Sedentism and Food Production in Early Complex Societies of the Soconusco, Mexico Author(s): Robert M.

Rosenswig Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 38, No. 2, Sedentism in Non-Agricultural Societies (Jun., 2006), pp. 330-355 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40024504 Accessed: 09/07/2010 15:56
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World Archaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

Sedentism and food production in early complex societies of the Soconusco, Mexico
Robert M. Rosenswig

Abstract This paper presents a case study of the relationship between increasing plant use, sedentism and political complexity among societies on the Pacific coast of southern Mexico during the Early and Middle Formative period (1600-800 bee). I argue that each of these variables increased at different paces in the region. Some of the earliest ceramics in Mesoamerica are documented by 1600 bee as is increasingly sedentary village life. During the following centuries a number of political centres rose and fell. While macrobotanical remains of numerous domestic plant species have been recovered from Early Formative and earlier Archaic period contexts, the overall diet was very broad based with extensive resources exploited from the nearby swamp and estuary systems. Isotopic, ground stone and iconographic data all indicate that the subsistence base underwent a marked transformation during the Middle Formative Conchas phase (900-800 bee) which corresponds to an environmental shift to stable, moist conditions conducive to increased plant production. Therefore, there was over half a millennium during which ceramic-using, horticultural villagers developed political rank prior to the adoption of agriculture and evidence of the first stratified political organization in the region. Evidence from the Soconusco is reviewed and new data are presented from the site of Cuauhtemoc, which was occupied through the entire 800-year period in question.

Keywords Mesoamerica; sedentism; origins of agriculture; horticulture; rank society; social stratification; Olmec.

The development of settled life, of food production and of social complexity is one of the most fundamental changes to have occurred in the history of humankind. Of the millions of years that our ancestors have been a distinct species it is only within the last 11,000 that such changes have occurred. The transition from mobile and egalitarian foragers to sedentary and hierarchical food producers fundamentally transformed the way in which people live and interact with each other. A number of models once proposed to explain
S3 Routledqe World Archaeology Vol. 38(2): 330-355 Sedentism in Non-Agricultural Societies
ISSN 0043-8243 DOI: print/1470-1375 online 10.1080/00438240600694115

l\

Tayior&Franciscroup

2006 Taylor & Francis

Sedentism and food production 331 this transition assume that population growth caused resource stress which provided the stimulus for food production (e.g. Binford 1968; Cohen 1977). Yet, after decades of study no such overarching model appears adequate to explain these phenomena (e.g. McCorriston and Hole 1991: 47; Harlan 1992: 46; Blake et al. 1992a; Whittle 1996; Perrin 2003). Instead, local level explanations are required to explore specific sequences of human/plant interaction and their resulting cultural implications. This does not preclude the possibility of common processes; it simply recognizes that there is a wide variety of interrelated factors that may not always have occurred for the same reasons. The interpretations of agricultural origins in Mexico and Central America have been dramatically revised over the past decade due to direct AMS dating of plant remains recovered from archaeological contexts. In the Tehuacan Valley, squash was present by cal. 5900 BCE(Smith 2005), maize by cal. 3500 BCE(Long et al. 1989) but domesticated beans are not documented until over three millennia later at cal. 300 BCE(Kaplan and Lynch 1999). In the Valley of Oaxaca, squash was cultivated by cal. 8000 BCE(Smith 1997), maize by cal. 4200 BCE(Piperno and Flannery 2001) and, while wild beans were present earlier, domestic varieties are not documented until approximately cal. 100 BCE (Kaplan and Lynch Two things are clear from these data. First, the coordinated production of the maize1999). bean-squash triad of New World domesticates was more recent than was once thought. Second, the triad emerged much less coherently than was traditionally believed. It is clear that, understanding the reasons for cultivating these crops, each must be viewed as a distinct addition to an existing stable adaptation (e.g. Flannery 1986; Winterhalder and Kennett 2006). Further, root crops such as manioc were also widely used by cal. 3000 BCE by horticultural populations along with maize in Central America (Pohl et al. 1996; Piperno et al. 2000; and see Hawkes 1989) and tree crops were an increasingly significant contribution to the diet (e.g. vanDerwarker 2005). Lentz (2000: table 4.2) provides a useful list of crops from the Americas along with their wild progenitors, demonstrating the wide variety of nutritionally useful plants available to early Mesoamerican peoples. In Mesoamerica, pollen records indicate that humans engaged in small-scale clearing of forests as early as cal. 9000 BCE(Piperno and Pearsall 1998: 78) and, as noted above, cultivated squash by cal. 8000 BCE.This means that humans began to alter their environment and engage in forms of horticulture early in the Holocene. Therefore, the distinction between areas of primary and secondary domestication is not particularly significant for tracking the origins of plant production within Mesoamerica. The more crucial question addressed in this paper is what humans did with the plants they domesticated and, in particular, how and when this human-plant relationship altered mobility patterns and socio-political organization. Recent work in the coastal lowland Soconusco region of Mesoamerica (Fig. 1) suggests that Early Formative (aka Neolithic) ceramic-using villagers did not employ subsistence technology that differed markedly from their non-ceramic using predecessors (Clark and Gosser 1995; Rosenswig 2006a). Further, the available data suggest that some of these preceramic, Archaic (aka Mesolithic) inhabitants of the region were quite sedentary (Kennett et al. 2006; Voorhies 2004). The rich local environment of closely packed river, swamp, estuary and tropical forest environments allowed for a significant degree of sedentism. This is consistent with a growing awareness among archaeologists that an economy dependent on aquatic resources is similar to an agricultural adaptation in that intensified

332 Robert M. Rosenswig

Figure 1 Elevation map of Mesoamerica with sites mentioned in the text and the Soconusco region indicated.

production does not lead to overexploitation of resources but does permit reduced residential mobility (e.g. Hayden 1996; Haaland 1997: 375; Kennett 2005). An analytic dichotomy between a distinct Archaic/Mesolithic adaptation characterized as non-ceramic using, not fully sedentary and horticultural from an equally distinct Formative/Neolithic adaptive complex of ceramic use, sedentism and agriculture is certainly exaggerated in most cases. Instead, these are better viewed as two ends of a continuum on which most small-scale societies fall somewhere between (Smith 2001). In this paper, the development of food production and sedentism are explored in relation to the emergence of cultural complexity in the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico. First, I define agriculture and sedentism and explicitly outline how each will be documented using archaeological data. Then, I explore the timing and relationship between increased sedentism and food production in the Soconusco using newly acquired data from the site of Cuauhtemoc (Fig. 2). While never more than a local centre, there is evidence at Cuauhtemoc for persistent settlement at this location from the beginning of ceramic-using village life through a marked increase in the use of maize less than eight centuries later (Rosenswig 2005a). Artefact patterns and site structure document the evolving adaptation of Cuauhtemoc's inhabitants during this period.

Agriculture

There is an important difference between early stages of plant use when humans transform plant behaviour and the point when human social organization depends on these domesticated plants for its very existence - and plants ultimately transform human

Sedentism andfood production 333

Figure 2 Map of the south-east part of the Soconusco with major rivers and early sedentary villages indicated along with a chronology chart of the Early and Middle Formative period ceramic phases for the region.

behaviour.1 In fact, Rindos (1984: 101) distinguishes between these strategies that he contrasts as domestication versus agriculture. The former has always been present to some degree (Rindos 1984: 258) but agriculture represents a qualitative change in human behaviour. The two are obviously related but domestication does not necessarily lead to agriculture. The use of plants, their periodic tending and even the spread of this practice do not explain the emergence of an agricultural way of life where human social organization is transformed by domesticated species. In an insightful paper, Vladimir Kabo (1985) presents the idea of harvest-gathererswho collect significant wild resources; a practice that he argues pre-adapts them for agriculture. Keeley (1995) offers a cross-cultural discussion of this phenomenon, which he terms protoagriculture and Smith (2001) calls it low-level food production. In Kabo's estimation, preagricultural sedentism was achieved through the harvesting of wild plants and is consistent with the coastal lowland Soconusco environment where a mix of wild plants, tended plants and dependable aquatic resources allowed for sedentary villages to be established. Kabo points out that Australian Aborigines had: mastered the arts of care for plants, harvesting in particular seasons, and processing plants for food in various ways (including detoxification of poisonous plants, threshing, there were primitive forms of winnowing, milling, and baking unleavened bread) irrigation (construction of dams and reservoirs) to prevent the drying of plots during dry seasons and stimulate the growth of useful plants to attract fish, birds and animals. (Kabo 1985: 602) It is therefore not the use of plants, their tending, or even low-level capital input aimed at enhancing yields, that define agriculture. While Washburn might refer to Australian

