Zapotitlan Earth Ovens and Their Middens: Ethnoarchaeology in Colima, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Earth-oven processing of agave food and drink has a time depth in Colima, Mexico, of more than 7,000 years, providing a notable example of localized socioeconomic intensification processes throughout the Holocene. The cultural setting for this research is observant of contemporary Agave Culture, a term used to describe people who utilize the pant for food, drink, fiber, fuel, shelter, and fencing. Ethnoarchaeological evidence is used in this report to compare agave processing with squash, corn, and meat earth-oven preparations within the Zapotitlan community. Agave, which appears both wild and cultivated in Zapotitlan, is planted to produce mescal and to create portions of garden fences, providing both protection and a perennial crop amongst gardens for annual multi-cropping of corn, beans, and squash. Zapotitlan garden complexes and their associated earth ovens and burned rock middens include unspoken gender rules and reiterated discard patterns. Descriptions of earth oven activity areas are complimented by a homogeneity/heterogeneity index for each midden. Artifact descriptions include earth-oven features, discarded basalt fire-cracked rock fragments forming middens, and specialized tool suites for processing agave, squash, and meat.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37003.0