indigo Cacao versus Indigo Labor Sources and Environments Colonial chroniclers and travelers noted facets of the labor systems and technology of cacao cultivation in the Izalcos region (Benzoni 1565; Cortés y Larraz 1958; Fuentes y Guzmán 1932–1933 [1642–1699]; García de Palacio 1985 [1576–1587]), and further details occur in legal disputes, letters of merit, and other official correspondence and notarial documents. Subsequent studies have synthesized much of this information (Escalante Arce 1992; Fowler 1987, 1989, 1991, 1994, 2006; MacLeod 1973). A brief summary will permit comparison with indigo labor and technology. When Pedro de Alvarado and his crew invaded the Izalcos region in 1524, cacao was already a prime product of the region. During the Postclassic, across Mesoamerica celebrants consumed cacao drinks during dynastic ceremonies and to seal important social contracts (Roys 1972:106; Smith 1973:3 1; Thompson 1972:6). Cacao has a long history of ritual importance and as a food and drink, but its use as money became increasingly commonplace toward the end of the Late Postclassic, such that the currency system was well established by the time of Spanish colonization (Millon 1955). Several lines of evidence indicate that Izalqueños produced cacao at astounding levels, far more than any other place per unit area, less to satisfy chocolate cravings than to provide a stable money supply (Sampeck 2007, 2014b, 2015a). So, cacao production in the Izalcos was already at industrial levels before the Spanish arrived.
Labor Systems The labor for producing astronomical amounts of cacao most likely was part of the services and obligation of the Nahua ethnic state of the altepetl, which were typically subdivided into calpolli units. In the Nahua system of labor obligations, lords demanded services and tribute; cacao production was a way to satisfy the obligations of citizenship. The Pipils of the Izalcos region appear to have maintained a tecpán system of lordship. The tecpán was the mechanism by which lords administered their dependents and lands. The tecpán lords were also heads of a calpolli, and a lord and his followers were one of several wardlike sets of people and land within his calpolli subdivision (Lockhart 1992:105). The dependents within this
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system were macehualtin, peasants who had service and tribute responsibilities in various levels of government and more or less direct access to land, or mayeque, tenant farmers who provided goods for individual lords on their private holdings and owed nothing to the larger polity (Evans 1991:64). Cacao requires just the right combination of shade, moisture, and rich soils to grow well (for forest conditions, see Castillo and Gasco, this vol.; Young 2007). A bountiful harvest was the result of a great degree of skill and knowledge (Gasco 2015). It was also a calculated decision. Cacao trees do not begin bearing fruit until they are seven or so years old (Young 2007). People had to invest substantial amounts of labor without the promise of a quick payoff. While moderate yields of cacao were possible in many places, only a few were major producers: (1) the Soconusco area of the Pacific coast, along the borderland between what is now Guatemala and Mexico; (2) the Gulf Coast, near the base of the Yucatán Peninsula; (3) Suchitepequez, in eastern Guatemala; and (4) the Izalcos region of western El Salvador (Fowler 1987, 2006; Gasco 1987a, 1987b, 1989a; MacLeod 1973). The Spanish siphoned off the investment, skills, knowledge, and experience of indigenous cacao producers by assessing tribute duties of Izalcos-region encomiendas by married Indian households and by the amount of land and cacao trees the individual had rights to (Escalante Arce 1992; Fowler 1994). The household members decided how and who worked in the cacao orchards, as was done before colonization (Fowler 1994; see also Castillo and Gasco, this vol.). The colonial demographic collapse in the Izalcos region resulted in a labor shortage that was satisfied two ways: chattel slavery and wage labor, paid by the Native families (Escalante Arce 1992). Labor shortages due to disease were compensated for by increasing numbers of migrant wage laborers, with only 10–20 of original indigenous families remaining in some towns by 1580 (Escalante Arce 1992; Fowler 1989; in contrast to Soconusco, as shown by Castillo and Gasco [this vol.]).
Technology Amid this colonial change in the labor system, the technology of cacao farming seems to have remained surprisingly consistent. Improvements such as irrigation (acequias) were already a part of cacao agriculture, and in fact legal disputes arose about the placement, ownership, and
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management of acequias in the Izalcos region (Sampeck 2007). Tending and harvesting trees involved hand pruning and cutting the seedy fruit pod from the tree, a laborintensive process that still does not involve elaborate machinery. Processing the tree seeds includes fermenting the fruit, drying the seeds, and eventually grinding the dried, roasted seeds (if the seeds were not to be used as money). While cacao processing had the potential to be centralized (such as vats for fermenting or drying ovens), in the Izalcos region, many dispersed areas of processing, supervised within communal groups or even households, were able to produce industrial amounts. Legal complaints by Pipil producers emphasized that Spanish innovations to increase yields, such as closer tree spacing, had the effect of lowering productivity (Escalante Arce 1992). The message was to leave the efficient system alone, to which colonists acquiesced. Spaniards remained relatively uninvolved in cacao production except after harvest and processing (MacLeod 1973:198–199). The contrast of cacao with indigo production in this same region was dramatic: indigo was a minor precolumbian product with no antecedent industrial-scale production, and the plant required relatively little skill in cultivation. Indigo simply did not have the infrastructure of cacao in the Izalcos region. The Izalcos labor and technological environment, which emphasized skill and household-centered organization, contrasted with the standardization, nucleation, and increased capital investment of indigo obrajes. While the incentive with cacao was to leave well enough alone, indigo presented an opportunity for development for Spanish colonists. Cacao remained under indigenous control in terms of technology and labor, though its products went to Spanish hands, while indigo became the domain of direct Spanish or ladino control (Escalante Arce 1992:2:172; MacLeod 1973:915). Furthermore, who was laboring contrasted: in cacao orchards, the expectation was that labor was indigenous—legal complaints accused Afro-Central Americans of entering into cacao orchards illegally, while at the same time, officials advocated that Afrodescendants should work in indigo obrajes (Escalante Arce 1992). This legacy of cacao political economy seems to have contributed to the elusive archaeological evidence of sixteenth- to seventeenth-century obrajes (King and Konwest [this vol.] argue that variation in architecture and material culture at Nejapa may include both “invisible
transitions and apparent continuities”). Even the collapse of the cacao boom by the early seventeenth century due to the influx of cheap, abundant cacao from new producers— Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Venezuela—and the concomitant rise of indigo as the premier cash crop did not spark a flurry in the Izalcos region of indigo intensification in the form of substantial capital investment in durable architecture in obrajes. Instead, areas farther east that had a much less social and economic investment in cacao, San Salvador and San Miguel, were leaders in the new indigo economy.
Colon i a lism a n d I n digo Technology The technological change in indigo dye making, a hazardous industrial workplace, was a real and immediate form of structural violence (Farmer 2004). Production was physically centralized in the obraje, which effectively disenfranchised indigenous populations from easy access to the technology and organization of production, a diametric opposite from the conditions for cacao cultivation and processing, where cacao lands remained under indigenous communal domain. Rather than relying on indigenous knowledge, authority resided in ladino and Spanish supervisors and owners, which even included the church. One of every 20 quintals of indigo was paid as a tithe because in many areas convents oversaw the obrajes (Escalante Arce 1992). Cacao permitted Indians a certain degree of independence because they could sell their cacao, which was also in the interest of the merchants of Sonsonate; the dynamics of the cacao economy reinforced some degree of Native self-determination (Escalante Arce 1992:2:172). In contrast, indigenous labor in indigo dye production was illegal. In 1694, the alcalde mayor of Sonsonate fined several people for employing Indians in indigo obrajes. But by 1768, a complaint charged that the alcalde mayor had made the Indians in Izalco work in the obrajes (Escalante Arce 1992:2:145). Given this context, it is not surprising that despite its early start, indigo never competed with the production levels of cacao. Indigo cultivation started by 1563, but it hardly grew compared to cacao. The nature of indigo cultivation and processing loosened the deep roots that cacao farming encouraged. These legacies of production manifested in geographic separation: high-production
An Archaeology of Indigo cacao and indigo zones were almost mutually exclusive— the west (Izalcos) fell in economic importance with the demise of the cacao boom, despite a promising start to indigo industries there. The center and east (San Salvador and San Miguel areas) rose from relative doldrums to prosperity with the blossoming of indigo trade. By the nineteenth century, hacienda owners invested in relatively elaborate facilities to manufacture dye. The evidence suggests that a laboring system of enslaved and / or wage labor preceded this change in the built environment, a change fostered by demographically induced shifts in laboring systems for the cacao industry. The outlawing of indigenous labor in obrajes was in part spurred by drastic population decline and the wish to keep what knowledgeable cacao labor there was in place (Castillo and Gasco, this vol.); Afrodescendant labor had the potential to already be familiar with indigo, and if not, was seen as expendable because it was replaceable (Las Casas 1957). At the inception of the Atlantic slave trade, West Africa had a long history of being a world leader in indigo manufacturing centers; direct evidence includes archeologically recovered fragments of indigo-dyed blue textiles in what is now Mali dating to at least the eleventh to twelfth century AD (Knight 2010). Indigo was not taken up as a major product by communal landowning entities such as indigenous cofradías (religious sodalities) or ejidos (Escalante Arce 1992). Whether ladinos, Afrodescendants, Afromestizos, or Pipils worked there, legally or not, the process was a toxic one, yet they used imported Staffordshire serving wares. The components of the obraje—the multiple vats, the canal system, the ovens—all are evidence of the sequential tasks of dye extraction done on an industrial, highvolume scale on privately owned land. These examples show that Spanish colonists eventually altered the technology of indigo in every stage of cultivating, harvesting, and processing. Why did this American agricultural product see such comprehensive change? The relatively halting and piecemeal change in the indigo industry in the Izalcos region gives us a clue. The reluctance had its roots in a desire for profit on the part of colonists, as cacao wealth relied on indigenous direction and at the same time offered Native peoples a certain degree of self-determination that indigo did not. Cacao producers altered the cacao industry labor systems to meet demands, but it was of their own doing. In contrast, nonnatives increasingly held domain over indigo crops, the
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equipment and facilities to process it, and its commerce. Compared to other regions, Izalcos did not achieve the economic efficiency and surplus in indigo that drove the reorganization of laborers, tools, kinds of work, or space, which in itself can be taken as a sign of indigenous resilience. The colonial narrowing of multiple precolumbian uses of xiquilite to a dye, the centralization and standardization of the workplace, and the privatization of labor and land all present a stripping away of indigenous practices and meanings. The comprehensive nature of change in technology and labor in indigo well represents the project of colonialism, while the halting nature of the industry in the Izalcos region shows the gritty, contested, contradictory reality of colonization.
Ack now ledgments A Tinker grant through the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University funded the feasibility study for this research. Several seasons of archaeological research were made possible by several grants from the Middle American Research Institute as well as dissertation research grants from Fulbright-Hays, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (grant #5919), the Social Science Research Council, and the National Science Foundation (dissertation improvement grant #9521749). Further research in El Salvador was supported by a CIES Senior Scholar Fulbright fellowship. I completed the drafts of the chapter with the support of a residential fellowship at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and a subsequent nonresidential fellowship with the DuBois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. I am deeply indebted to my late husband, Howard H. Earnest Jr., Elizabeth Scott, and William R. Fowler for their insightful comments and tremendous support of my endeavors during these many years. Holly Brookens compiled the ceramic data for Pancota. I am most indebted to Rani Alexander for organizing the session at the 2014 Society for American Archaeology meeting that brought together the contributors in this volume. An editor’s toil cannot be lauded enough; I give my thanks to Rani for her hard work and diligence, which has greatly improved my contribution. Any omissions or errors that still persist are my own.