334 Robert M. Rosenswig Aborigines as 'farmers in disguise' (1980: 108) they are not agriculturalists. Agriculture is, of course, also more than just the dependence on plants for food. For example, Mongongo nuts provide more than half of the protein and daily caloric intake consumed by the average !Kung (Lee 1993: table 4-4), and so any failure of this food source could cause starvation. However, no one would consider the ethnographically documented !Kung or Australian Aborigine to be agriculturalists. Hunter-gatherers tend, till, transplant and sow to improve abundance and reliability of resources (Ford 1985: 3-6). Domestication can be viewed as a progressive process with different degrees of human reliance on domesticated resources. Smith explores the 'middle ground' between economies dependent exclusively on wild plants and animals and those who strongly depend on domesticated resources and draws the transition to agriculture as a gradient between 30-50 per cent of annual caloric budget contributed by domesticates (Smith 2001: 27, fig. 7). This perspective may be empirically correct but it gauges domestication in terms of plants (or animals) rather than people. Rindos (1984) provides a more anthropocentric perspective where agriculture is defined by the transformative effect that domesticates have on human society. His definition of agriculture emphasizes qualitative changes to human behaviour rather than variation in plant morphology, genetics or the proportion of domesticated resources consumed. Rindos (1984) argues that agriculture results in both human society and plants transforming each others' behaviour and establishing a dependent relationship where neither can survive (in their current state) without the other. Agriculture is thus the condition where plants are dependent on humans for survival - such as, maize kernels that are enveloped in a husk that must be opened. But this is only one half of the equation. The other half is that human social organization and political structures also becomes dependent on crops (such as maize in the Mesoamerican context) that allow high population density, greater sedentism or other characteristics that the cultural superstructure requires for its existence. The advantage of employing this definition of agriculture is that it avoids the issue of having to set a precise proportion of a diet that Smith grapples with in defining agriculture. Instead, focus is placed on changes in social and political organization, topics that archaeological data can more easily address. Maize is currently Mesoamerica's primary carbohydrate source.2 Identifying this domesticate as a staple crop is fairly straightforward as significant consumption leaves a distinct chemical signature when stable carbon isotope analysis is performed on human bone. The reorganization of society is not always as clear but can generally be documented by greater political and economic specialization permitted by a controllable source of food. The transformation to an agricultural economy is also expected to be reflected symbolically by increased artistic representation of agricultural products, tools and activities. Increased processing of cereal grains such as maize can also be expected to result in greater frequencies of processing tools recovered from archaeological deposits. This is an indirect indication of increased plant use but one that is particularly amenable to archaeological identification. The establishment of a new social, political, economic and spiritual way of life represents the establishment of agriculture in Mesoamerica (see Table 1 for material indicators used in this paper). This was when Zea mays 'domesticated' Homo sapiens as humans had domesticated maize many millennia earlier

Sedentism andfood production 335

Table 1 Material indicators of agriculture and sedentism employed in this paper Lines of evidence Behaviour Agriculture 1. Increased consumption of maize Carbon isotopes indicating higher level of C4 food consumed More ground stone tools More efficient use of grinding surface Artistic representation of agricultural products, activities, tools, etc. More large work projects such as the building of large mounds Archaeological indicator

2.

Increased processing of grains

3.

Increased symbolic importance of agricultural production Increased control of labour due to surplus produced by intensifiable food production

4.

High residential mobility (after Arnold 1999) 5. Site periodically reoccupied Several non-contiguous concentrations of occupation Low level of investment in architectural construction No burials at site Small pits that cut through each other in domestic areas Tecomates dominate the ceramic assemblage

6. 7. 8. 9.

Residences used for short periods of time Local landscape not claimed by a specific group of people Lack of memory of previous occupation of site Use of multipurpose vessels designed for their durability and transportability

with little appreciable effect on society. The implication is that maize was not originally domesticated to produce social reorganization as Zohary (2004; and see Hayden 2003) has recently argued in general terms and Smalley and Blake (2003) explore specifically for the case of maize in the Americas.

Sedentism

Sedentism is not always easy to define archaeologically in a clear-cut manner. A two-level settlement pattern can be the result of small hunter-gathererresource extraction and camp sites, on one hand, and larger aggregation sites, on the other. The latter contain more symbolically charged artefacts as well as the remains of a wider range of activities (Conkey 1980: 612). A collector subsistence strategy (Binford 1980) can also bring groups of people together to live in sedentary villages for part of the year. Further, the artefact composition of these sites may differ markedly due to length of occupation rather than functions

336 Robert M. Rosenswig performed at large and small sites (Mills 1989: 142-3). Therefore, settlement pattern data must be interpreted critically when addressing early sedentism. Other factors also complicate the identification of sedentary societies using archaeological data. One segment of a population can remain sedentary all year while another segment is mobile for part of the year (Haaland 1995, 1997). Or, a community can be occupied periodically for a number of years and abandoned in between (Arnold 1999). It is therefore more productive to discuss relative degrees of sedentism rather than its presence or absence (Murdock and Provost 1973: 380; Kelly 1992: 49-51; but see Rafferty 1985: 116). Furthermore, farmers do not have to be sedentary (e.g. Hard and Merrill 1992; Graham 1994) and, although there may be a connection between pottery use and sedentism (Arnold 1985: 113-18; but see Rice 1999: 21), there appears to be no clear correlation between pottery use and agriculture (Skibo and Blinman 1999: 173). The relationship between food production, pottery use and sedentism is thus complex and no a priori assumptions should be made regarding the sequence or timing for increases of each. Philip Arnold (1999) presents a provocative argument that residential mobility continued in the Tuxtla Mountain region of Mesoamerica through to the beginning of the Late Formative period at approximately cal. 400 BCE. This is in contrast to the traditional definition of sedentism beginning with the Early Formative period at some time between cal. 2000 and 1500 BCEwhen ceramic are first documented. With regard to the Archaic (Mesolithic) to Formative (Neolithic) transitions, he notes that: 'To read most accounts of this transition, one would think that Mesoamerican groups became sedentary, took up agriculture, and adopted pottery as soon as they crossed the threshold from one period to the next' (Arnold 1999: 157-8). In this paper, as in Arnold's, the goal is to unpack sedentism, food production and social complexity and to document the relationship between each of these complexes. Arnold (1999: 159-60) offers seven lines of evidence to argue that the Early Formative inhabitants of La Joya (see Fig. 1) were not sedentary: 1) several non-contiguous concentrations of occupation exist at the site indicating that the area was periodically reoccupied rather than being settled permanently; 2) low levels of investment in architectural construction indicate that residences were used for short periods of time; 3) ground stone technology was geared to non-intensive tasks; 4) no macrobotanical maize remains were documented; 5) no burials have been documented at the site, which suggests that the local landscape was not claimed by a specific group of people; 6) no large storage pits were used at the time but instead numerous small pits are documented that cut through each other, indicating a lack of memory of previous occupation episodes. He concludes that, if the presence of pottery at the site was ignored, 'there would be little reason to interpret Early Formative La Joya as a fully sedentary occupation' (Arnold 1999: 161). A seventh argument he marshals against interpreting the Early Formative residents of La Joya as sedentary is that tecomates (i.e. globular, neckless ceramic containers with a restricted orifice) were the most common vessel form at the time and served multiple purposes, such as both storing and preparing food. In addition to their functional versatility, Arnold (1999: 162) argues that another crucial factor in tecomate design was that they were extremely durable and thus transportable. Arnold thus posits that tecomates served as multi-purpose containers employed by non-sedentary people. If we omit criteria numbers 3 and 4 from the list above (as they relate to agriculture which

Sedentism and food production 337 I track independently in this paper) the remaining five criteria provide material indicators with which to document the degree of sedentism practised by inhabitants of a given site (see Table 1).

