Food from the Barranca: A 13,000-Year Perspective from the Yuzanú Drainage of the Mixteca Alta

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Barrancas are marginal spaces in the cultural ecology and cultural perceptions of modern-day inhabitants and visitors of the Mixteca Alta. They tend to be little-contested commons where the poor graze their animals, hunt, gather fuelwood and occasional culinary curiosities. They rarely figure in the villagers' get-rich schemes or outsiders' research and development programs, with the partial exception of those showcasing environmental degradation. Using the results of geoarchaeological survey and excavation in the vicinity of Yanhuitlan, we point to the radical transformations in streamside ecology wrought by climate change and human management and argue that in the past the barranca was often a place of plenty, playing a central role in food procurement and production. Paleoindians camped along wet meadows grazed by large herbivores. Their Archaic successors used barranca floodplains as places for seasonal congregation and managed their vegetation communities by intentional burning. Cross-channel agricultural terraces were built by the Formative and by the Postclassic formed monumental staircases planted in staple foods, with both property rights and the movement of water receiving close scrutiny. It was only with the catastrophic channel deepening and widening in the wake of Colonial terrace collapse and overgrazing that the barranca began to lose its allure.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23349