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Notes 1. All translations in this chapter are by the author. 2. Caluco, El Salvador, Municipal Archive, Dispute between Antonio de Chaves and Diego Sanchez Gallardo, 20 June 1617, fol. 28v.
3. A toston was a silver coin typically with the value of a real de a cuatro (or medio duro). 4. Caluco, El Salvador, Municipal Archive, Decree of March 21, 1753, fol. 100. Survey conducted by Juan Antonio Bósquez y Artiaga, Juez Subdelegado, to Enact the Policy of Composición Moderado.
Technological and Cultural Change during the Conquest Period at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador J e b J . C a r d a n d W i l l i a m R . F ow l e r J r .
significant root as a more ordered Spanish imperial society was established. Representing the early crucial decades of the Spanish conquest in Central America, Ciudad Vieja does not attest to substantial transfer of European technologies or technical styles in conquest period Mesoamerica. Examining manufactured objects and activity areas for evidence for local activities suggests that European technological practice at Ciudad Vieja, with perhaps the exception of architectural style, is best described in terms of individual units as imported goods or as individual colonists practicing crafts such ironworking. The presence of Mesoamerican specialized non-subsistence technological practice such as lapidary or metalworking is similar in its idiosyncrasy. European technological influence can also be found in food species and preparation techniques mixed in with local species and equipment. Eurasian ceramic production technology does not appear to have been practiced at Ciudad Vieja, but ceramic formal style did influence indigenous potters at the site. The individual scale of Spanish technological influence mirrors ethnohistorical and archaeological models from the Basin of Mexico emphasizing indigenous continuity and limited technological and cultural change largely dependent on direct contact with Spaniards and their institutions. Instead, the one significant technical change in ceramic production derived from changing dynamics
When founded in 1528, the villa of San Salvador became one of the first successful Spanish colonial settlements in Central America. The town charter was transferred to the city of San Salvador in 1545, located 32 km to the south, as the foundation of the modern capital of El Salvador. Comparison of local serving vessels with historically documented Italianate design influences (Card 2013b) suggests that occupation continued at the site of the old town for perhaps another 15 years before it was left to become the farm fields with sparse rural settlement that characterizes the area, now known as Ciudad Vieja, to the present. The lack of significant subsequent urban construction and activity makes Ciudad Vieja an important archaeological example of the early Spanish colonial period. Moreover, it is specifically a site of the conquest period. Its early date of abandonment coincides with significant political and economic shifts in New Spain and Central America, and the nature of the villa aligns it with the transformations of the conquest itself. As a military, political, and economic hub of the Spanish conquest, it was a focus for many of the conditions and forces promoting technological transfer and cultural change. At the same time, the relatively brief occupation (at most two generations) and the lack of the sort of cultural and technological changes found at more long-term, established sites highlight that some developments were minimal during the initial decades of the conquest and only took
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within the indigenous community likely related to generational change in identity, specifically the collapsing of indigenous social patterns and identities, within the new colonial casta (racial) hierarchy. The question of ethnicity at the site is complicated by the significant presence of conquistadores mexicanos, indigenous participants in the Spanish entrada (military expedition) who occupied a status middle ground under political assault as the early colonial period progressed. Technological change may have been spotty and idiosyncratic in early Spanish colonies, but the origins of the systemic social impact of colonialism can be detected in indigenous crafting and technological practices. This finding underscores both the profound nature of the colonial transformation and the importance of understanding sites like Ciudad Vieja as being as much Mesoamerican as they are Spanish or colonial.
Sa n Sa lva dor a nd the Conqu est of Centr a l A mer ica We would expect the first Spanish settlement in El Salvador, founded in 1528, to be a major locus of colonial
change. The villa of San Salvador, located in a rural area 32 km northeast of modern San Salvador (Figure 11.1), was a classic Spanish colonial grid-layout town (Figure 11.2). Notably, this location was not a previously existing indigenous settlement, the usual site for new Spanish communities after initial conquest (Barón Castro 1996:43). It was the seat of 50–70 Spanish conquistadors (Sherman 1979:348) and hundreds and perhaps thousands of conquistadores mexicanos, indigenous Mexican and Guatemalan auxiliary forces crucial to the “Spanish” conquest of Central America (Barón Castro 1996:87–91, 197–202; Matthew 2004:78–86). Tlaxcalans, Cholulans, Texcocans, and other mexicanos took part in the conquest of northern Central America (Barón Castro 1996:66; Escalante Arce 2001:20–21; Lardé y Larín 2000:53; Matthew 2004, 2012). For example, documentary evidence indicates that San Salvador vecino (resident) and artillerist Diego de Usagre settled in San Salvador with 60 Mixtec indios amigos (indigenous allies), as well as his mestiza daughter Catalina and her Mixtec mother (Fowler 2011a:27; Lardé y Larín 2000:192–193). While the Mixtecs may help explain the presence of Gutierrez Gray Polished bowls (see King and Konwest [this vol.], though they find a decline of fine gray wares during the early colonial period), similar to
Figure 11.1. Location of Ciudad Vieja and other early Spanish colonial settlements. Base map courtesy of d-maps.com http: // www.d-maps.com / carte.php?num _car=1721&lang=en; Modified by Jeb J. Card.
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Figure 11.2. Grid plan of Ciudad Vieja. Excavated structures are labeled and indicated with architecture. Core map by Conard Hamilton; Modified by Jeb J. Card.
Late Postclassic Oaxacan wares also found in Chiapas, at Ciudad Vieja (Card 2007:230–236), and in one example at later sixteenth-century Caluco (Verhagen 1997:271, 274, Figure 7.22), it seems likely that these were not the only mexicanos to settle in San Salvador. These conquistadors owned many slaves, held labor and tribute rights to numerous communities in encomienda tributaries, and hired itinerant paid laborers from the Pipil countryside (Kramer 1994:7–8; Sherman 1979:314, 324, 348). It was a military center, organizing slaving raids and retaliatory or pacification strikes at strongholds of indigenous resistance (Barón Castro 1996:103–104; Lardé y Larín 2000:111) as well as providing men and materiel to Spanish forces in Honduras during the Lempira revolt (Chamberlain 1953:87). In addition to a significant population of mexicanos, we may guess that Africans were present in San Salvador, though no direct archaeological or historical evidence of this has emerged beyond mention of mining cuadrillas (teams) often associated with Africans in the Spanish colonies. A significant
part of the town’s economy would have been based on military and expeditionary short-term schemes such as slaving and precious metal mining. Iron production is the only new industry found in both the documentary and archaeological records for San Salvador. Tribute in goods, based on the prehispanic tribute obligations to Cuscatlán and adapted to the encomienda system, would have provided the bulk of the economy (Fowler 1989:190–191). In 1545, 12,000 indigenous tributaries were held in encomienda by 44 vecinos of San Salvador (Sherman 1979:348), from lands stretching throughout the area of modern El Salvador (Barón Castro 1996:141–142; Lardé y Larín 2000:156–157). Architectural grandeur and diversity of Mesoamerican transport and storage vessels at Structure 6F1, in the northern part of Ciudad Vieja, suggest this large structure may have been the residence and warehouse of an encomendero (Card 2007:500, 526, 555; Gallardo Mejía 2004). In 1545, Spanish colonists received legal permission to move to the current location of San Salvador, but it
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appears from the form of local pottery influenced by Spanish Italianate plates that majolica continued to be imported and copied at the site until possibly the 1560s, for a total occupation of about 30–35 years (Card 2013b). Two significant ceramic markers of the late sixteenth century do not appear at Ciudad Vieja. Middle Style olive jars begin to appear in Spanish sites after 1560 and completely replace Early Style jars by 1580 (James 1988:59), and Ming and Kraak porcelain are found at a number of sites in Central America, including in western El Salvador, after the foundation of Manila in 1575 facilitated importation from China (Fournier García 1997b; Sampeck, this vol., 2007:505–521; Verhagen 1997:321–329). Neither of these diagnostic markers occur at Ciudad Vieja. Excavations in 2014 slightly complicate this terminus ante quem, with the discovery of a single sherd of what may be Guatemalan majolica in Structure 4G1, the possible location of an early colonial religious structure. Majolica production in Mexico likely begins around 1550, and in Guatemala around or after 1580 (Jamieson 2001:46; Sampeck 2007:473, 2015b). This structure is also associated with low but significant quantities of diagnostic Early Postclassic ceramics and other unusual features not found at Ciudad Vieja. Analysis of this location is ongoing, but preliminary investigation suggests it was an important location in longer-term memory of local populations from before the arrival of the Spaniards and mexicanos and perhaps after the majority of San Salvadorans moved to the city’s new location in the Acelhuate Valley. Substantial survey, remote sensing, and excavation (Fowler, ed. 2011) from 1996 to the present has found that European technologies are present at Ciudad Vieja but were used in relatively restrained ways and do not appear to represent significant technological transfer. Spanish colonial architecture and settlement layout are present and while mostly constructed with local materials, appear alongside indigenous residential architecture. Ironworking produced certain key objects related to European-style architecture, warfare, and transportation, while indigenous lithic technology was used throughout the site for domestic and presumably other purposes. Hints of indigenous social technology including Mesoamerican-style lapidary, metalworking, and textile production are present. This can be contrasted with the limited sample from Majaltepec as described by King and Konwest (this vol.). At that early colonial Oaxacan site, lithic artifacts are
incredibly scarce in the admittedly small overall sample, while iron artifacts are surprisingly abundant. In central Mexico, Pastrana Cruz and colleagues describe changes and innovation in lithic production. While obsidian is very important as a tool material at Ciudad Vieja, evidence for blade production is limited. Blades appear to have largely been imported in finished form, and the few cores found at the site have bipolar smashing indicative of desperate attempts at scavenging usable scraps from exhausted cores. Other than manos and metates and prismatic blades, no other biface chipped stone tools nor ground stone tools such as axes have been recovered from Ciudad Vieja. The only exception, two chipped dart points found on the surface, might have been brought from Mexico by conquistadores mexicanos. European ceramics were imported to Ciudad Vieja, but European potting technology was not practiced there. Indigenous potters adopted a few Eurasian formal or aesthetic elements in a predominantly Mesoamerican ceramic assemblage, masking more systemic transformations in production and distribution reflecting broader social changes. This chapter briefly examines the types and contexts of the changes that do occur, leading to an overall picture of minimal technological transfer in the first generation or two of the Spanish conquest of Central America.