Cuauhtemocand the Soconusco The Soconusco is located on a flat coastal plain approximately 15-40km wide between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Madre Mountains (Fig. 1). The plain is transected by numerous rivers and there are a number of large marine estuary and lagoon systems near the coast (Fig. 2). The environment is seasonal, with a dry period between November and April. Although the region has been cleared over the past forty years, and is used almost exclusively for agriculture and ranching today, in prehistory the coastal plain was a mix of deciduous tropical forest and evergreen tropical forest depending on ground water (see Voorhies 2004: 6-13). The Late Archaic Chantuto B phase (3000-1800 bee)3 is known from five estuary shell mound sites and the upland site of Vuelta Limon, which have been excavated by Barbara Voorhies (2004). The estuary sites are interpreted as seasonal resource procurement locales and Vuelta Limon as a base camp site (Voorhies 1996a, 1996b) for groups engaged in a collector subsistence strategy (sensu Binford 1980). At the site of Tlacuachero a large, prepared clay surface was encountered with postholes forming two oval structures (Voorhies 1976: 38; Voorhies et al. 1991). This site was seasonally occupied to procure clam, fish, turtle and other marine resources and the tools recovered included milling stones and hammer stones. Two burials have been excavated from the Tlacuachero site. Isotopic analysis of these burials indicates reliance on C4 plants (which include maize) and this suggests a settlement cycle where mangrove and upland resources were each exploited on a seasonal basis (Blake et al. 1992b). However, Blake et al. (1995: 167) suggest that these isotopic results may be due to high levels of consumption of marine resources. Phytoliths have been analysed from the Tlacuachero midden and a sediment core analysed from the marsh adjacent to the Chantuto type site and both indicate that a similar mangrove environment prevailed during Chantuto times. Unfortunately, no identifiable pollen was preserved, nor were phytolith data pertinent to economic behaviour (Micheals and Voorhies 1999: 48). Analysis from Vuelta Limon indicates that forest elements dominated the phytolith assemblage but indicators of disturbance such as grasses are also present and Voorhies states that this phytolith study documents 'evidence of probable cultigens: maize, maize crosses and squash' (1996a: 24). The available data thus indicate that, in the Soconusco, non-ceramic-using, semi-sedentary people employed a wide range of domesticated plants as part of a broad-based diet. Some of the earliest Mesoamerican ceramics have been recovered from the Soconusco (Clark and Gosser 1995; Clark and Cheetham 2002). In the Mazatan zone of the Soconusco, the first evidence of rank societies is documented between four and seven competing political centres (Clark and Blake 1994) during the first part (i.e. 1600-1250 bee) of the Early Formative period (see Fig. 2). As I argue at greater length below, by 1450 bee (at the latest) the residents of the Soconusco were quite sedentary and continued to use a wide range of domesticated plants including maize, squash, chilli peppers and avocado.

338 Robert M. Rosenswig However, all these domesticates had been used for millennia. So, while the use of ceramics and increased sedentism makes the sites occupied after 1600 bee more archaeologically visible, there is little evidence of a dramatic change in the subsistence base or resource procurement practices during the Archaic to Formative transition (see Clark and Gosser 1995). During the second part of the Early Formative (1250-900 bee), the Soconusco was in intensive contact with residents of the San Lorenzo Olmec capital on Mexico's Gulf Coast (Clark 1997; Rosenswig 2005a; Cheetham 2006). Not only did these two regions of Mesoamerica share similar representational styles but the demographic and political developments in both regions were closely intertwined as the founding and subsequent collapse of San Lorenzo corresponded to significant political reorganization of the Soconusco (Clark and Pye 2000; Lesure 2004; Rosenswig 2004). However, none of these political developments had much of an effect on the economic base on which Soconusco society was built (Rosenswig 2005b). During the Middle Formative Conchas phase (900-800 bee) the Mazatan zone was abandoned and the entire regional population resettled around La Blanca (see Fig. 2). The newly emerged political centre of La Blanca was the location of the earliest monumental pyramid mound built in Mesoamerica - prior to the better known example at La Venta (see Love 1999). This was also the time when the first stratified society is documented in the region (Love 2002; Rosenswig 2006b). As I argue at greater length below, it was also during the period beginning at approximately 900 bee that agriculture (following Rindos' definition) is first present in the Soconusco, more than half a millennium after the first sedentary societies are documented in the region and many millennia after the first domesticates were adopted. However, the political prominence of La Blanca was short lived and after a century or two the entire Cuauhtemoc zone was abandoned (Rosenswig 2004) while Izapa rose to prominence on the nearby piedmont (Lowe et al. 1982). Izapa remained a major political centre for the next thousand years. My work at Cuauhtemoc, a small local centre occupied from the Barra through Conchas phase, provides an opportunity to study these developments at a single site in an area adjacent to the Mazatan zone (see Fig. 2). Ceramic and figurine styles at Cuauhtemoc were identical to those of the Mazatan zone as were demographic patterns, suggesting that the Soconusco between the El Cantilena and Guamuchal swamps (see Fig. 2) functioned as a relatively cohesive cultural area (Rosenswig 2004, 2005a). Cuauhtemoc is unique in the Soconusco as its occupation encompassed the 800-year period during which ceramic use, sedentism and a dramatic increase in the reliance on maize are documented. It is therefore an ideal location from which to examine the relationship between sedentism and agriculture. Early and Middle Formativeplant use in the Soconusco While macrobotanical remains of domestic plant species have been recovered from Early Formative contexts in the Soconusco, the dietary reconstruction suggests that a diverse range of resources were exploited from the nearby swamps and estuaries (Blake et al. 1992a). Blake et al. (1992a: 143) report that the contents of a Cherla phase refuse pit from the site of Aquiles Serdan contained a diverse mix of fish, reptile, mammal and bird

Sedentism andfood production 339 remains. Fish dominate the assemblage but white-tailed deer, pocket gopher and domestic dog were also well represented. This indicates that a broad spectrum diet was maintained in the Mazatan zone and Early Formative faunal patterns from Cuauhtemoc are consistent (Rosenswig 2005a). Feddema (1993: 77) analysed macrobotanical samples from four Early Formative sites in the Mazatan zone and found carbonized maize remains (Zea mays) in deposits from all Early Formative phases. AMS dating of eight of these seeds confirm their age (Clark 1994: 234). In addition, the length of maize cob fragments more than doubled between Ocos and Cuadros times (Feddema 1993: 62). However, even the largest Early Formative Cuadros phase sample was still only 40 per cent of the size of modern maize (Blake et al. 1992b: 89). Despite the presence of these macrobotanical maize remains, isotopic results from fifteen Early Formative burials at eight sites in the Mazatan region indicate that limited quantities of C4 plants were consumed as the samples had relatively low 13Cvalues that with a mean of - 19.6%o ranged between -22.4%O and - 16.9%o (Blake et al. 1992b: 89). Results from the four Middle Formative burials available at the time indicate that higher quantities of C4 plants were consumed with 13Cvalues at La Blanca as high as - 10.8%o (Blake et al. 1992b: table 1). The results of this study have been questioned due to small collagen fractions (Ambrose and Norr 1992) but re-analysis of problem samples produced similar results (Chisholm et al. 1993). Assuming the isotope results are reliable, this is still a small sample size. Further, as the Conchas phase burials are all from the regional capital, it is possible that elevated maize consumption was related to socio-political status. However, corroborating evidence discussed below suggest that these isotope patterns will be born out with larger samples from more diverse contexts. Isotope results that indicate low levels of maize consumption in the Soconusco during the Early Formative and a marked increase at the beginning of the Middle Formative are supported by ground-stone data from Cuauhtemoc. During the Early Formative periods, there were relatively low levels of the overall proportion of ground stone (Fig. 3A) as well as a low proportion of manos and metates relative to mortars and pestles (Fig. 3B) compared to the Conchas phase deposits. Due to limited sample size, these assemblages are presented as early and late facets of the Early Formative period (see Rosenswig 2005a: 166-9). Results show a clear increase in the overall quantity of ground stone during the Conchas phase as well as an increase in the proportion of manos and metates to mortar and pestles (Fig. 3). Both patterns are consistent with expectations of increased maize processing - the first in terms of sheer quantity of grinding tools present and the second in terms of relatively more tools with substantially larger grinding surfaces. Paralleling isotope results, ground-stone data indicate relatively low intensity of plant processing during the centuries before 900 bee with a marked increase thereafter. Technological changes further demonstrate a gradual development from the Archaic to the Early Formative period adaptation rather than an adaptive revolution. Manos were present in the Mazatan region during the Barra phase in such low numbers that Lowe (1975) suggested that there was a lack of corn at Altamira. Minimal wear on these tools suggests that stone grinding was not a significant practice at this time. Further, due to high proportion of obsidian chips at Altamira, Lowe (1975) proposed that manioc was the staple crop at the site and that these were the remains of grating boards required for

