Lakescapes/Landscapes in the Prehispanic Basin of Mexico: Recent Evidence for Early Subsistence Adaptations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent studies of both macrobotanical and microbotanical remains associated with early populations in the Basin of Mexico provide broader evidence for plant use and contribute to understanding of the range of subsistence components available to these communities. From a methodological perspective, the complementary analyses of macrobotanical remains together with phytoliths and starch grains from such contexts provides a constructive approach to understanding both adaptations to past landscape as well as foodways. Two case studies are considered: Preceramic Middle Holocene evidence from San Gregorio Atlapulco, a former tlatel in Lake Xochimilco (Southern Basin), and Early–Middle Formative period indicators from Altica, a piedmont community in the southern Teotihuacan Valley (Northern Basin). Although substantially different with respect to environmental characteristics, economic organization, and activities related to food production are concerned, domestic contexts from both sites provide evidence for more diverse procurement and production of subsistence resources than previously reported from Mesoamerican communities within these time frames.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35837.0