Settlement Survey of the Rural Mountainous Region of Quiechapa in Southern Mexico

Summary

While extensive research has been conducted in and around well-known sociopolitical centers located in valley and coastal regions of southern Mexico, relatively little work has been done in the rural regions outside these core areas. Specifically, one of the understudied regions of southern Mexico is the mountainous region between the highlands and Pacific coastal lowlands. Recently, El Proyecto Arqueológico de Quiechapa (PAQuie) conducted a Full-coverage pedestrian survey of a 99 sq. km area in the municipality of San Pedro Mártir Quiechapa located in the mountains southeast of the Valley of Oaxaca. This paper will examine the methods and preliminary results PAQuie’s 2016 field season. To better understand the occupation history of the region, project members documented prehispanic land-use and settlement patterns using GPS equipment, and created a geodatabase of all visible features. Additionally, samples of diagnostic ceramics were collected and compared to existing typologies from neighboring regions, demonstrating changes in settlement patterns over time. Together, the Quiechapa time series maps and ceramic chronology provided valuable information regarding prehispanic occupation, settlement distribution, and how the people of the area might be connected to larger economic and sociopolitical networks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Mountain Towns and Crossroads: Archaeology of the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca, Mexico

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14931