340 Robert M. Rosenswig

3 and Figure Overallquantityof groundstone(A) and ratioof manosandmetatesto mortars pestles (B) recoveredfrom Cuauhtemoc.Values and ratios are standardizedby volume of deposits excavatedand reportedboth in termsof counts and weights.

processing. Apparently, Lowe did not entertain the possibility that ceramic-using villagers did not have a staple crop. Clark and Gosser (1995) employ an increase in the relative quantity of plain tecomates and decrease in fire-crackedrock through the first part of the Early Formative to argue for a gradual change in food preparation technique from the Archaic pattern of roasting in pits to the Formative practice of boiling in pots (for an alternative view see Voorhies 2004: 357-66). Fire-cracked rock is debris left over from boiling liquid in containers made of wood or other flammable materials - prior to the adoption of ceramic or metal cooking containers that can be placed directly on an open fire. I have documented similar diachronic trends at Cuauhtemoc that replicate the patterns presented by Clark and Gosser (Fig. 4). Fire-cracked rock decreases through the six Early Formative phases, with the exception of the Ocos which may be due to a special deposit introducing bias into the sample (Fig. 4A). Plain tecomates increase in relative proportions at Cuauhtemoc through the Barra, Locona and Ocos phases (Fig. 4B) and the subsequent decrease (also

Sedentism and food production 341

Figure 4 Graphs of fire-crackedrock (A) standardized by volume of deposits excavated and reported as counts and weights and plain tecomates (B) calculated as a proportion of the minimum number of vessels (MNV) of the assemblage from each phase.

documented by Clark and Gosser 1995: fig. 17.3) is the result of changes in overall assemblage composition during the second half of the Early Formative period. These patterns suggest a gradual transition in subsistence practices as maize use gradually increases, during the centuries following the adoption of ceramics and establishment of village life. Therefore, increased maize use (and the selective forces that led to an increase in cob size) in the Soconusco may have been the result (as it certainly was not the cause) of increased sedentism in the area. Smalley and Blake (2003) suggest that Early Formative maize stalks may have initially been exploited for their sugar content to produce an alcoholic beverage. This would help explain the rapid spread of maize throughout the Americas as well as the presence of maize cobs at archaeological sites but small quantities of ground stone and low C4 levels in the bones of those who lived in the early villages. The latter would have been the case as C4 carbon is deposited in bone only through consumption of the protein contained in maize cobs but absent in their stalks (Smalley and Blake 2003: 684). In such a scenario, seeds would not have been intensively processed so, while they are present, they did not require

342 Robert M. Rosenswig special tools to process them.4 Another result of clearing and burning fields to plant maize would have been to attract deer to graze on grasses and maize plants (Rosenswig 2005a: 157; and see Smith 2001: 30-1). Both these possible initial uses of maize are consistent with harvest-gathererproto-agricultural practices (Keeley 1995: 254-6) and neither would have affected the carbon isotope content of human bone or the proportion or type of ground stone used. The isotope, ground stone, ceramic and fire-cracked rock evidence of increased maize exploitation during the Conchas phase is consistent with the first wide-spread use of maize in the Middle Formative iconography of Mesoamerica. Taube (1996, 2000) observes that the nature of Olmec iconography changed during the Middle Formative when rulers began to be depicted in association with maize. At Cuauhtemoc, the Middle Formative Conchas phase marks the first widespread use of the double-line break motif (Fig. 5A) and cleft motif (Fig. 5B) used to decorate ceramics. These iconographic conventions are ubiquitous in Mesoamerica at the time and are abstracted ways to represent the ground surface and/ or the head of rulers from which maize grows (Fig. 5C). The association of political rulership with maize persists through to the Classic period Maya maize god (Taube 1996, 2000). By that time, political leaders claimed legitimacy by embodying the staple grain crop and thus personifying the well-being of their subjects. In summary, there was a long history of domesticated plant use in the Soconusco (as in other parts of Mesoamerica) that preceded the adoption of ceramics and the establishment of settled life. The Archaic/Mesolithic to Formative/Neolithic adaptive transition occurred gradually in the Soconusco with no marked disjuncture between the two periods.

of Figure5 Examples doubleline bread(A) and the cleft motif (B) incisedin ceramicservingvessels from Cuauhtemocas well as how such iconographyis a simplifiedabstractionof rulersclaiming symboliccontrolover maizeproduction(C). Drawingby Ayax Moreno.

Sedentism and food production 343 However, dietary, technological and iconographic evidence all indicate that a fundamental reorganization of the Soconusco economy occurred during the early Middle Formative Conchas phase. This means that, following Rindos' definition of agriculture transforming human society, such an adaptation had not emerged during the 700-year Early Formative period (1600-900 bee). Defined in this manner, the Early Formative residents of Cuauhtemoc (as well as their Archaic predecessors) were not agriculturalists - although they were consuming many domesticated plants including maize. In fact, aside from the adoption of ceramics (and increased sedentism as discussed in the following section), there was little change detected between the Archaic and Early Formative domestic economies (Rosenswig 2006a). Residential mobility at Cuauhtemoc Following the criteria for documenting residential mobility enumerated earlier in this paper (based on Arnold 1999: 159-60), there is evidence of a significant increase in sedentism in the Soconusco from at least 1450 bee during the Locona phase. Such changes may well have occurred during the earlier Barra phase but evidence is so scant for this early phase that, in light of Arnold's argument, it is difficult to judge at the current time. Five lines of evidence are presented here to argue for increased sedentism by the Locona phase (see Table 1). First, there was a gradual build up of the Cuauhtemoc site in a single location over its 800-year occupation. This is in contrast to the multiple, non-contiguous deposits that Arnold documented at La Joya (Table 1, No. 5). It also contrasts with the seasonal occupation of Tlacuachero documented by Voorhies (2004). Middens on the east and west sides of Cuauhtemoc were recorded on a 220m profile - drawn from the wall of a drainage canal that bisected the site (Fig. 6A) - that document the continuous build up of cultural materials. Excavation blocks Suboperation 1 and 10 document the accretional build up of middens around the site with materials from Barra through Conchas phase debris (Fig. 6B). Two Locona-phase structures were documented at Cuauhtemoc associated with burials, trash pits and a hearth (Fig. 7A). Based on the absence of these features at La Joya (Table 1, Nos 7 and 8), Arnold argued for residential mobility during the Early Formative. Not only do these Locona phase features not cut into each other but there is also a greater diversity of the types of features at Cuauhtemoc than at La Joya. Further, the two structures are oriented in the same direction, indicating a degree of coordination in building construction. This provides second and third lines of evidence for sedentism in the Soconusco by the Locona phase at the latest. A fourth argument for residential mobility proposed by Arnold is low labour input in architecture (Table 1, No. 6). While the Early Formative architecture documented to date at Cuauhtemoc was modest, such was not the case at Paso de la Amada. At this large site in the Mazatan zone, a 22m-long elite residence was rebuilt in multiple episodes during the Locona and Ocos phases (Blake 1991) as were other residences (Lesure 1997). These structures indicate substantial labour investment in residential architecture that is consistently associated with increased sedentism (Kelly et al. 2005). The final argument presented by Arnold for residential mobility was that tecomates served as a tool designed for many functions, including being frequently moved (Table 1,

344 Robert M. Rosenswig

Figure 6 Schematic depiction of the stratigraphy documented in the 220m profile of Trench 1 (A) showing the Cuauhtemoc site (B) in cross-section. Vertical axis in box A is exaggerated to make stratigraphy more apparent.