The Conqu est a nd the Ear ly Colon ia l Per iod The granting of the legal right to move San Salvador, as a ciudad, in 1545 is likely not coincidental to major changes in the 1540s that separate the conquest from the early colonial period in Central America (Sherman 1983). A major economic orientation of San Salvador had been slaving. At a minimum, thousands of slaves were captured by San Salvadoran vecinos (Barón Castro 1996:135–136, 150, 165–166, 187; Sherman 1979:49–50) for sale on the international market. Estimates of slaving during this period in Nicaragua range between 200,000 and 500,000 (Newson 1987:105). The inhabitants of San Salvador owned hundreds of slaves in 1545 (Barón Castro 1996:61; Lardé y Larín 2000:194; Sherman 1979:71, 73, 148), though this number was dwarfed by the thousands held by the recently deceased governor of the region, Pedro de Alvarado (Sherman 1979:71). The New Laws of 1542 outlawed indigenous
Technological and Cultural Change slavery (Kramer 1994:17), and the audiencia (colonial political and legal jurisdiction) of Guatemala under Alonso López de Cerrato started enforcing those laws in 1548. San Salvador owed much of its existence to military justifications, against both indigenous uprisings and incursions by rival Spaniards from Nicaragua. The Lempira revolt, put down in 1539 with the help of San Salvador (Chamberlain 1947:629, 1953:87), was the last significant indigenous uprising in the area. The era of open conflict between pirate-like conquistadors was coming to an end in Central America as military adventurers were replaced by appointed bureaucrats. Nicaraguan governor Pedrarias Dávila died in 1531 shortly after armed confrontation with Guatemala over control of San Salvador led to the foundation of San Miguel as a frontier post between the colonies (Argüello Argüello 1969:56). Pedro de Alvarado himself died 10 years later (Barón Castro 1996:191). The pattern of an initial few decades of violent conquest and brutal exploitation giving way to a bureaucratic order is found elsewhere in the Spanish empire (Dobyns 1980; Lockhart and Schwartz 1983). The increase in bureaucracy and the less openly violent and more ordered nature of the Spanish colonies after the passage of the New Laws of 1542, as well as increasing integration of indigenous communities and individuals into that system, greatly increases the amount of historical documentation in the later sixteenth century and continuing through the colonial period. These documents, especially those written in Spanish, are primarily bureaucratic in nature, providing information about matters of demography and economics. Historical research utilizing earlier documents has typically focused on reconstructing the prehispanic Mesoamerican world, or the military actions that assaulted that world. They describe a conquest period of demographic disaster (Lovell 1992, 1994; Newson 1986, 1987) exacerbated by wanton Spanish violence, exploitation, forced labor (Sherman 1979), and wasteful searches for precious metals or other quick-return economic schemes. The early colonial era begins with stabilization of policy by a growing bureaucracy, leading to booms and busts in cash crops such as cacao and indigo (Fowler 1987; Sampeck, this vol.), before Spaniards turned to agriculture, herding, and debt peonage as the economic and cultural backdrop for much of the remaining colonial period (MacLeod 1973:374–389). These events are part of the larger context of European colonialism and the creation of the Early Modern world
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(Gillen and Ghosh 2007). But there are two distinct situations here worthy of historical and archaeological periodization. While some archaeological efforts have been made to split the sixteenth century into an earlier and later period (Ewen 1991), many archaeological approaches to Spanish colonialism, particularly in urban environments with centuries of habitation before and after the sixteenth century, often have difficulty dividing an early colonial period into sections smaller than the first century after Spanish contact. With no military justification, and a necessary shift to more sustainable economic enterprises, the move away from the isolated location of Ciudad Vieja to the more richly endowed and more central Acelhuate Valley near the site of the former Pipil capital of Cuscatlán mirrors larger changes in Spanish Central America (MacLeod 1973:96–119). This move also would have been facilitated by the population collapse of indigenous populations caused by the cocoliztli epidemic, possibly identified as salmonella (Vågene et al. 2018), that swept down from Mexico to Central America from 1545 to 1548 with very high mortality in local populations (MacLeod 1973:19, 98). The formerly dense Pipil population of the Acelhuate Valley was reduced to the point that it was no longer an impediment to Spanish settlement. The period after the New Laws is also better known archaeologically in Central America. The cacao boom in particular brought not just wealth but global commodities (some useful as diagnostic ceramic markers) to small indigenous communities on the Pacific coast of Central America. As a result, this time period and region have received substantial archaeological attention since the 1990s including southern Mexico (Gasco 1992a, 1993, 2005a, 2005b, 2006; Zeitlin 2005; Zeitlin and Thomas 1997) and western El Salvador (Fowler 1991, 1993, 1995, 2006; Sampeck 2007, this vol.; Verhagen 1997). Other archaeological research on the longer colonial era has taken advantage of the implications of European or European-style ceramic markers as an index of changes in culture identity (Seifert 1977), economic integration (Smith 1997; Williams 1992), or socioeconomic status (Fournier García 1997b) for indigenous communities. This approach has also been applied to earlier parts of the sixteenth century, but on the eastern edge of the Spanish American empire, where access to imported goods was greater (Ewen 1991). Although imported goods are found in small quantities at cacao boomtowns in Central America, logistical issues made imports much scarcer on the
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Pacific coast (Blaisdell-Sloan 1999). This new world of a more economically integrated Central America, a source for global trade in cash crops, is by and large not the world of Ciudad Vieja.
Technology a nd Ch a nge in Sa n Sa lva dor Some new technologies or technical styles are found on a broad scale throughout Ciudad Vieja and are discussed immediately below. Others are found in isolated circumstances, or cannot be demonstrated as having had widespread influence in regard to adoption of new techniques and technologies. These are better thought of as being practiced by specific individuals and will be discussed as part of specific loci of technological practice.
Architecture Architectural techniques and designs constitute the most widespread evidence for European technical styles and technologies at Ciudad Vieja. The town was laid out on a grid pattern like other contemporary and later Spanish-American towns and cities (Figure 11.2; Fowler 2011a). The relationship of this plan to both Iberian and Mexican models is under debate (Fowler 2008, 2009:434– 438, 2011a:29–33, 2014; Low 1995; Wagner et al. 2013:41– 45). Small structures on the periphery of the site have been interpreted as guard posts on the basis of their location and their nondomestic associations (Hamilton 2009:247,
2011a) but have not been evaluated with an eye toward any specific European military or surveillance technology. Structure design is Spanish in nature at most buildings at the site. A number of structures have walls measuring roughly one vara in thickness, a Spanish measurement of 83–84 cm (Figure 11.3; Hamilton 2009:252). Thick, puddled adobe tapia walls are like those found at other Spanish colonial settlements (Gallardo Mejía 2004). Such walls were legally required in contemporary Spanish colonial settlements, along with tile roofs, as a precaution against fire (Argüello Argüello 1969:22, 40–44, 78; Markman 1966:25–26). One exception to this pattern is found at Structure 3D2, where adobe brick walls (rather than tapia) supported tile roofs and in turn were supported by Spanish-style foundations. In contrast, neither tiles nor thick wall foundations were part of Structure 2F1, the best case for an indigenous household at the site (Hamilton 2009:258, 2011b). Only eight small nails or tacks, smaller than those found elsewhere, were recovered from Structure 2F1, and these are considered by Hamilton (2009:363) to be a sign of low access to or limited use of Spanish goods. Alternatively, they may have suited the wattle-and-daub construction better. Fowler recovered a number of geometrically molded decorative bricks from excavations of Structure 4G1 in the eastern sector of the site in 2013 and 2014. Excavation and analysis of this structure are ongoing, but the bricks suggest a special-purpose structure of European design with decorative brick walls or other features (Fowler 2013; Fowler and Gallardo 2013:11) comparable to Mudejar (Muslim Spanish style) church architecture in Caluco,
Figure 11.3. Vara-wide foundation for tapia wall at Structure 6F4, Ciudad Vieja. Photo by Jeb J. Card.
Technological and Cultural Change western El Salvador (Fowler 1995; Verhagen 1997:158– 160), and elsewhere in the Spanish colonies (Giffords 2007:13; Markman 1966, 1968; McAndrew 1965). The bricks are specifically aplantillado (curved and stencilcut) bricks expected from an exterior façade (Verhagen 1997:158–159). This is the first documented use of brick for walls at Ciudad Vieja, in contrast to tapia or adobe blocks for walls, and the widespread use of brick tiles for roof and floor construction. At Ciudad Vieja, modeled and patterned brick marks special architectural attention along Spanish cultural lines. By contrast, King and Konwest (this vol.) find power and status associated with adobe bricks, an unusual technique in the Nejapa region of Oaxaca. Adobe construction has a long history in both domestic and monumental architecture in El Salvador, suggesting the type of imported architectural technique is less important than the importation itself. A striking Old World introduction to Mesoamerica, tejas (terra-cotta roof tiles) were heavily used in San Salvador judging from the vast quantities of fragments observed or recovered on the surface and in certain excavations. Not all structural spaces at Ciudad Vieja were roofed with tiles. Even some rooms that were part of Spanish-style compounds, for reasons of either cost or function, either had no roof or were roofed with thatch or other perishable material. Emplacement of overlapping tejas and periodic maintenance of roof tile requires at least some technical knowledge and skill. Roof tile itself is simple to produce with a wooden mold, a practice visible today at roadside household workshops near Ciudad Vieja and evident in impressions of wood grains on teja fragments at Ciudad Vieja. Comparative archaeological and architectural evidence (e.g., Markman 1966:288) suggests roof tiles were not common in sixteenth-century Central America, though in later times, they were imported from Europe as ship’s ballast. One possibility is that San Salvador used roof tiles more heavily as part of efforts in materially expressing and reinforcing Spanish identity. The abandonment of the villa of San Salvador suggests another possibility. Several excavations at Ciudad Vieja have uncovered evidence of tile-robbing from floors (see below), and no intact tile floors have been uncovered. In contrast, large dense areas of tile above and around structure foundations suggests that tile roofs fell intact in several parts of Ciudad Vieja. Ceramic evidence (Card 2013b) suggests that the site was occupied for a decade or more after the legal permission
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to transfer to the new city was granted. Roof tiles would be difficult to remove and would only be useful for new or substantially modified structures or to repair an existing tile roof. It seems unlikely that new structures would be built once the abandonment began. Tile floors could be more easily removed and more easily installed into any sort of structure or even external area, without any previous experience. Floor tiles were likely repurposed within the site until perhaps 1570, while tile roofs were left to collapse. Of the countless tile fragments encountered at Ciudad Vieja, only one, from Structure 3D2, has a lead glaze. It is not impossible that the fragment has a nineteenth- or twentieth-century origin as sporadic bits of much later intrusive material have been recovered in low quantities near the surface of excavations at Ciudad Vieja. An ephemeral nineteenth-century use of the site for sugar processing is suggested by the recovery (mostly from the surface) of Telesforo Brown griddles and heavy-handled kettles and other utilitarian forms (Card 2007:583–588). If the glazed tile is early colonial, it may be a lone fragment from a roof that was packed up and shipped to the new San Salvador and may have been imported. Other architectural elements were taken from the villa of San Salvador and used elsewhere, such as carved stone column bases moved to the later nearby Hacienda la Bermuda. If the glazed roof tile was not imported, this single fragment is the only evidence for lead glazing of ceramics at the site. Some thin-walled, red paste, lead-glazed, coarse earthenwares are found at the site, but these cannot be easily chronologically identified other than as being post1528, and as with the later earthenware type Telesforo, are better represented in surface collection than excavation (Card 2007:588–590). More conclusive evidence for tile reuse comes from the floor of Structure 3D1 (Fowler 2011b). This is not unusual at the site, and in some loci we have found stacks of tiles near matching fitted patterns of soil stains (Hamilton 2009:139–140, 210–211). The more interesting Structure 3D1 tile-robbing context (smaller tiles were also robbed from the structure) may point to a high-value architectural feature. The tile floor at Structure 3D1 consists of stains larger (40 × 60 cm) than those found as either stains or actual baldosa (floor tiles typically ranging from 20 × 40 cm to 42 × 42 cm) elsewhere at Ciudad Vieja. The stains alternate in color, swapping the light-brown standard soil color at Ciudad Vieja and a reddish color in a
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checkerboard pattern. Differential leaching, either from these tiles or through them, would suggest different sets of tile clay or glaze coating. While no tiles were recovered from this feature, a handful of bright-green, tin-glazed, fine white-paste tiles have been found in surface contexts, again limiting their chronological usefulness.
