Following the Fiber: Agave Tools from Cropping to Crafting

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Hohokam farmers of southern Arizona grew agave for food, fiber, and probable alcoholic beverages in distinctive and widely preserved fields on dry slopes that were dedicated to this major succulent crop. Specialized tools from Hohokam agricultural and residential contexts allow us to track agave fiber production, processing, and craft manufacture, often in terms of quantified parameters. Thin, flat "knives" of tabular-fracturing stone with sharp, uneven edges and steep-edged core tools dominate field assemblages. Farmers used them for severing tough, fibrous leaves during harvest and preparing the plant bases for communal roasting in field-side pits. Tools recovered from excavated structures in nearby villages emphasize another category of tabular-stone knives with smoothed edges that would not tear leaf fibers when scraping away pulp to expose them. Some smooth-edged knives had regular indentations resembling the teeth of a comb that would have served to untangle and separate the fibers. Modalities in knife blade widths appear to indicate agave species with different leaf sizes. Distributions of smooth-edged knives and appropriate spindle whorl types among structures help identify locations of manufacturing activities. Our interpretations of Hohokam agave tools are enhanced by comparison with ethnographic and archaeological counterparts from the western United States and Mesoamerica.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23108