Figure 7 Plan map of the Suboperation 8 excavation units (A) showing two Locona phase structures and associated burials and pit features as well as the location of these excavation units at Cuauhtemoc (B).

Sedentism andfood production 345 No. 9). While this might have been the case for tecomates documented at La Joya, the same cannot be said for the Soconusco. For instance, numerous Locona and Ocos phase tecomates in the Soconusco were formed with decorative supports. The example in Figure 8 shows a hollow support, made in the form of a peccary head, that would have raised the body of the vessel approximately 12-1 5cm above the ground surface. This type of tecomate support would have greatly reduced the use-life of vessels that were frequently moved as well as making them difficult to pack or carry for travel by either foot or boat. In summary, Cuauhtemoc was a sedentary community by the Locona phase - or, at least, its inhabitants were much more sedentary than those who occupied La Joya during the Early Formative period. Village middens were built up in the same location over the centuries that the site was occupied. The earliest documented burials, pits and hearths from the site date to the Locona phase. At Paso de la Amada, large residences were built and refurbished during the Locona and Ocos phases which indicate much more permanency than the temporary camp Arnold describes at La Joya. Further, Early Formative tecomates in the Soconusco, especially those with elaborately modelled hollow supports, are not consistent with the idea that they were containers designed for transportability by people with a high degree of residential mobility. Compared to La Joya, the Early Formative sites on the coastal plain of the Soconusco appear to have been occupied by relatively sedentary villagers by at least 1450 bee during the Locona phase. These sedentary villagers, however, practised a mixed foraging and horticultural subsistence strategy. Sociopolitical organization in the Soconusco Blake and Clark outline seven lines of evidence for the emergence of early Early Formative rank societies, including: (1) a two-tiered hierarchy settlement pattern comprised of small villages and hamlets centered around large villages, (2) elite domestic architecture, (3) differential mortuary practices, (4) unequal access to sumptuary goods, (5) presence of patronized craft

Figure 8 Hollow, Ocos-phase tecomate support depicting a peccary head recovered from Cuauhtemoc tecomateby Ayax Moreno). (reconstruction drawingof MichisRed-on-Buff

346 Robert M. Rosenswig specialization centered around elite house mounds, (6) clues of increased public feasting, and (7) evidence of redistribution within each large village community. (Blake and Clark 1999: 56) However, recent artefact analysis using larger samples from Paso de la Amada found no evidence for criteria numbers 4 and 5 listed above (Lesure and Blake 2002). This indicates that, while incipient social and political rank was present during the first part of the Early Formative, there is no evidence for economic inequality, which is the defining characteristic of stratified society (Rosenswig 2005a: 337-48). At Paso de la Amada, platform mounds occupied by the traditional elite were abandoned at the end of the Ocos phase (Blake 1991) and new mounds were built (Lesure 1997). After the Cherla phase, Paso de la Amada and other Early Formative Mazatan polities were abandoned. By approximately 1250 bee, a distinctive Olmec-style aesthetic is documented in the Soconusco along with a reorganization of the local settlement system (Clark 1997; Rosenswig 2005a, 2005b). During the Cuadros and Jocotal periods, the political centre of the region shifted from the swamp margins in the Mazatan zone to the shores of the Coatan River at the sites of Canton Corralito and El Silencio respectively (Clark and Pye 2000; Perez 2002; Cheetham 2006) (see Fig. 2). During the later part of the Early Formative period there were thus significant political and demographic changes in the region whereas the economic base remained relatively stable (Rosenswig 2005b). The Conchas phase (900-800 bee) marks the beginning of the Middle Formative period in the Soconusco and the single most obvious development at this time was the construction of the earliest pyramid mounds in Mesoamerica. La Blanca, located to the east of Cuauhtemoc in modern-day Guatemala, rose to prominence at this time in an area that had had a small population during the previous Jocotal phase. The site quickly grew to cover at least lOOha (Love 2002: 55). A 25m-high mound was constructed at La Blanca and was the largest known mound built in Mesoamerica to that date (Love 1999). There were at least forty-three house mounds at La Blanca and the site was at the centre of a multi-tiered settlement system that includes fifty-six sites documented by Love (2002) in the Naranjo River zone. Due to the virtual abandonment of the Mazatan zone to the north west (Blake and Clark 1999) and the Rio Jesus zone to the southeast (Pye and Demarest 1991), the leaders of the La Blanca polity appear to have drawn in the surrounding populations as part of this newly emerging polity (Blake and Clark 1999: 64; Love 1999: 90). The La Blanca polity consisted of a five-level settlement system. The sites of La Zarca and El Infierno (see Fig. 2) represent a second tier of settlement during the Conchas phase. These sites were both clustered around central mounds measuring 20m and 18m respectively. While no investigations have occurred at either site, these are the largest mounds documented at the time other than La Blanca. Cuauhtemoc was a third-tier site during the Conchas phase, measuring lOha with a 5m-high central mound. There were two sites documented that measured 1 to 3ha without mounds as well as many smaller Conchas phase hamlets less than 0.7ha in extent, thirty-five of which were documented in the 28km2 systematically surveyed zone around Cuauhtemoc (Rosenswig 2004). I have recently summarized six lines of evidence for social stratification in the La Blanca polity (Rosenswig 2006b: table 2). These indicators of social stratification are: 1) a

Sedentism andfood production 347 four-tier settlement hierarchy above that of small hamlets; 2) population nucleation in the area of La Blanca and abandonment of previous political centres; 3) progressively higher levels of labour expenditure in architectural construction at first-, second- and third-tier centres; 4) greater quantities of wealth items, such as those carved from jade and greenstone, that required specialized skill to produce; 5) exclusive use of high status ceramic wares in elite contexts at Cuauhtemoc; and 6) exclusive use of large earspools at the regional capital of La Blanca and their absence at Cuauhtemoc. Therefore, the emergence of political stratification in the Soconusco appears to have been coeval with a marked increase in maize consumption. In summary, while sedentism and increasing political rank developed in the Early Formative period, a stratified society emerged in the Soconusco only during the early Middle Formative Conchas phase. In a heuristic sense, I follow Fried's (1967) distinction between rank and stratified societies. It is only in the latter that differentiation is based on unequal access to the means of production, which qualitatively alters social and political relations between human beings (Kristiansen 1998: 54-61; Chapman 2003: 88-99; Rosenswig 2005a: 337-48). The Conchas phase was also when, following Rindos' definition, agriculture is documented for the first time in the region.

