Domestic refuse and residential mound formation in La Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico.
Name:
azu_td_9208055_sip1_m.pdf
Size:
11.90Mb
Format:
PDF
Description:
azu_td_9208055_sip1_m.pdf
Issue Date
1991Keywords
Indians of Mexico -- Mexico -- Veracruz (State) -- DwellingsKitchen-middens -- Mexico -- Veracruz (State)
Mounds -- Mexico -- Veracruz (State)
Veracruz (Mexico : State) -- Antiquities.
Advisor
Culbert, PatMetadata
Show full item recordPublisher
The University of Arizona.Rights
Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.Abstract
The Mesoamerican residential mound is a basic unit of archaeological analysis. The way mounds form has implications for reconstructing past social organization. Studies of formation processes assume that characteristics of refuse are the result of depositional history. Tracing the history of archaeological deposits is the first step toward understanding the social and economic milieu of the prehistoric household. The traces of mound formation processes particularly are evident in ceramics. This study examines measures such as density, mean size, and variation in size and wear, to determine their utility in ascertaining depositional history, including discard practices, erosion, and trampling. The measures are tested with the Exploratory Data Analysis method using visual inspection of the data for patterns and examination of exceptional cases. Density by weight and mean sherd size were found to be particularly useful and simple measures for differentiating archaeological deposits. The characteristics of artifacts in a deposit provide the basis for reconstructing the formation of mounds. Earthen residential mounds like those of Veracruz are low and broad and usually lack imperishable construction materials. Unlike Maya housemounds, which often use fill for mound construction, earthen mound formation resembles (on a smaller scale) the formation of tells, the remains of ancient villages and towns in Western Asia. For both tells and earthen mounds, the erosion of houses forms the bulk of mound sediments. Residential mound growth is more by gradual accretion than by deliberate construction, and is due to six main formation processes. These are: (1) the erosion of wattle-and-daub construction material, which contribute to mound sediments; (2) the gradual accretion of sediments and artifacts; (3) horizontal erosion of daub and artifacts; (4) secondary refuse deposition; (5) the occasional use of fill to expand or level the mound; and (6) the development of a humic topsoil layer commonly damaged by plowing. Through refuse characteristics it is possible to reconstruct mound growth, use of space, and the location of structures and refuse dumps. These formation processes distinguish earthen mound development in many parts of Mesoamerica.Type
textDissertation-Reproduction (electronic)
Degree Name
Ph.D.Degree Level
doctoralDegree Program
AnthropologyGraduate College
Degree Grantor
University of ArizonaCollections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
The Miocene Tatatila–Las Minas IOCG skarn deposits (Veracruz) as a result of adakitic magmatism in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt - Los depósitos de tipo skarn IOCG miocénicos de Tatatila–Las Minas (Veracruz) como resultado del magmatismo adakítico de la Faja Volcánica Trans-MexicanaThe Cu- and Au-rich Tatatila–Las Minas IOCG skarn deposits in Veracruz (central-east Mexico) are circumscribed to the earliest stages of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB) and stand for a metallogenic province directly linked to its tectonomagmatic dynamics. This is the first well-documented case for such metallogenic province. These deposits were formed as skarns between rocks of the Mesozoic carbonate series and Miocene intermediate to acid hypabyssal rocks. New U-Pb zircon and 40Ar/39Ar ages provide evidence for four epochs of magmatic activity in the area: (1) early Permian (Artinskian), in association with the Paleozoic basement, (2) late Oligocene to early Miocene suite of pre-TMVB intrusive rocks, (3) middle to late Miocene suite of early TMVB-related intrusive rocks, and (4) Pliocene intrusive and extrusive rocks of the TMVB, possibly associated with the Los Humeros post-caldera stage. The obtained ages range between 24.60 ± 1.10 and 19.04 ± 0.69 Ma for stage 2, and between 16.34 ± 0.20 and 13.92 ± 0.22 Ma for stage 3. Stage 2 corresponds to a magmatic stage unheard of in the area, until this study. Only stage 3 rocks are associated with the IOCG skarn mineralization, with retrograde stages dated at 12.44 ± 0.09 (chromian muscovite, phyllic association) and 12.18 ± 0.21 Ma (zircon, potassic association). Therefore, the ages of stage-3 intrusive rocks are interpreted to date the formation of e prograde skarn associations (mostly ~15.4 to <14 Ma). The petrogenetic affinity of stage-2 and stage-3 rocks is about the same—the main difference has to do with higher Y and Yb contents in stage-3 rocks (although no affinity with within-plate granites was found), which is suggestive of an interaction of their parental magmas with alkaline magmas that most likely belong to the conterminous and contemporaneous Eastern Mexico Alkaline Province. Petrological indicators (elemental and isotopic) in Cenozoic rocks consistently point to intermediate to acid, metaluminous, I- and S-type rocks that were emplaced in a subduction-related continental arc, within the medium- to high-potassium calc-alkaline series, with high-silica adakitic signatures due associated to deep-sourced magmas that underwent crustal contamination to some degree. The various possible sources for the magmas with adakitic signature in this context can be narrowed down to two of them that are not mutually exclusive: adakitic derived from subducted slab melting and melting-assimilation-storage-homogenization (MASH)-derived adakites. Both sources are, in principle, capable of generating magmas that would eventually produce magmatic-hydrothermal mineralizing systems with an associated variety of ore deposit types, including IOCG. Also, both possible sources for adakites are compatible with the renewed steepening of the subducted slab after a period of flat subduction, for the earliest stage in the evolution of the TMVB. © 2020. All Rights Reserved.
-
Coffee Agro-ecosystems, Land-use and the Politics of Re-regulation in Veracruz, MexicoVolatile coffee markets during the 1990s plunged many of the world’s 25 million producers into dire economic straits. In this, Mexico’s smallholders were far from exceptional: market decline combined with institutional restructuring drastically reduced their access to the capital and inputs needed to earn a decent living from the coffee landscape. In the state of Veracruz, where the national coffee parastata--Inmecafé--had been headquartered since the 1960s, smallholders were immediately affected by the dismantling of state programs. In the breach, however, coffee producers developed rather sui generis strategies to weather the impacts of economic transformation, ranging from crop conversion to political activism. Such heterogeneous practices, moreover, possess different implications for Veracruz’s biologically diverse shade-grown coffee systems. Using mixed methods—from ethnography to remote sensing—this dissertation examines the livelihood strategies employed by smallholders following coffee sector restructuring and links these practices to land-cover change and state formation. I found that while coffee farmers indeed developed new tactics to whether economic shocks (e.g. land sales, agro-forestry projects, conversion to other cash crops) these practices did not result in large-scale land-cover conversion. Based on analysis of Landsat images from 1996 and 2003, I found 82% of the coffee canopy remained intact during this seven-year period (a time that corresponds with the most severe years of the coffee crisis.) Based on ethnography with state officials, moreover, I argue the government must now grapple with the socio-ecological complexities that emerged in its temporary absence. Following failed attempts to territorialize and control coffee producers since 2001, my results indicate official strategies are beginning to move in a more participatory direction in the newest phase of coffee re-regulation. This dissertation provides important insights into the ways commodity production, everyday practices, environment, and state-society relationships have recombined in the post-NAFTA era, and the effects of this recombination on people and landscape.