Ceramic Changes Other than architecture, ceramics are the most ubiquitous material culture at Ciudad Vieja, and while they display changes in both style and manufacturing technique due to early colonial transformations, there is no significant evidence of technological transfer. Pottery at Ciudad Vieja was produced on-site in Mesoamerican fashion (coil or slab / open-mold constructed, no wheel, no glaze), imported from other parts of Mesoamerica, or produced with Spanish techniques and technologies in Spain or possibly other colonies such as Mexico. Imported Spanish ceramics make up only a small percentage (1.7) of the Ciudad Vieja ceramic assemblage, the vast majority of these being utilitarian transport olive jars, referred to by Pasinski and Fournier García (2014) as the “Ibero-American shipping container.” Part of this minimal presence of European ceramics may be due to the location of Ciudad Vieja on the Pacific side of Central America, where other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sites also have small amounts of imported ceramics due to logistical difficulties and distance from European sources (Blaisdell-Sloan 1999). But the proportion of European ceramics at Ciudad Vieja is lower than that found at any other documented Spanish colonial settlement (Card 2007:Table 8.7) with the exception of materials from Mixtec palaces in rural Oaxaca, which show minimal change after the Spanish invasion (Lind 1987:98). Ciudad Vieja’s early date is likely part of the reason for this low frequency, but the socioeconomic makeup of the town must also be considered. Other sites in the Spanish empire with low proportions of European ceramics and other goods are typically not cities inhabited by large numbers of Spaniards but rural indigenous villages and mission sites, such as Fig Springs, Florida (Weisman 1992); the rural villages of the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico (Seifert 1977); El Yayal, Cuba (Domínguez 1984:Table 2, Table 15); Yucuita, Mexico (Lind 1987); Ocelocalco, Mexico (Gasco 1992a; Zeitlin and Thomas 1997); Osumacinta, Mexico (Gasco 2005a:92); and Caluco, El Salvador (Verhagen 1997:Table C6, 650–652). These settlements may provide a good
comparison with San Salvador, home to a large number of conquistadores mexicanos and presumably many indigenous Pipils and serving as a temporary base of operations for many of its Spanish vecinos. The Ciudad Vieja ceramic assemblage does not appear to have any glazed pottery made locally or involving Mesoamerican vessel production. In 2013, a farmer living just outside of the national park area of Ciudad Vieja uncovered an unglazed, wheel-thrown Early Style olive jar, unusual for Ciudad Vieja in being nearly intact. Initial visual inspection of the larger-grained paste, the unusual manner of construction (see below), and high density of large inclusions led to suggestions that the vessel might be an example of a locally produced wheel-thrown vessel inferior in quality to those of Seville. However, subsequent comparison with other jar fragments suggests that this vessel may simply have inclusions on the larger end of the spectrum found in other examples of Sevillian shipping containers. The manufacturing technique (joining two laterally thrown vertical halves into a single vessel) is somewhat more surprising. Future sourcing analysis may be worthwhile, but at the moment the vessel is not evidence of technology transfer. The bulk of the pottery used in San Salvador fits into Postclassic and early colonial design canons found at archaeological sites in southeastern Guatemala and western El Salvador linked ethnohistorically to the Nahuatlspeaking Pipils, though some of the Guatemala sites may be related to Xinca speakers as well as Pipils. These in turn may be tied to Coyotlatelco (Bernal 1948:52; Cobean and Mastache Flores 2001) and several other Red-on-Buff ceramics from the Early Postclassic Tollan complex in central Mexico (Cobean 1990; Mastache et al. 2002:46– 48), especially in light of the issue of Pipil migration to Central America (Fowler 1989:42–46). The painted designs on bowls, jars, and plates are geometric Red-onBuff. This is in keeping with Postclassic aesthetics at Pipil sites (Beaudry 1983:175–176; Estrada-Belli 1999:101–102, 134, Figure 28; Haberland 1964; Kosakowsky et al. 2000; Sampeck 2007:399–402). As in central Mexico (Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.), glossy, red-slipped serving vessels were part of the Late Postclassic ceramic industry in El Salvador. They persist into the early colonial period, and do appear to have been the subject of more aesthetic experimentation than the geometric Redon-Buff ceramics, such as the addition of “pie-crust” rims derived from European wares but not found on other Ciudad Vieja indigenous ceramics.
Technological and Cultural Change The introduction of new pottery traditions into this region from Mexico in the Postclassic does not represent the introduction of new technologies. Furthermore, while the Nahua migrations to the southeast resulting in the formation of Pipil and Nicarao societies (Fowler 1989) likely coincided with these changes in material culture (as well as others in architectural and religious practices), the geographical pattern is strongly reminiscent of Early Classic interaction between central Mexico and this region of Central America. Evidence for an attempted Teotihuacan hegemony can be found in elite goods, monuments, and historical texts at a number of sites in the Maya Lowlands, at Kaminaljuyu, and at Chalchuapa, but southern Guatemala in particular shows evidence of more ground-level changes and perhaps foreign colonization, in the form of Teotihuacan-style candeleros (incense burners) and theater censers (Bove and Medrano Busto 2003). The sixteenth-century conquistadores mexicanos and the Pipils were part of a long line of Mexican interaction with and intrusion into this region (Matthew 2012:13–38). Several aspects or changes in Ciudad Vieja pottery may be attributed to the broader Spanish invasion or to local social changes during the occupation. No fragments of molcajetes (grater bowls) have been recovered from the site. It is possible that chiles and other materials ground in such bowls could have been processed on stone metates (Farga and Inés Loredo 1993:82), but molcajetes are part of Postclassic assemblages in El Salvador and elsewhere (Amaroli 1992:Figure 7b; Card 2007:474–475) even if in small numbers (Verhagen 1997:271–276). Their absence may reflect possible European concerns over the chile and tomato (Long Towell 1996:172, 176–177). There is only one clear example of a figural image on indigenous Ciudad Vieja pottery. Painted designs on ceramics at likely Pipil sites in Postclassic Guatemala and El Salvador are primarily geometric Red-on-Cream, Redon-White, or as at Ciudad Vieja, Red-on-Buff and do not heavily feature figural representations. Tripod bowl supports at various Pipil sites in El Salvador, including Ciudad Vieja, are historically derived from representations of bird heads but by the sixteenth century are stylized and no longer significantly zoomorphic. The removal of certain figural images from the ceramic production canon is a phenomenon seen in Aztec IV pottery in colonial central Mexico (Charlton et al. 1995) and in the Mixteca (Lind 1987:27, 107), possibly tied to concerns over “idol-worship” (García-Arevalo 1990:270, 276) or symbols of political significance. The issues of separating
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prehispanic- and conquest-era ceramics are particularly acute in regard to this topic, as some researchers use the inclusion of European traits to identify pottery as colonial (when we know from other contexts that much of early colonial pottery was similar to late prehispanic materials), so the exact nature of decorated ceramics in the first decades of the conquest is difficult to discuss (Hernández Sánchez 2012:122). The simplification and stylizing of Red-on-Buff supports from a more zoomorphic form may have occurred within the Pipil tradition in the Late Postclassic. It is also possible that a colonial minimization of indigenous figural imagery may be at play here, as Red-on-Buff pottery with these kinds of supports are typically found either in early colonial sites such as Ciudad Vieja, or in contexts that are difficult to separate into Late Postclassic versus early colonial and are thus protohistoric (Amaroli 1992; Sampeck 2007:399–400). Some of the quasi-zoomorphic supports at other sites in El Salvador have slightly more figural modeled elements not found at Ciudad Vieja (Amaroli 1992:Figure 5), including some from Joya de Ceren (examined by authors, June 2014). The one indigenous Mesoamerican depiction of figural imagery is what may be a feline-inspired foot support for a vessel, from Structure 4E1. The completely reduced nature of this single fragment does not lend itself to easy identification. Its discovery among other sixteenth-century materials suggests a colonial date, though the same could be said for a handful of diagnostically Terminal Classic or Early Postclassic Plumbate fragments also found in otherwise colonial contexts, including a Plumbate feline effigy vessel fragment. Animal effigy supports would be expected on the Late Postclassic Oaxacan bowls that resemble Gutierrez Polished Gray (Markens 2004:269), and at least one Gutierrez bowl at Ciudad Vieja was a tripod, but no supports from this type have yet been recovered at the site, so their form remains a mystery. Other examples of figural imagery at the site are indicative of the Spanish conquest. A handful of fragments of European-style clay figurines, similar to those documented by Cynthia Otis Charlton for Mexico City (Charlton et al. 2005:62; Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.; Otis Charlton 1995), have been recovered at the site (Figure 11.4). Bowls were partially supplanted by plates with Morisco (an older style derived from ceramics made by Spanish Muslim potters) and especially wide-brimmed Italianate Spanish forms. These are largely identical in construction technology to bowls and other pottery at Ciudad Vieja
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Figure 11.4. European-style figurine fragments from Ciudad Vieja. Photo by Jeb J. Card.
but closely follow developments in the forms found in imported majolica ceramics with minimal “colonial lag.” Card (2013b) has conducted substantial study of these and is currently engaged in a project of three-dimensional documentation of these forms (Card et al. 2013). While these vessels have proved important for understanding Ciudad Vieja in several ways, and are an important data set for understanding material culture changes in the colonial era including discussions of “colonoware,” they do not reflect technological changes or adoptions, but rather stylistic changes. As with all the ceramics at the site that are not clear Spanish imports, these plates are not wheel thrown, they are not glazed, and with redgeometric designs dating back to the Early Postclassic and found on bowls and water jugs, they are aesthetically in the Pipil pottery tradition (Figure 11.5). Plates correlate inversely with use of bowls and are found in lesser quantities in locations with strong examples of Spanish architectural style and greater use of imported Spanish goods. This may support the “scarcity” or market-based model of indigenous wares being modified to fit Spanish tastes (Charlton and Fournier García 2010:132–135; Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.; Vernon 1988:79), although as the case of Red Ware in central Mexico shows, even a market-based explanation can include a complicated interplay of new and old identities and material culture syncretism (Charlton and Fournier García 2010:144–148). Consumption of such plates was lower in the wealthiest Spanish households that likely would have successfully obtained and then presumably curated expensive Spanish majolica in the move to modern San Salvador starting in the mid-1540s. The creation of local plates was likely for logistical reasons and Spanish colonial market desires, but the subsequent adoption of
these plates, including in indigenous homes, was stylistic and not technological adoption. The other significant change in pottery at the site is the homogenization of production techniques during the latter part of the occupation. Several households appear to be centers of localized production and consumption of pottery with distinctive individual potting styles dominating the ceramic assemblages of lower levels in stratified deposits. These microstyles, marked by tempering or surface treatment techniques primarily or exclusively found at specific locations, may be evidence of individual potters. These potters were working within the regional Pipil tradition, but the microstyles may either be idiosyncratic style or may reflect that the first generation of San Salvador inhabitants came from other communities. These microstyles occur less frequently in the upper layers of most stratified deposits in which they are found. This pattern likely marks generational change related to new identities and social networks. A second generation of potters born in San Salvador would interact with peers as well as parents, reflected in more similarities in pottery production techniques (Card 2007:529–544). This modification of social networks and crafting practice is not a technological change directly related to European influence.