Summary and conclusion Due to abundant and stable resources in the coastal Soconusco environment, a degree of sedentism was established during the Archaic period and most Mesoamerican groups engaged in horticulture at the time. This was followed by some of the earliest evidence of ceramic use in Mesoamerica as well as the first documented case of increased political complexity (Clark and Blake 1994; Clark and Gosser 1995; Clark and Cheetham 2002). However, in contrast to a perspective that places the origins of agriculture at the beginning of the Formative/Neolithic era, I argue that the economic base of Soconusco society was transformed 700 years later during the Conchas phase. While macrobotanical analysis indicates that Early Formative villagers were generating progressively larger cobs, maize was probably also used to ferment stalk sugar and possibly to attract deer. Maize would thus have been attractive for multiple reasons during the Early Formative period in addition to being a source of food. Further, maize was just one of many plants in use at the time along with squash, avocado and manioc. Therefore, horticulture is documented early in the Archaic period while sedentism increased through the Late Archaic (3000-1800 bee) and permanent villages were established by the Locona phase (1450-1350 bee) at the latest. Ceramics were adopted during the Barra phase (1600-1450 bee), followed by incipient political complexity during the Locona and Ocos phases. During the late Early Formative period (1250-900 bee), the degree of sedentism and plant use show no signs of changing but there was a political reorganization of the Mazatan zone. However, it was only in the following centuries that intensified plant production reorganized the economic base of the Soconusco during the Conchas phase (900-800 bee). Agriculture emerged only during the Conchas phase but politically competitive villagers had already inhabited the region for over half a millennium. So, while the Conchas phase was when social stratification was first apparent in the region (Love 2002; Rosenswig

348 Robert M. Rosenswig 2005a, 2006b), rank societies had long been present (Clark and Pye 2000; Rosenswig 2000). Political competition between leaders in Early Formative villagers may have been a factor driving resource intensification. However, as competitive behaviour was thus a constant (Clark and Blake 1994; and see Wiessner 2002), it cannot (by itself) account for the emergence of social stratification. Ever-increasing maize cob size appears to have passed some sort of productivity threshold during the Conchas phase that enabled it to be used as a staple crop during the century that social stratification emerged in the Soconusco. Recently published environmental reconstruction (Neff et al. 2006) indicates that conditions became more conducive to plant production precisely at this time. Pollen cores from just south east of the Guamuchal Swamp (see Fig. 2) indicate that moist, stable conditions began at the beginning of the Middle Formative and lasted for nearly a thousand years. Therefore, cultural pre-adaptation of the politically competitive superstructure received a 'welltimed'5push by the environment that appears to have funded an increased level of political complexity during the Conchas phase. The transformations that occurred during the Conchas phase qualitatively altered Soconusco society in a manner consistent with Rindos' (1984) definition of agriculture. While Childe (1951: 59) and other early scholars emphasized human control over food supply as a defining characteristic of the Formative/Neolithic revolution, the residents of the Soconusco appear to have lost control to their food supply during the Conchas phase - at least in the sense that they were dependent on it for reproducing their increasingly stratified social order. Ultimately, this economic revolution appears to have 'funded' the political aspirations of the newly emerging Conchas phase elite (Rosenswig 2006b). While the political florescence of the La Blanca polity was spectacular, it was also short lived and collapsed within a century of two. Izapa emerged as the new political centre on the nearby piedmont that receives up to four times as much rain as the coastal plain. Higher levels of precipitation along with closer proximity to stone needed to process hardkernel maize grains would have made the piedmont a desirable location to support a large, socially complex population. The Archaic/Mesolithic to Formative/Neolithic transition was once assumed to have been a relatively clean transition between the two stable adaptations (e.g. Childe 1951; Ford 1969). Such a dichotomy implies that nominal data are sufficient to study the change between two function states of organization. However, it is increasingly evident that residential mobility (Rafferty 1985), food production (Smith 2001) and political complexity (de Montmollin 1989; O'Shea and Barker 1996) must each be studied at an ordinal scale because each develops incrementally. Therefore, these key variables were neither wholly present nor completely absent during the Archaic-Formative transition. Instead, sedentism, food production and political complexity must each be described as existing to a greater or lesser extent. Further, while there is some concordance between increases in these variables, each can develop at a different rate. What is needed then is to document local sequences and embrace each region's idiosyncratic history. This must be done before it is feasible even to begin exploring the possibility that there is any regularity in underlying processes. This said, I have found it useful to define agriculture, following Rindos (1984), as the point where the political superstructure is dependent on the

Sedentism andfood production 349

subsistencebase to support cultural complexity.This provides a relativelyconsistent on criterion whichto comparethe politicaldependence food productionbetweenmany by of the world without getting bogged down in the details of comparingdiverse regions sequencesof plant or animaldomesticationand use. By this criterion,Early Formative residentsof the Soconuscowere sedentaryvillagerspractisinghorticulture centuries for is beforeagriculture documented duringthe Conchasphase.

Acknowledgements

data werecollectedundera seriesof permitsissuedby Mexico'sINAH, The Cuauhtemoc de Arqueologia.Funding was providedby: a NSF DissertationImprovement Consejo Grant; a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship; a Foundationfor the Advancementof Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI) ResearchGrant; FoundationResearchGrant;a Doctoral Fellowship,Social a New WorldArchaeological Sciencesand HumanitiesResearchCouncilof Canada;Yale Councilof International and Area Studies (YCIAS) Dissertationand Pre-Dissertation the Albers Fund (on Grants; variousoccasions)and the WilliamsFund- both from the Department Anthropology, of Yale University. New WorldArchaeological The Foundation(NWAF)providedlogistical and curatorialsupportwithout which the projectwould not have been possible. Special thanks are due to the NWAF directorJohn Clark. Douglas Kennett, MarilynMasson, David Grove and two anonymousreviewerseach provideduseful commentson earlier drafts of this paper and Yvonne Marshall'ssuggestionswere also helpful. I alone am for responsible the ideas and errorsin this paper. at , Department AnthropologyUniversity Albany- SUNY, USA of

Notes

1 In this paper I deal exclusivelywith plant domestication.Similarargumentscould be applied to animal domesticationbut in Mesoamericathe only domesticatedanimals weredogs that had been domesticated priorto the Formativeera (see Fiedel2005) and turkeysthat were domesticatedduringthe Postclassicperiod, i.e. within the last 500 years before the arrivalof the Spanish.The timing of the domesticationof these two animal species thus does not correspondto increasedsedentism,plant cultivationor politicalcomplexity. 2 There is a tendencyamong Mesoamerican with archaeologiststo equate agriculture due maizeagriculture to the clearhistoricaland contemporary of importance this crop in the region. Equatingagriculture with a relianceon maize should not be accepted for the earlyprehistory Mesoamerica. of s However,maizeis Mesoamerica' uncritically cereal crop and is unique among crops grown commercially this day for the to only of Due to the modernworld'sinsatiableappetitefor sugar, efficiency caloricproduction. the productionof corn syrup and fructose has made maize the world's third most

350 Robert M. Rosenswig cultivated crop and this has had a significant impact on many areas of the modern world (e.g. McCann 2005). As maize was by far the crop most represented in indigenous Mesoamerican art and iconography this also appears to have been the case in prehistory (Taube 1996, 2000). The only other plant species to receive anywhere near as much attention in Prehispanic iconography is cacao, which was clearly a prestige crop (Coe and Coe 1996). Wild forest products continued to be important through the Prehispanic period (Lentz 1991; Lentz et al. 1996, 1997). 3 Uncalibrated radiocarbon years before the common era (bee) are employed in this paper when discussing the Soconusco phase limits. While there are problems with not using calibrated dates, such as correlating cultural events with environmental changes (see Rosenswig 2006a), Formative Mesoamerican scholars have traditionally reported their dates in this manner and I follow Clark and Cheetham's (in press; which updates Blake et al. 1995) definition of Soconusco ceramic phase limits. Calibrating these dates will not affect the relative sequence of events (which is all that is necessary for my purposes in this paper) and will shift all dates earlier by a century or two. So, for example, the beginning of the earliest ceramic Barra phase dates to cal. 1800 bce rather than the uncalibrated 1600 bce. 4 Another factor affecting the quantity of processing tools could be the use of hard versus soft kernel variants of maize. While possibly a confounding factor in interpreting the significance of ground stone data, sufficient botanical evidence does not yet exist with which to explore this problem systematically. 5 Well timed only in the sense that without this economic push the changes being studied in this paper would not have happened as they did. I do not intend a value judgement on the development of social stratification being a positive turn as it has likely led to more harm than good in the course of human history.

References Ambrose, S. H. and Norr, L. 1992. On stable isotopic data and prehistoric subsistence in the Soconusco region. CurrentAnthropology, 33: 401-4. Arnold, D. 1985. Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arnold, P. J. III. 1999. Tecomates, residential mobility, and Early Formative occupation in coastal lowland Mesoamerica. In Pottery and People: A Dynamic Interaction (eds J. M. Skibo and G. M. Feinman). Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, pp. 157-70. Binford, L. R. 1968. Post-Pleistocene adaptations. In New Perspectives in Archaeology (eds S. Binford and L. R. Binford). Chicago, IL: Aldine, pp. 313-41. Binford, L. R. 1980. Willow smoke and dog's tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation. American Antiquity, 45: 4-20. Blake, M. 1991. An emerging Early Formative chiefdom at Paso de la Amada, Chiapas, Mexico. In The Formation of Complex Society in SoutheasternMesoamerica (ed. W. R. Fowler, Jr). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp. 27^5. Blake, M. and Clark, J. E. 1999. The emergence of hereditary inequality: the case of Pacific Coastal Chiapas. In Pacific Latin America in Prehistory (ed. M. Blake). Seattle, WA: Washington State University Press, pp. 55-73.

