Preceramic Mesoamerica: Chronology, Culture, and Climate

Summary

Recent and ongoing investigations in Mesoamerica are showing how different regions followed different developmental trajectories leading up to the adoption of ceramic technologies and sedentary lifestyles. This threshold, which typically defines the end of the Archaic period, was reached at different points in time anywhere between about 1800 and 900 BC. These multiple preceramic adaptations seemingly imply that Mesoamerican cultural diversity that marks Formative and later periods had its basis in Archaic and perhaps even Paleoindian periods. This study provides an overview of Mesoamerican preceramic periods, based on an evaluation of available radiocarbon records, and compares these records against available late Quaternary environmental and climate data. We evaluate the timing and nature of preceramic culture change, and consider whether significant environmental factors or events can be recognized that may have accounted for punctuated preceramic responses, either across Mesoamerica or specific to particular regions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Understanding the Nature and Timing of Human Responses to Environmental Change

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