Locations of Technologica l Ch a nge a n d Contin u it y Technological transfer within the first two generations of Spanish and mexicano occupation at Ciudad Vieja includes architectural materials and designs and the work of a handful of Spanish craftsmen, notably ironworkers.
Figure 11.5. Red-on-Buff designs on Italianate plates and cantaros, Ciudad Vieja. Design by Jeb J. Card, including illustrations by Francisco Galdamez and photos by Jeb J. Card.
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Given the importance of individual agents bearing technologies or skills rather than more diffuse transfer of technological traits, an examination of specific loci is in order.
Structure 6F4 The partially excavated Structure 6F4 comprises a kitchen, an adjacent room, a section of a third room, and a trash midden on the inner side of the exterior wall of the solar, a Spanish-defined house lot (Figure 11.6; Card 2011). In the midden, fragments of what appear to be thin copper sheets may represent Mesoamerican metallurgy. Copper sheets are described in Oaxaca by King and Konwest
(this vol.). While the majority of pottery and other artifacts in the midden are colonial in era, including pig bones and what may be a cow bone (Scott 2011) as well as colonial-era plates, a few fragments of Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic ceramics were recovered in this location. The possibility of earlier copper mixed into the garbage cannot be ruled out, but the vast majority of the material here is from the sixteenth century. This midden and the nearby room (likely ruling out the explanation of Terminal Classic intrusion) also provide evidence of chipped stone working and Mesoamerican lapidary, including fragments of greenstone and an undrilled greenstone bead (Figure 11.7), as well as what may be ceramic earspool
Figure 11.6. Structure 6F4, Ciudad Vieja. Map by Francisco Galdamez and Jeb J. Card.
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Figure 11.7. Undrilled greenstone bead and fragments of greenstone, Structure 6F4, Ciudad Vieja. Photo by Jeb J. Card.
fragments. Greenstone artifacts have been recovered in the survey of the Río Ceniza valley in western El Salvador, consisting of a handful of celts used as tools and one subspherical bead from a mixed Postclassic / colonial context (Sampeck 2007:732–734). The midden yielded pig bones as well as a variety of local aquatic, terrestrial, and avian food species. This is the only significant faunal assemblage found in the acidic soils of Ciudad Vieja, its preservation likely due to a deposit of fire ashes and cinders that neutralized the soil acidity. Two dog bones—one with a butchering mark— were recovered here, suggestive of Mesoamerican culinary practices (Scott 2011). Pigs, a routine part of Spanish entradas, can be considered an imported European technology. A single cattle bone, based on its condition, may be from much more recent use of the site and not the sixteenth century. The kitchen provides the best evidence for Mesoamerican food production techniques at Ciudad Vieja. A metate appears to have been left in place and shattered upon falling from its place on horquetas (wooden supports for elevated metates), suggesting a dedicated location for corn grinding. A mano was found leaning on-end alongside the north interior wall not far from the shattered metate. The presence of horquetas is supported by channels formed on the bottom of the metate by projecting pegs and by a line of small pebble-lined postholes in this room. Based on the spacing of the postholes, two metates may have been employed here. A burned patch of earth suggests open-hearth cooking, in contrast with small enclosed ovens found at Structure 6F3 (Fowler et al. 2011) and Structure 8E1 (Hamilton 2009:203–204). Large fragments of cooking bowls were found stacked in one corner
of the room. Both obsidian blades and an iron knife blade were recovered from this room. This area compares well with the kitchen in Structure 11 at Classic period Joya de Ceren (Beaudry-Corbett et al. 2002:51–53) and in modern highland Guatemalan kitchens (Searcy 2011:115–119). The Structure 6F4 solar may also have been a site of pottery production and distribution. A distinctive form of streaky burnishing known as the Peñacorba mode (Card 2007:169–172, 531–534) is substantially represented at Structure 6F4 in lower levels, although ongoing analysis of materials from Structure 4E1 has also documented this production mode. This pottery includes Italianate plate forms, but as with virtually all other pottery at Ciudad Vieja, it does not incorporate European ceramic technology (glaze, wheel throwing). The form and surface treatment of this mode is related to pottery found in other parts of western and central El Salvador (Amaroli 1992:4–5; Beaudry 1983:175; Sharer 1978:64–65). It likely represents the work of a single potter or workshop, perhaps someone who moved from a community where this was a common surface finishing technique. Overall, this pattern might suggest the presence of a craftworker skilled in Mesoamerican finery and using materials and techniques of no significant interest to Spaniards. The presence of jade fragments might suggest lapidary crafting while copper sheets and earspools suggest a concern for other Mesoamerican status symbols, even if they were not produced in Structure 6F4. Mesoamerican cooking technology was practiced in the kitchen, though a metal knife was also used. This household may also have been a site of Mesoamerican-style pottery production, particularly demonstrating a specific Late Postclassic western El Salvadoran finishing technique. During
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the colonial occupation, ceramic production here became more homogeneous with production elsewhere on-site (Card 2007:529–544).
Structure 2F1 Structure 2F1 is the best candidate for an indigenous-led household (Hamilton 2009:258). This small structure is located on the southeastern edge of the site and was constructed of wattle and daub supported by a foundation comprised of a single course of unfaced boulders. The exterior of the structure features rounded corners, and there are no interior divisions. Like Structure 6F4, this structure may be a locus of pottery production and provides evidence of textile production with spindle whorls. Pottery production and consumption here included Italianate plate forms, but otherwise the material culture is predominantly non-Hispanic.
Structure 6F2 This structure was an iron forge, demonstrated by baked earth forming remnants of the working area and a subterranean channel for the venting of hot gasses. The structure is also marked by the presence of iron slag refuse and carbonized wood and numerous finished iron objects including a section of a horse bit (Fowler 2011c). The three rooms of 6F2 were filled with ceramics similar in type and form to the site as a whole, suggesting this location became a trash dump during the site’s occupation (Card 2007:500).
Structure 3D2 Structure 3D2 was centrally located south of the town’s main plaza, in a prime location for market access. It was home to an iron forge (Fowler 2011d) and a tavern (Card 2007:482–499; Card and Fowler 2012). The iron forge is identified by the presence of discarded iron slag, an open earthen channel for quenching alongside possible remnants of a wooden barrel, and the presence of charcoal and ash throughout the structure’s open areas. A centrally located forge presumably served travelers as well as locals. It operated alongside an extremely European cultural location, a tavern. Food production appears commercial in scale here and was executed and served in Mesoamerican vessels. Interestingly, this location used more olive
jars than in other locales, suggesting either sale of contents wholesale or use of contents (wine, olive oil, or other imported delicacies) specifically aimed at Spanish tastes. The latter interpretation is supported by the discovery of a Venetian wine goblet, the only colonial glass identified at the site. Wine was a distinctly marked aspect of Spanish taverns in Central America, explaining the goblet’s presence.
Ov erv iew of Ciu da d V ieja Technologica l Tr a nsfer During the conquest period, San Salvador saw minimal transfer of European technologies or technical styles. What technological change occurred was imported in units either as finished products or as local practices by individual Spanish colonial settlers legally required to practice any useful craft skills they possessed (Barón Castro 1996:133). If these settlers were conduits for technological transfer to indigenous or African populations in Central America, it is not evident in the archaeological record of Ciudad Vieja. Architectural techniques and layout are strongly in a European mold. Roof tile is the most obvious new architectural technique and would require some technical knowledge to emplace and repair. Not all Spanish-style structural spaces employed roof tile, either for reasons of function or cost. The best case for an indigenous house on site (Structure 2F1), in addition to having minimal iron products, used wattle-and-daub and thatch architecture, with decidedly different wall foundations. Discovery of stencil-cut decorative brick at Structure 4G1 may indicate special-purpose, larger scale European architecture, likely Iberian Mudejar religious architecture. Ironworking is the most obvious technological introduction at Ciudad Vieja. It occurred in buildings with Spanish-style architecture, in one case alongside a strongly European cultural institution (a tavern) in the center of town, although this area is also a production center for Pipil-style pottery. Iron products, especially nails, are found at most structures at the site but are smaller and rarer at the most indigenous-seeming household (Structure 2F1). Thin copper sheets from another operation (Structure 6F4) are more suggestive of Postclassic metallurgy than of European technology. This latter context consumed iron products but was also the site of possible
Technological and Cultural Change greenstone working and use of Mesoamerican adornments, raising the possibility that the copper may also be part of a Mesoamerican adornment tradition. The midden from the same context contained pig and perhaps cattle bone, imported species perhaps best considered a technology. These are mixed with Mesoamerican foodstuffs including jute (freshwater Pachychilus snail) shells with spires broken as they had been for centuries in Mesoamerica (Healy et al. 1990:174–175) and a butchered dog bone, a documented Mesoamerican practice but not normative in Spain. In addition to pigs and iron knives, small, enclosed, beehive-shaped earthen ovens have been found in two locations. These are part of a long line of Old World ovens (Adamson 2004:2; Symons 2000:74–76), including Spanish colonial culinary equipment (Laudan 2013:191). They do raise the possibility of baking flatbread. The situation is almost the reverse of that at the first Spanish colonial settlement in the Americas 30 years earlier at La Isabela. There, Spanish historical documents complain of foodstuffs while simultaneously praising the abundance of the land, but the archaeological record is comparable with that of contemporary sites in Spain. One similarity is the adaptive success of pigs, a phenomenon repeated in other Spanish entradas. The larger issue appears to be cultural tastes, matched at La Isabela by production of European-style pottery. In contrast, European-style pottery is limited at Ciudad Vieja to a handful of imports and local brimmed plates potentially used more extensively by indigenous households (Deagan and Cruxent 2002b:132–147). There is little to no evidence of production of ceramics with European technology. European-style ceramics appear in small numbers as imports in well-known styles produced in Spain. The vast majority of the pottery at the site is neither glazed nor wheel thrown, and with the exception of one roof tile and perhaps some floor tile, all glazed and wheel-thrown ceramics appear to be imports from Spain. There is no evidence for kiln technology being transferred to indigenous ceramic firing in San Salvador, though it is one possible explanation for one kind of ceramic production technique at Ciudad Vieja. One of the three idiosyncratic household production microstyles, the Figueroa mode found mostly in and around Structures 3D1 and 3D2, is identified by a harder texture than other indigenous ceramics at Ciudad Vieja. This may be produced by higher firing temperatures, a phenomenon seen later in the colonial period in western
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El Salvador (Sampeck 2007:384) and nearby northwestern Honduras (Wonderley 1984:70), and perhaps comparable to more fully oxidized pastes in Tehuantepec (Zeitlin and Thomas 1997). But intensive burnishing may also have produced this texture, a technique demonstrated in other precontact ceramic wares in western El Salvador (Sharer 1978:78–79), and one demonstrated by a similar texture on the intensive if spottily burnished Peñacorba ceramic microstyle found only at Structure 6F4 at the site. Kiln firing is not necessarily detectable visually, as in the case of Peruvian ceramics retooled to take advantage of European kiln technologies yet producing ceramics visually identical to prehispanic wares (Chatfield 2013). Technical style is matched by aesthetic style, which is entirely Mesoamerican and Pipil with the exception of brimmed-plate forms adopted from scarce high-value majolica plates imported to the site. One lead-glazed roof tile might have been produced at the site, but more likely was imported. With this one exception, glazed tile was carefully curated and taken to the new settlement of San Salvador, or perhaps repurposed soon after abandonment, before house structures were dismantled or collapsed through natural decay or fire. Similarly, most floor tile appears to be locally mass-produced, but some tinglazed floor tile fragments at the site (recovered in surface or preliminary survey, not significant excavation) and one location with patterned tile point to import of luxury architectural elements. The one detected technical change in the pottery, a transition from microstyles to a site-wide production mode, likely reflects intra-indigenous changes with no technological input from non-indigenous sources. This experimentation in crafting is likely generational in nature and has ramifications for indigenous identity (Card 2007:529–544). These changes reflect the complex displacement and migration of Mesoamericans and other people during the earliest decades of the Spanish conquest of Central America, including the substantial colonial movement of central Mexicans and others throughout the region as documented in historical records (Matthew and Oudijk 2007). These transformations toward homogeneity and “internationalism” have important ramifications for indigenous identities such as micropatriotism giving way to a new identity as mexicanos (Matthew 2004, 2012) and are intriguing in light of the narrative of “the vanishing Pipil” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Tilley (2005) has found that there is a long history
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of claiming that the Pipils had vanished from El Salvador. The repeated “vanishings” suggest a long-term, “wishful” narrative on the part of ladino society for indigenous erasure. Tilley contrasts the Pipil case with the more obvious persistence and micropatriotism of indigenous groups in Guatemala. The potential development in the sixteenth century of a non-location-focused but also indigenous identity suggests something apart from both erasure and apparent uninterrupted continuity.