Sedentism and food production 351

Blake, M., Clark, J. E., Chisholm, B. S. and Mudar, K. 1992a. Non-agricultural staples and agricultural supplements: Early Formative subsistence in the Soconusco region, Mexico. In Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory (eds A. B. Gebauer and T. D. Price). Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, pp. 133-51. Blake, M., Chisholm, B. S., Clark, J. E., Voorhies, B. and Love, M. W. 1992b. Prehistoric subsistence in the Soconusco region. CurrentAnthropology, 33: 83-94. Blake, M., Clark, J. E., Voorhies, B., Micheals, G., Love, M. W., Pye, M. E., Demarest, A. A. and Arroyo, B. 1995. Radiocarbon chronology for the Late Archaic and Formative periods on the Pacific Coast of Southeastern Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica, 6: 161-83. Chapman, R. 2003. Archaeologies of Complexity. London: Routledge. Cheetham, D. 2006. The Americas' first colony? A possible Olmec outpost in southern Mexico. Archaeology, 59(1): 42-6. Childe, V. G. 1951. Man Makes Himself London: New American Library of World Literature. Chisholm B., Blake, M. and Love, M. W. 1993. More on prehistoric subsistence in the Soconusco region: response to Ambrose and Norr. CurrentAnthropology, 34: 432^4. Clark, J. E. 1994. The development of Early Formative rank societies in the Soconusco, Chiapas, Mexico. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Clark, J. E. 1997. The arts of government in Early Mesoamerica. Annual Review of Anthropology,26: 211-34. Clark, J. E. and Blake, M. 1994. The power of prestige: competitive generosity and the emergence of rank societies in Lowland Mesoamerica. In Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World(eds E. M. Brumfiel and J. W. Fox). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1730. Clark, J. E. and Cheetham, D. 2002. Mesoamerica's tribal foundations. In The Archaeology of Tribal Societies (ed. W. A. Parkinson). Ann Arbor, MI: International Monographs in Prehistory, pp. 278339. Clark, J. E. and Cheetham, D. in press. Cerarnicaformativa de Chiapas. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia. Clark, J. E. and Gosser, D. 1995. Reinventing Mesoamerica's first pottery. In The Emergence of Pottery: Technology and Innovation in Ancient Societies (eds W. K. Barnett and J. W. Hoopes). Washington, DC, and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 209-21. Clark, J. E. and Pye, M. E. 2000. The Pacific Coast and the Olmec question. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica (eds J. E. Clark and M. E. Pye). Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, pp. 217-51. Coe, M. D. and Coe, S. D. 1996. The True History of Chocolate. London and New York: Thames & Hudson. Cohen, M. 1977. The Food Crisis in Prehistory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Conkey, M. W. 1980. The identification of prehistoric hunter-gatherer aggregation sites: the case of Altamira. CurrentAnthropology, 21: 609-30. de Montmollin, O. 1989. The Archaeology of Political Structure: Settlement Analysis in a Classic Maya Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feddema, V. 1993. Early Formative subsistence and agriculture in Southeastern Mesoamerica. Unpublished master's thesis, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Fiedel, S. J. 2005. Man's best friend - mammoth's worst enemy? A speculative essay on the role of dogs in Paleoindian colonization and megafaunal extinctions. World Archaeology, 37: 11-25.

352

Robert M. Rosenswig

Flannery, K. V. 1986. Guila Naquitz: Archaic Foragers and Agriculturein Oaxaca, Mexico. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Ford, J. A. 1969. A Comparisonof Formative Culturesin the Americas: Diffusion of the Psychic Unity of Man. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Ford, R. I. 1985. The processing of plant food production in prehistoric North America. In Prehistoric Food Production in North America (ed. R. I. Ford). Anthropological Papers No. 75. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, pp. 1-18. Fried, M. H. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology.New York: Random House. Graham, M. 1994. Mobile Farmers: Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Settlement Organization among the Raramuri of Northwestern Mexico. Ann Arbor, MI: International Monographs in Prehistory. Haaland, R. 1995. Sedentism, cultivation, and plant domestication in the Holocene Middle Nile region. Journal of Field Archaeology, 22: 157-74. Haaland, R. 1997. Emergence of sedentism: new ways of living, new ways of symbolizing. Antiquity, 71: 374^85. Hard, R. J. and Merrill, W. L. 1992. Mobile agriculturalists and the emergence of sedentism: perspectives from northern Mexico. American Anthropologists, 94: 601-20. Harlan, J. R. 1992. Crops and Man, 2nd edn. Madison, WI: American Society of Agronomy. Hawkes, J. G. 1989. The domestication of roots and tubers in the American tropics. In Foraging and Farming: The Evolution of Plant Exploitation (eds D. Harris and G. Hillman). London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 481-503. Hayden, B. 1996. Thresholds to power in emergent complex societies. In Emergent Complexity: The Evolution of IntermediateSocieties (ed. J. E. Arnold). Ann Arbor, MI: International Monographs in Prehistory, pp. 50-8. Hayden, B. 2003. Were luxury foods the first domesticates? Ethnoarchaeological perspectives from Southeast Asia. World Archaeology, 34: 458-69. Kabo, V. 1985. The origins of the food-producing economy. CurrentAnthropology, 26: 601-16. Kaplan, L. and Lynch, T. F. 1999. Phaseolus (Fabaceae) in archaeology: AMS radiocarbon dates and their significance for Pre-Columbian agriculture. Economic Botany, 53: 261-72. Keeley, L. H. 1995. Protoagricultural practices among hunter-gatherers:a cross-cultural survey. In Last Hunters-First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture (eds T. D. Price and A. B. Gebauer). Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 243-72. Kelly, R. L. 1992. Mobility/sedentism: concepts, archaeological measures and effects. Annual Review of Anthropology, 21: 43-66. Kelly, R. L., Poyer, L. and Tucker, B. 2005. An ethnoarchaeological study of mobility, architectural investment, and food sharing among Madagascar's Mikea. American Anthropologist, 107: 403-16. Kennett, D. J. 2005. The Island Chumash:Behavioral Ecology of a Maritime Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kennett, D. J., Voorhies, B. and Martorana, D. 2006. An evolutionary model for the origins of agriculture on the Pacific Coast of southern Mexico. In Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture (eds D. J. Kennett and B. Winterhalder). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, in press. Kristiansen, K. 1998. Europe before History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, R. B. 1993. The Dobe Ju/'hoansi, 2nd edn. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.

Sedentism and food production 353

Lentz, D. L. 1991. Maya diets of the rich and poor: Paleoethnobotanical evidence from Copan. Latin American Antiquity, 2: 269-87. Lentz, D. L. 2000. Anthropocentric food webs in the Precolumbian Americas. In Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformationsin the Precolumbian Americas (ed. D. L. Lentz). New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 98-119. Lentz, D. L., Beaudry-Corbett, M. P., Reyna de Aguilar, M. L. and Kaplan, L. 1996. Foodstuff, forests, fields, and shelter: a paleoethnobotanical analysis of vessel contents from the Ceren site, El Salvador. Latin American Antiquity, 7: 247-62. Lentz, D. L., Ramirez, C. R. and Griscom, B. W. 1997. Formative period subsistence and forest product extraction at the Yarumela site, Honduras. Ancient Mesoamerica, 8: 63-74. Lesure, R. G. 1997. Early Formative platforms at Paso de la Amada, Chiapas, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity, 8: 217-35. Lesure, R. G. 2004. Shared art styles and long-distance contact in Early Mesoamerica. In Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice (eds J. A. Hendon and R. A. Joyce). Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 73-96. Lesure, R. G. and Blake, M. 2002. Interpretive challenges in the study of early complexity: economy, ritual and architecture at Paso de la Amada, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 21: 1-24. Long, A., Benz, B., Donahue, D., Jull, A. and Toolin, L. 1989. First AMS dates on early maize from Tehuacan, Mexico. Radiocarbon, 31: 1035^0. Love, M. W. 1999. Economic patterns in the development of complex society in Pacific Guatemala. In Pacific Latin America in Prehistory: The Evolution of Archaic and Formative Cultures (ed. M. Blake) Pullman, WA: University of Washington Press, pp. 89-100. Love, M. W. 2002. Early complex society in Pacific Guatemala: settlements and chronology of the Rio Naranjo, Guatemala. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 66. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. Lowe, G. 1975. The Early Preclassic Barra Phase of Altamira, Chiapas: a review with new data. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 38, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. Lowe, G. W., Lee Jr., T. A. and Espinoza, E. M. 1982. Izapa: an introduction to the ruins and monuments. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 31. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. McCann, J. C. 2005. Maize and Grace: Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McCorriston, J. and Hole, F. 1991. The ecology of seasonal stress and the origins of agriculture in the Near East. American Anthropologist, 93: 46-69. Micheals, G. H. and Voorhies, B. 1999. Late Archaic Period coastal collectors in southern Mesoamerica: the Chantuto people revisited. In Pacific Latin America in Prehistory: The Evolution of Archaic and Formative Cultures (ed. M. Blake). Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, pp. 39-54. Mills, B. J. 1989. Integrating functional analysis of vessel and sherds through models of ceramic assemblage formation. World Archaeology, 21: 133^7. Murdock, G. P. and Provost, C. 1973. Measurement of cultural complexity. Ethnology, 12: 379-92. Neff, H., Pearsall, D. M., Jones, J. G., Arroyo de Pieters, B. and Freidel, D. E. 2006. Climate change and population history in the Pacific Lowlands of Southern Mesoamerica. Quaternary Research, in press.

354 Robert M. Rosenswig

O'Shea, J. M. and Barker, A. W. 1996. Measuring social complexity and variation: a categorical imperative? In Emergent Complexity: The Evolution of IntermediateSocieties (ed. J. E. Arnold). Ann Arbor, MI: International Monographs in Prehistory, pp. 13-24. Perez Suarez, T. 2002. Canton Corralito: un sitio Olmeca en el litoral chiapaneco. In Arqueologia mexicana, historia y esencia. Sigh XX: En reconocimiento al Dr. Roman Pina Chan (ed. J. Nava Rivero). Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, pp. 71-92. Perrin, T. 2003. Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures co-existing in the upper Rhone valley. Antiquity, 11: 732-9. Piperno, D. R. and Flannery, K. V. 2001. The earliest archaeological maize (Zea mays L.) from highland Mexico: new accelerator mass spectrometry dates and their implications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 98: 2101-3. Piperno, D. R. and Pearsall, D. M. 1998. The Origins of Agriculturein the Lowland Neotropics. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Piperno, D. R., Ranere, A. J., Hoist, I. and Hansell, P. 2000. Starch grains reveal early root crop horticulture in the Panamanian tropical forest. Nature, 407: 894-7. Pohl, M. D., Pope, K. O., Jones, J. G., Jacob, J. S., Piperno, D. R., deFrance, S. D., Lentz, D. L., Gifford, J. A., Danforth, M. E. and Josserand, J. K. 1996. Early agriculture in the Maya lowlands. Latin American Antiquity, 7: 355-72. Pye, M. E. and Demarest, A. A. 1991. The evolution of complex societies in southeastern Mesoamerica: new evidence from El Mesak, Guatemala. In The Formation of Complex Societies in Southeastern Mesoamerica (ed. W. R. Fowler, Jr). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp. 77-100. Rafferty, J. E. 1985. The archaeological record on sedentariness: recognition, development, and implications. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 8: 113-56. Rice, P. M. 1999. On the origins of pottery. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 6: 1-54. Rindos, D. 1984. The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Academic Press. Rosenswig, R. M. 2000. Some political processes of ranked societies. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 19: 413-60. Rosenswig, R. M. 2004. Three and a half millennia of settlement changes in the Cuauhtemoc region of the Soconusco, Chiapas, Mexico. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the SAA, Montreal. Rosenswig, R. M. 2005a. From the land between swamps: Cuauhtemoc in an Early Olmec world. Unpublished PhD dissertation. New Haven, CT: Yale University. Rosenswig, R. M. 2005b. Economia y Estetica de Cuauhtemoc: 800 anos de cambio en una comunidad del Soconusco. Paper presented at the XIX Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueologicas en Guatemala, Guatemala City. Rosenswig, R. M. 2006a. Northern Belize and the Soconusco: a comparison of the Late Archaic to Formative transition. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 3, in press. Rosenswig, R. M. 2006b. Beyond identifying elites: feasting as a means to understand early Middle Formative society on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Journal of AnthropologicalArchaeology, in press. Skibo, J. M. and Blinman, E. 1999. Exploring the origins of pottery on the Colorado plateau. In Pottery and People: A Dynamic Interaction (eds J. A. Skibo and G. M. Feinman). Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, pp. 171-83. Smalley, J. and Blake, M. 2003. Sweet beginnings: stalk sugar and the domestication of maize. CurrentAnthropology, 44: 675-703.

Sedentism and food production 355

Smith, B. D. 1997. The initial domestication of Cucurbitapepo in the Americas 10,000 years ago. Science, 276: 932-4. Smith, B. D. 2001. Low-level food production. Journal of Archaeological Research, 9: 1-43. Smith, B. D. 2005. Reassessing Coxcatlan Cave and the early history of domesticated plants in Mesoamerica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 102: 9438-45. Taube, K. 1996. The Olmec maize god: the faces of corn in Formative Mesoamerica. RES: Anthropologyand Aesthetics, 29-30: 39-81. Taube, K. 2000. Lightning celts and corn fetishes: the Formative Olmec and the development of maize symbolism in Mesoamerica and the American southwest. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica(eds J. E. Clark and M. E. Pye). Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, pp. 297-337. vanDerwarker, A. M. 2005. Field cultivation and tree management in tropical agricultural: a view from Gulf Coastal Mexico. World Archaeology, 37: 275-89. Voorhies, B. 1976. The Chantuto people: an Archaic period society of the Chiapas littoral, Mexico. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 41. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. Voorhies, B. 1996a. Subsistence strategies on the eve of complexity: the Late Archaic Period in south coastal Chiapas, Mexico. In The Prehistory of the Americas. 13th International Congress of the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Vol. 17. Forli, Italy, pp. 19-26. Voorhies, B. 1996b. The transformation from foraging to farming in lowland Mesoamerica. In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use (ed. S. L. Fedick). Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, pp. 17-29. Voorhies, B. 2004. Coastal Collectors in the Holocene: The Chantuto People of Southwest Mexico. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Voorhies, B., Michaels, G. H. and Riser, G. M. 1991. Ancient shrimp fishery. National Geographic Research and Exploration, 7: 20-35. Washburn, J. 1980. Hunters and gatherers today and reconstruction of the past. In Soviet and WesternAnthropology (ed. E. Gellner). London: Duckworth, pp. 95-118. Whittle, A. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiessner, P. 2002. The vines of complexity: egalitarian structures and the institutionalization of inequality among the Enga. CurrentAnthropology, 43: 233-69. Winterhalder, B. and Kennett, D. J. 2006. Behavioral ecology and the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture:volume introduction. In BehavioralEcology and the Transitionto Agriculture (eds D. J. Kennett and B. Winterhalder). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, in press. Zohary, D. 2004. Unconscious selection and the evolution of domesticated plants. Economic Botany, 58: 5-10.

Robert M. Rosenswig is currently a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow at the University of Montreal. He will begin as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University at Albany - SUNY in the fall of 2006. His research interests include the emergence of socio-political complexity and the origins of food production. He carries out fieldwork in two areas of Mesoamerica: the Soconusco on Mexico's Pacific coast and in northern Belize near the Atlantic coast.