Technologica l a nd Cu ltu r a l Ch a nge in the Conqu est v ersus the Ea r ly Colon ia l Per iod The overall picture of the first period of the Spanish colonial era in San Salvador is not one of technological transfer but of individual movement and deployment of technology from one’s original cultural context, be it a Mesoamerican jadeworker or a Spanish blacksmith. This emphasis on intensity of Spanish occupation and limited technological or cultural transfer can be compared with evidence from Mexico, the scene of much of the historical and archaeological work on the early colonial period in Mesoamerica. Ethnohistorian James Lockhart (1992:427– 436) created a three-stage model of linguistic and cultural change among the colonial Nahuas of central Mexico, based on degree of interaction with Spaniards and signaled by adoption of loan words and changes to grammar and language structure in Nahua documents. This model has been adapted as a gauge of differences between colonial experiences of different parts of Mesoamerica (Terraciano 2001:356–359) and the Andes (Lockhart 1998). Lockhart found minimal change in Nahuatl, beyond bare minimum Christianization, from 1519–1550 in central Mexico. This Stage 1 is characterized as being a period of minimal to no interaction, with an economy based on tribute and the encomienda system. Stage 2 lasts approximately a century and is marked by contact through institutions and intermediaries, as well as the repartimiento system. It is only with Stage 3 that true bilingualism and more general interchange emerges, continuing to the present (Lockhart 1998:33–36). While this model, based on linguistic adoption, may suggest acculturation, much of the New Philological ethnohistorical approach (Restall and Kellogg 1998:5–6) instead highlights continuity. Lockhart and other scholars have taken advantage of the litigious nature of Early
Modern Spanish culture and the enthusiasm with which Mesoamericans adapted tools of the Spanish legal system (Lockhart 1992:176), an unsurprising development in a region where elites had used writing to advance their interests for nearly two millennia (Restall et al. 2005:11–13). Alphabetic documents created in indigenous languages for Mesoamerican elites (Haskett 1991:6) began appearing in the middle of the sixteenth century, were more common after 1600, and declined in different parts of Mesoamerica at different times ranging from 1610 in central Mexico to 1820 in Yucatán (Restall et al. 2005:15–16). These documents are believed in many cases to incorporate the style and content of contact-era and prehispanic Mesoamerican documents (e.g., Haskett 1991:4–6; Restall 1998:57–58). Such documents can be excellent examples of the longue durée approach to colonialism as discussed by Silliman (2012). The authors or patrons of these documents may have at times consciously downplayed colonial disruptions, as many were dependent on ancestral claims to privileges (Restall 1997:34) granted during the conquest or deriving from the prehispanic era. In at least one case, such documents erased or invented events regarding local indigenous rulers, conquistadores mexicanos, and their cooperation with Spanish authorities (Zeitlin 2005:91–96, 101–102). This echoes the concerns of Silliman (2012) of downplaying colonialism through a focus on a “contact” period, something to keep in mind in regard to Lockhart’s Stage 1. Further, Lockhart’s stages of contact need to also take context into consideration. Stage 1 among the Nahua lasts from 1519 to 1550, hardly a period with no significant interaction between Spaniards and Mesoamericans, but perhaps most strongly felt in urban areas, with the encomienda system continuing prehispanic tribute obligations through a small group of intermediaries. We would expect a model based on these documents to bias toward elite concerns, even when these aligned with community interests (Restall 1997:231), and toward continuity. Whether technological or other cultural transfer is viewed through the lens of acculturation, creative syncretic experimentation, or as hybrid subversive appropriation (Liebmann 2013; Silliman 2013), we would not expect it to be well reflected in such a conservative format. This stands in contrast with the creative remixing of Spanish metallurgical and ceramic technologies found elsewhere and / or later, such as the creation of lead-glazed and painted Indígena Ware in Mexico. European potters were active in Mexico City soon after the conquest, and by the middle of the sixteenth century, indigenous Mexican
Technological and Cultural Change potters were glazing with lead (Gámez Martínez 2003:231– 232; Hernández Sánchez 2012:101–104, 107–108, 117–119). In some cases, this technique was applied to vessels with Mesoamerican decorative motifs (Rodríguez-Alegría 2002:226–227), while in the case of Indígena Ware, Mexican potters modified their designs to simulate majolica by lead glazing over sgraffito-incised and painted surfaces (Fournier García and Blackman 2008; Fournier García et al. 2007; Iñañez et al. 2010; Lister and Lister 1982:34–37). Other examples include the blending of lead-glazing and other technologies with traditional indigenous ceramic technical styles or meanings, such as the lead glazing of a ladle censer in late sixteenth-century Antigua, Guatemala (Luján Muñoz 1975:12, Figure 5), the exploitation of kiln technology to produce prehispanic-style vessels in Peru (Chatfield 2013), or lead-glazed stirrup spout vessels with Andean and European imagery in Peru (Donnan 1992:116–117). The importance of interaction with Spaniards in Lockhart’s model and in the case of Mexican potters fits an archaeological model of the colonial period in central Mexico, one that emphasizes the importance of the presence of Spaniards and their contact with Mesoamericans (Charlton and Fournier García 1993; Fournier García and Otis Charlton this vol.). “Site-units,” Spanish (or other non-indigenous) intensive sites or urban districts, are particularly important in the case of Ciudad Vieja and likely in the initial conquest period generally, with urban centers the most intensive points of cultural contact and change (Charlton 1986; Charlton et al. 2005:60–62). “Trait-units” would by contrast be elements or complexes derived from a foreign cultural or technological source but found outside of that context (such as lead glazing in Nahua pottery workshops). The archaeological model found in the Basin of Mexico would suggest the earliest phases of the colonial era, or what we may consider the conquest period, to show initial presence of Spanish and other non-indigenous site-unit intrusions into otherwise primarily continuous indigenous cultural contexts. More recent research demonstrates that even in these “Spanish” site-units, Mesoamerican material culture and trait-units were more pervasive than once thought and were valued in their own right by Spanish and other colonial settlers (Charlton and Fournier García 2010; Charlton et al. 2005; RodríguezAlegría 2002, 2005a, 2005b). In more rural communities, indigenous elites mediated (Charlton 1986:124–127) between Spanish authorities and their communities, producing some experimentation with Spanish culture and
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technology, but resulting in slower culture change and greater Mesoamerican continuity (Charlton and Nichols 1992) with the exception of the influence of rural Spanish site-units such as churches, ranches, and mines (Charlton 1986; Charlton and Fournier García 1993). The archaeological evidence from Ciudad Vieja supports the Mesoamerican continuity and the importance of interaction with Spaniards found in both the ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence from Mexico. We suggest this is due to early dates of Ciudad Vieja, in what can be considered an initial conquest period in contrast with the later early colonial period (as demonstrated by differences between the archaeological record of 1528–1560 Ciudad Vieja vs. nearby Caluco and the Río Ceniza sites of the late sixteenth and early to mid-seventeenth centuries), as well as the importance of the San Salvador conquistadores mexicanos (many of whom presumably spoke Nahuatl) in limiting direct contact between Spaniards and the indigenous Nahautl-speaking Pipils. Both utilitarian and symbolically important technologies from Mesoamerica and Europe are present in the archaeological record of Ciudad Vieja, but they appear to be tied to individuals (agents who we may consider small-scale site-units) who brought such items and skills with them in settling San Salvador. Some products of these technologies appear to have crossed “boundaries” (use of obsidian and iron blades to process food, including both Mesoamerican and European faunal species, in the metate-equipped Structure 6F4 kitchen) as end-user products, not as new crafting techniques. The Ciudad Vieja archaeological record does not demonstrate efforts by Spaniards to teach these technologies or efforts by Mesoamericans to hack these technologies for their own ends, in contrast with Indígena Ware. This pattern resembles less the urban center of Mexico City than it does the rural villages of central Mexico (see Fournier García and Otis Charlton, this vol.), or for that matter later El Salvador. Despite the (fluctuating) presence of Spaniards, and the political and economic role of San Salvador for Spanish imperial infrastructure, the presence of conquistadores mexicanos and the conquered Pipil tributary populace would have made San Salvador a nearly Mesoamerican community. The Spanish nature of the town’s layout and architecture would suggest Deagan’s (1995:450–455) “colonial culture” model, the blending of various traits from donor cultures along lines of gender and power. In the longer term, this model may apply, but in the earliest part of the colonial period represented by
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conquest period Ciudad Vieja, indigenous architecture exists (albeit less prominently) alongside Spanish. Spanish and Mesoamerican food and food processing technology was found in both domestic and public commercial contexts, and symbolic representations or display could be found (though Mesoamerican display was curtailed from overt political or religious symbolism). As seen in the ethnohistorical record, including the efforts by the mexicanos of Guatemala to preserve their identity-based privileges (Matthew 2004, 2012), overt identity was not changing dramatically with regard to the material record this early in the colonial era. Yet, subtle shifts in Mesoamerican-style ceramic production (Card 2007:529– 544) were signaling the collapsing of identity into what would eventually be called “indio.” A similar pattern can be seen in early colonial Peru, where increasing biological homogeneity in a Muchik community does not represent European-American blending to create a new racial category, or mestizaje, but the breakdown of prehispanic identities and boundaries (Klaus 2013). Lightfoot
(2005:213–216) emphasizes the importance of interethnic unions and resettlement (among other variables) in terms of cultural change in colonial societies. In the large urban societies of Mesoamerica and the Andes, especially after extensive resettlement began, this is not beginning a mestizaje melting pot but the racial hierarchy of the casta system that still drives conflict in Central America, suggesting as Silliman (2006) does that scholars of colonialism should be making greater comparisons between the development of African America and the development of Latin America. Most post-1519 archaeological sites in Mesoamerica are difficult to divide chronologically into phases smaller than a century. The narrow slice of time represented at Ciudad Vieja, and the distinct lack of technological and cultural transfer found there, suggests that if such a division were possible elsewhere, a conquest period of substantial political upheaval and economic interchange with Europe but minimal cultural change could likely be discerned.
European Technology and Native Traditions in Mesoamerican History A Commentary
A n t h o n y P. A n d r e w s
to the twentieth century. The geographic range spreads from central Mexico and Veracruz, to Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Yucatán in southern Mexico, to Belize and El Salvador in Central America. Interestingly, there are no chapters on Guatemala. Half of the studies focus on areas of western Mesoamerica, and half on the Maya area of eastern Mesoamerica. There is also a good balance between highland and lowland regions. The scope of the time periods varies considerably; some studies focus on very limited time periods, such as the study of the contact period settlement of Ciudad Vieja in El Salvador, by Jeb J. Card and William R. Fowler Jr. (chapter 11), or the nineteenth and / or twentieth centuries, which include a study of the nineteenth-century sugar mill of Lamanai by Tracie Mayfield, Elizabeth Graham, and David Pendergast (chapter 9) and Héctor Hernández Álvarez’s investigation of a henequen plantation of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Yucatán (chapter 8). Other chapters trace the evolution of technologies across centuries, such as Mario A. Castillo and Janine Gasco’s study of the impact of shifting technology on the landscape of the Soconusco coast of Chiapas (chapter 6), Rani T. Alexander and Nina Williams’s examination of the evolution of water technology in Yucatán (chapter 7), and Kathryn E. Sampeck’s history of the indigo industry of El Salvador (chapter 10). Krista L. Eschbach (chapter 4)
One of the most repeated arguments in the histories of the European invasion of the Americas is that it was superior technology that enabled the conquerors to prevail and subjugate most of the continent. These arguments highlight Old World technologies—especially navigation, transport, and armament—as critical to the outcome of the European invasions. Following the conquest, a vast number of technological systems were introduced into the New World, bringing about radical changes in the ecology and lifeways of its inhabitants. It is often assumed that the spread of these technologies was a simple process that spread across the colonial domains through introduction, adoption, and transformation of existing technologies. In fact, it was not a simple process, and the adoption of many technologies was much more complicated, mediated by geography, social structures and relations, commercial systems, and, most importantly, Native traditions. The chapters in this volume address how the technologies introduced to Mesoamerica from Europe, Asia, and Africa in the sixteenth century were redesigned within a radically altered biotic and demographic environment, which continued to affect subsequent sociocultural change over the next 500 years. The chapters in this volume offer a broad examination of these subjects across a wide range of time and space in Mesoamerica. The temporal range spans the entire historic period, from the Postclassic / early colonial transition
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focuses on the evolution of ceramic production and consumption in Afromestizo households in central Veracruz in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Several studies examine the transitions in different types of technologies from the Postclassic period to the early colonial period. Stacie M. King and Elizabeth Konwest (chapter 5) discuss the evolution of several technologies in Oaxaca, Patricia Fournier García and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton (chapter 3) focus on ceramics, and Alejandro Pastrana Cruz, Fournier García, William J. Parry, and Otis Charlton (chapter 2) track the survival of the obsidian industry well into the colonial period; the latter two studies focus on materials from central Mexico. As Alexander notes in the introduction, the processes invoked in past explanations of the impact of new technologies in Mesoamerica include diffusion, migration, hybridization, acculturation, and transculturation. Over recent decades, archaeologists have refined their approaches to examining and analyzing these processes through a greater reliance on the methodologies of ethnohistory, oral history, and ethnoarchaeology, and theoretical models on colonialism, resistance, shifting landscapes, political economics, world systems, and early stages of globalization. Many of the chapters in this volume touch on many of these processes at different times and places in Mesoamerica and not only illustrate some of the major areas of technological evolution in historic Mesoamerica but also innovative methodologies for exploring these changes. A major theme in many of the studies is the documentation of the gradual spread and interaction of technologies, which continued long after the conquest. Three major patterns are evident: (1) the widespread continuity of Native technologies, such as ceramics and obsidian, even more so in the periphery and rural areas; (2) the adaptation of European features within Native technologies (e.g., simple glazing and decorations in ceramics); and (3) the spread of European technologies (e.g., ceramic wheel throwing, glazing, metallurgy, glass, candle making, indigo production, alcohol distillation, and animal husbandry), in some instances with some degree of hybridization. As the chapters in this volume make abundantly clear, these patterns vary from region to region, though many new technologies appear first in metropolitan and urban areas and tend to spread out slowly to rural areas. As Fournier García and Otis Charlton comment, “In any case, early colonial ceramics demonstrate that indigenous material culture persisted after the Spanish conquest.
The construction of the colonial way of life did not immediately engulf prehispanic technology and decorative style” (chapter 3). In a similar vein, King and Konwest note: “Not all sites that date to the ‘colonial’ era are necessarily going to include diagnostic colonial material goods, especially in rural areas. . . . What we think of as ‘prehispanic’ artifact forms or materials were likely used well into the colonial period and beyond” (chapter 5). Both of these statements are true not only in Mesoamerica but in most regions of the American continent. As documented in the chapters of the above authors, the persistence of Native traditions was particularly strong in ceramics, even in many instances in which the manufacture and styling of pottery was highly hybridized by European influences, such as in décor, glazing, and vessel shape. The persistence of Native ceramic traditions during the early colonial period is also reported by Card and Fowler (chapter 11). Pastrana Cruz and his coauthors also document the continued use of obsidian during the early colonial period, a pattern which is also reported in El Salvador by Card and Fowler (chapters 2 and 11; cf. Sampeck 2007). Very small amounts of obsidian have also been recovered from early colonial contexts at Lamanai, Belize (Simmons 1991, 1995). These were all locally manufactured into small arrowheads, which were likely used in hunting and perhaps as weapons. It is unlikely that this material was traded from its sources in Guatemala in colonial times; the arrowheads were most likely the result of reuse of larger prehispanic obsidian tools and blanks, which are abundant at the site. A thorough survey of the use or reuse of obsidian recovered from colonial contexts across Mesoamerica would be very useful. One of the most interesting processes examined in these chapters is the adoption and spread of new technologies and their impact on regional landscapes and cultures. In the New World, these would include glazed ceramics, metals, glass, wheels used in vehicles, waterwheels employed in norias, sugar mills, indigo obrajes, and henequen desfibradoras, or decorticating machines. Yet, production technology evolved over the last 500 years, particularly as the sources of energy and power shifted during the Industrial Revolution and thereafter. An industry that had a major impact throughout the New World was the production of sugar, which saw significant changes in technology, from the early use of human and animal power, to water, steam, and more recently, diesel. Very little has been written about the history
European Technology and Native Traditions in Mesoamerican History of the technology of sugar production in Mesoamerica, and the only archaeological study of a sugar mill, a nineteenth-century steam-powered machine in Lamanai, Belize, was published by David Pendergast in 1982. The results of additional research at this site, with a particular focus on consumption patterns in a mid-nineteenthcentury jungle sugar plantation, are reported by Mayfield, Graham, and Pendergast in chapter 9 (for a similar study in northern Quintana Roo, see Mathews and Gust [2017]). The use of waterwheels in the norias of Yucatán, described by Alexander and Williams in chapter 7, was widespread since the early colonial period; as the authors note, the water-lifting technology underwent major changes in the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The authors make use of Michael Schiffer’s (2005) “invention cascades” concept as a theoretical framework for examining the development and outcomes of these changes. The first came with the introduction of European waterwheels in the early colonial period, which were animal powered. The waterwheels vastly improved the rate and volume of water production, which was channeled through systems of canals and aqueducts to storage tanks, gardens, orchards, and cattle troughs. Thus, the norias were the basic building block of the estancias or ranches of the colonial period and nineteenth century. The second change, in the late nineteenth century, was the replacement of noria wheels with mechanical windmills made of sheet metal and metal girders, mostly manufactured by the Aermotor Windmill Company of Chicago. Many are still in use today—see Google for images. These were essential elements in the expansion of cattle ranches in the nineteenth century and were one of the key technological components in the growth of henequen haciendas in the late nineteenth century. The steam-driven engines of the henequen decorticators consumed large amounts of water, as did the people, horses, burros, mules, and cattle that lived on the haciendas. Henequen haciendas were complex industrial operations. In the twentieth century, windmills were gradually replaced by diesel generators, which in turn have been replaced by electric motors. The impact of these technologies on the landscape, the cattle industry, food production, and on the sugar and henequen industries was considerable. The use of windmills in the late nineteenth century was a major factor in the development of the henequen industry of northern Yucatán. The extraction of the fiber from the henequen plant, which was used in the manufacture of twine, cordage, and rope, began in prehispanic
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times. Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, most henequen products were handmade. In chapter 8, Hernández Álvarez presents an excellent history of the evolution of the technology of this industry. Encouraged by North American demand for henequen products (especially rope and baler twine), in midcentury Yucatecan entrepreneurs began designing and building decorticating machines that would extract the fiber from the leaf of the henequen plant. A steam-driven machine was built in 1861, and additional improvements continued to be made on the machines in the decades that followed. By the 1880s, decorticating machines were widespread in plantations across the region, and the wealth that ensued gave rise to the plantation class that came to dominate the culture, economy, and politics of the Gilded Age in Yucatán. Returning to Schiffer’s (2005) cascade concept discussed above, it would seem that the combined joint development of windmills, decorticating machines, and steam engines on Yucatecan haciendas in the late nineteenth century was a very large and complex “invention cascade” that led to tremendous consequences for the region’s economy, culture, and society. The production of añil, or indigo dye, was another Native prehispanic industry that was heavily transformed by colonial technology. In chapter 10, Sampeck reviews the history of this technology in the Izalcos region of El Salvador, and contrasts its development to that of cacao cultivation, a local tradition that remained in Native hands during the colonial period. This is the first archaeological study of añil production and will pave the way for future studies. Unlike most other introduced technologies, the production of indigo dye was not beneficial to the Natives of Mesoamerica. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, Spanish-controlled indigo production was widespread in central and southern Mexico, Yucatán, and various provinces of the Audiencia de Guatemala. The largest producers were Yucatán and the area now known as El Salvador. However, the process of preparing añil was highly toxic, and several Franciscans in Yucatán began to complain to the royal authorities, arguing that it took Natives away from needed agricultural pursuits (growing corn and beans) and that it caused significant loss of life, adding to the demographic decline of the Native population in the latter half of the sixteenth century. As a result, the king sent out a degree in 1581 prohibiting the use of Native labor in the production of the dye. As this decree only mentioned Natives, some producers in southern Mexico
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and El Salvador continued production, using African slave labor. Others continued using Native labor, ignoring or subverting the decree in various ways. In Yucatán, large-scale añil production ceased, and subsequent production was geared to logging and extraction of dyewood as raw material. In El Salvador, production continued well into the nineteenth century (Contreras Sánchez 1996:38– 53, 129–133; Patch 1993, 2003:564; Ruz 1979; Sampeck, this vol.). Future archaeological studies of sites with añil works (obrajes, or ingenios) might focus on related residential structures and possible evidence of ethnicity. It is worth noting that while many of the above industries were either introduced or, as in the case of indigo, radically transformed as European-controlled commercial ventures, they all had a significant impact on Native cultures and traditions. Technology transfers often benefit elites, which increases social differentiation and inequality. This was especially the case with sugar, indigo, and henequen. Slavery, the exploitation of indentured Native labor, and the appropriation of Native lands were at the heart of many plantation operations during the colonial period and the nineteenth century (see also Alexander [chapter 1] for an additional discussion of these patterns). In many cases, these operations altered the landscape and forever drastically changed Native subsistence patterns and the balance between humans and their environment in many regions of the New World. As Alexander von Humboldt passionately argued two centuries ago, the spread of colonial plantations led to large-scale environmental damage all over the American continent (Wulf 2015:5; Alexander and Hernández Álvarez [2018] present a discussion of these processes in Yucatán). However, long-term studies have revealed unexpected changes in this regard in some areas. The study by Castillo and Gasco (chapter 6) traces patterns of deforestation and reforestation in the Soconusco region of Chiapas that can be related to shifts in population and technology. In a similar vein, the rise and fall of the Yucatecan henequen industry has caused similar changes in northwest Yucatán. The growth of the plantations in the late nineteenth century led to massive deforestation, while the abandonment of the plantations in the mid-twentieth century prompted large-scale natural reforestation of many areas. This reforestation was also aided by the collapse of basic milpa agriculture, the loss of jobs in rural areas, and ongoing patterns of rural to urban migration. In the areas surrounding the city of Mérida, urban growth and sprawl are causing a new wave of deforestation.
As several authors in this volume have noted, the European conquests brought about major shifts in Native trading networks. New technologies and products hastened the decline of Native trade systems during the early colonial period. The period was a transitional one, with widespread variation in the patterns of adoption of new traditions alongside the persistence of older Native traditions. In terms of trade, many of the long-distance trade goods of prehispanic times ceased to travel and disappeared from markets. While regional trade networks continued well into the colonial period, most long-distance trade routes were abandoned. For example, obsidian continued to be produced and traded in central Mexico and El Salvador (see Card and Fowler, this vol.; Pastrana Cruz et al., this vol.) (and likely in highland Guatemala as well), but colonial sites in Yucatán—distant from the volcanic sources—have not yielded any obsidian artifacts. As noted above, a few obsidian arrowheads have been recovered from colonial deposits at Lamanai, Belize; these were probably the result of reuse of older prehispanic tools and blanks at the site and are probably not indicative of trade. On the other hand, a few long-range prehispanic trade patterns persisted. For example, the Cehache and Itzá regions of southern Campeche and the northern Petén maintained trade ties with adjoining areas under Spanish control. This is particularly evident in the demand for iron tools—knives, axes, and machetes— throughout the early colonial period; these items made their way deep into these remote forested areas (Jones 1998). Where were these tools manufactured? Probably in Mérida, Campeche, and Valladolid, but research is needed on the earliest metal working shops in those cities and the eventual spread of blacksmiths to smaller towns and villages. Several chapters also suggest how the introduction and spread of new technologies was driven by the demographic decline of Native populations, which disrupted prehispanic networks of interaction and exchange. In turn, the sustainability and market share of Native agricultural products, materials, and minerals and the production of artisanal, ornamental, and religious material culture were radically altered. Often one sees a decline in the quality or decoration of Native products, such as ceramics, because disruptions to social and environmental learning affected the choices available to producers and consumers. The chapters in this volume reflect a larger trend in the historical archaeology of the Americas; namely, that the subdiscipline has reached a higher level of sophistication
European Technology and Native Traditions in Mesoamerican History in the breadth of its comparative scope and of the complexity of the type of questions being asked of the data. In the past few decades, most of the historical archaeology of Latin America was in a low-level mode of discovery and descriptive reporting. The literature was mostly focused on reporting new categories of sites, site typologies, chronologies, new kinds of historic architecture, new ceramic and other artifact types, and so on. A good example is an essay I wrote over 35 years ago on the historical archaeology of Yucatán (Andrews 1981). Today, archaeologists are dealing with highly technical issues, such as paste and temper analysis of ceramics, food residues, chemical analysis of soils (for evidence of subsistence activities and markets), trace element analysis of teeth and bone (to elicit data on diet, geographic origins, and possible migration patterns), and larger social and cultural issues, such as the notion that instead of discovery and conquest, we are dealing with encounters that consist of multidirectional exchanges, cultural destruction and resistance, ethnic diasporas, cultural and ethnic genesis, commodity exchange at a global level, and patterns of production, distribution, and consumption of commodities. In this volume, researchers are beginning to tease apart more complex processes involving the introduction and gradual spread of European technologies, the persistence of Native traditions, and the often slow hybridization of Native and foreign technologies. All of these issues are very timely and reflect the growing sophistication of historical archaeology in Latin America. The importance of this volume lies in the diversity of its approaches to the evolution of technology and the impact of European technology on Native culture and traditions. The anthropological approach in these chapters is unique, and they will stand as milestones for subsequent investigations. Given the vast numbers of technologies, the potential for future research is tremendous. Several years ago, after giving a presentation on the Maya salt industry, the subject of my dissertation, a graduate student asked me if I had to choose another basic resource to study in the Maya area, what would it be? Cotton and sugar came to mind immediately, as in the course of my research on salt in the historical literature and archives I had encountered a tremendous amount of information on the cultivation, technology, production, and commerce of these crops across the Maya area. The same must be true for archives in other parts of Mesoamerica and Central and South America. There is also a considerable amount of oral history to be had, ethnographic data
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from modern cotton and sugar cultivation, and archaeological potential in sugar mills and haciendas all over the landscape (see, for example, the recent work by Allan Meyers [2012] at Hacienda Tabí, in Yucatán). A broad study of the evolution of the cotton and sugar industries in Mesoamerica has yet to be carried out. In the same vein, Sampeck’s study of the indigo obrajes of El Salvador in chapter 10 is a pioneering work in historical archaeology and, along with her dissertation (2007), will be a basic reference standard for research on indigo production in other parts of Latin America; it was also cultivated in the Carolinas, Haiti, Jamaica, and in several regions of Central America and northern South America. Many studies in this volume—whether of ceramic or obsidian production, sugar, henequen, or noria technology—will benefit future research in other regions of Mesoamerica and beyond. On moving forward, one cannot but wonder what other themes would be appropriate targets of this type of research. One subject, which Krista Eschbach explores in her study of ceramics in Veracruz (chapter 4), is the identification of an Afromestizo component in the consumption patterns of household ceramics. Given the near invisibility of Africans and Afromestizos in the archaeological record, the study of the role of ethnicity in future research on this subject will be a challenging task. As Eschbach notes, such research needs to be informed by the extensive literature of the colonial ceramics of the Caribbean. This invisibility was brought to my attention by our recent excavation of an African / Afro-Yucatec settlement in northwestern Yucatán. The only “ethnic” artifacts we recovered were imported kaolin pipes (Andrews et al. 2015, 2017). Weaving and dyeing has only been briefly touched on by Sampeck in chapter 10, but as a major industry throughout Mesoamerica centuries before the conquest, it will clearly be a major area of study in future years. Closely related, as King and Konwest note in chapter 5, is the Native tradition of ornamentation and jewelry manufacture, which underwent considerable change with the introduction of glass and metal. European technology— in the form of metal spears, knives, axes, machetes, crossbows, harquebuses, rifles, fishing hooks, harpoons, and net floats—had a major impact on Native subsistence patterns, but this topic has yet to be explored in any depth. Another neglected area, but very central to household studies in historical archaeology, is the evolution of corn processing and tortilla production in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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One major theme not addressed in this volume is that of transport. The introduction of wheeled transport and mules, burros, and horses spread quickly throughout the continent in the sixteenth century. This was a new technology, in which the mule-drawn carreta (cart) eventually replaced tlamemes, or human porters, and the new means of transporting cargo likely had a major impact on the ability of merchants to get their goods to market, and perhaps to more distant markets as well. It might have also increased the variety of goods available in regional marketplaces. To the best of my knowledge, I know of no studies that have explored the impacts of land transport on the way of life and economy of Native communities. The shift from human to wheeled transport was likely a gradual process and, as in the case of other technologies, may have spread out slowly from metropolitan to rural areas. A detailed examination of this process would shed light on the transformation of the Mesoamerican commercial world in colonial times. In the same vein, the advent of European maritime transport technology also had a major impact on the Mesoamerican commercial world. The sail and larger ships transformed all forms of seagoing transport, and in certain areas, also brought changes to riverine and lacustrine transport and trade. Colonial records indicate that many Mesoamerican ports had shipyards, but a detailed study of the development of Mesoamerican nautical technology in historic times has yet to be carried out (see Andrews 1981:12). Other new introduced industries, such as the evolution of Spanish colonial mining and sugar production technology and glass and metal manufacturing, did not have an immediate or direct impact on Native technological traditions but certainly affected Native cultural lifeways and commerce and need to be studied as well. There is clearly much to do. On a final note, the studies in this volume bring to the fore larger issues within the field of archaeology. Most of the contributors, like myself, are traditional Mesoamerican archaeologists who were diverted into historical archaeology by a diverse range of circumstances—in my case the mapping of a sixteenth-century chapel in the midst of the prehispanic site of Xcaret on the coast of Quintana Roo. Subsequently, I took a course on historical archaeology with Jim Ayres while in graduate school
at the University of Arizona. Since then, I have regularly included historic sites in my field research, have published reports on historic sites, and I teach a course on the historical archaeology of Latin America. I realized early on that historical archaeology had a bit of an identity crisis, as there were varying definitions of its boundaries. For those of us working in the Americas, 1492 seemed to be a good point of departure (with apologies to the prehispanic cultures with written records, and the Vikings . . .). But other ideas came up—maybe historical archaeology is the archaeology of capitalism? The problem with this idea was that most of Latin America did not have “modern” capitalist economies until after the eighteenth century. Or maybe historical archaeology began with the late medieval expansion of Europe; that is, the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta in 1415? Or maybe earlier, when the Romans invaded Malta, in the third century BC? Surely the Greeks and Romans were historic cultures. Or earlier yet, when the Sumerians began writing historical texts around 2500 BC? Regardless of the beginning date, the contemporary methodologies that archaeologists use and the issues they examine go beyond traditional boundaries. For example, the analysis of the significance of the color of indigo begins with an examination of prehispanic Maya codices and the artwork on Classic period vases and murals, and the role of that color in the early Christian art of medieval Europe. As Alexander has argued in the introduction, the arbitrary scholarly divide between prehistoric and historical archaeology has been wiped away in Mesoamerica as new topics and modes of research have evolved. The chapters in this book embody this growing sophistication of the discipline.
Notes 1. For further details and recent studies of these developments see the works by Burgos et al. (2005), Alexander (2016), and Meyers (2017), and the volumes edited by Ransom Carty (2006) and Hernández and Zimmerman (2016). 2. For a more in-depth discussion of hybridization, see Alexander’s introduction in chapter 1. 3. I thank Rani Alexander for bringing this topic to my attention.
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