Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T01:31:23.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agriculture and the Theocratic State in Lowland Southeastern Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert F. Heizer
Robert F. Heizer*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, Calif.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Shifting cultivation, which is the technique commonly followed by tropical agriculturists, while wasteful of land use in requiring a long fallowing period, will support variable population densities depending upon crops grown, farming tools used, and soil fertility. Twenty persons per square kilometer is accepted as the density for the region around the Preclassic La Venta site which was begun about 800 B.C. and abandoned about 400 B.C. The occupation area of the La Venta culture group is believed to lie between the Coatzacoalcos and Tonalá rivers and amounts to about 900 square kilometers, thus yielding a population figure of about 18,000, of which 3600 are family heads. The total man-days of labor required to build the La Venta site is estimated to be 1,100,000, and the four major rebuildings of the site features are suggested as having been done at completion of 52 and 104 year calendar rounds.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , October 1960 , pp. 215 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armillas, Pedro 1958. Program of the History of American Indians. Pan American Union, Social Science Monographs, 2. Washington.Google Scholar
Bartlett, H. H. 1956. Fire, Primitive Agriculture, and Grazing in the Tropics. In Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, edited by Thomas, W. L., pp. 692–720. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz 1912. The History of the American Race. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 21, pp. 177–83. New York.Google Scholar
Braidwood, R. J. and Reed, C. A. 1957. The Achievement and Early Consequences of Food Production: a Consideration of the Archeological and Natural-Historical Evidence. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, Vol. 22, pp. 19–31. Cold Spring Harbor.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1946. What Happened in History. Pelican Books, New York.Google Scholar
Coe, M. D. 1957. Cycle 7 Monuments in Middle America: A Reconsideration. American Anthropologist, Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 597–611. Menasha.Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. 1959.a Population-Land Balance Under Systems of Tropical Agriculture. Proceedings of the Ninth Pacific Science Congress, 1957, Vol. 7, p. 63. Bangkok.Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. 1959.b A Preliminary Bibliography of References on Shifting Cultivation. Mimeographed, 59 pp., Department of Anthropology, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Cook, O. F. 1921. Milpa Agriculture, a Primitive Tropical System. Smithsonian Institution Report for 1919, pp. 307–26. Washington.Google Scholar
Drucker, Philip 1952. La Venta, Tabasco: A Study of Olmec Ceramics and Art. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 153. Washington.Google Scholar
Drucker, Philip and Heizer, R. F. 1960. A Study of the Milpa System of La Venta Island and Its Archaeological Implications. Southwestern ]ournal of Anthropology, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 36–45. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Drucker, Philip, Heizer, R. F., and Squier, R. J. 1957. Radiocarbon Dates from La Venta, Tabasco. Science, Vol. 126, No. 3263, pp. 72–3. Washington.Google Scholar
Drucker, Philip, Heizer, R. F., and Squier, R. J. 1959. Excavations at La Venta, Tabasco, 1955. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 170. Washington.Google Scholar
Ferdon, E. N. Jr. 1959. Agricultural Potential and the Development of Cultures. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 1–19. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Foster, G. M. 1942. A Primitive Mexican Economy. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, No. 5. J. J. Augustin, New York.Google Scholar
Gourou, P. 1956. The Quality of Land Use of Tropical Cultivators. In Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, edited by Thomas, W. L., pp. 336–49. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Heizer, R. F. 1957. Excavations at La Venta, 1955. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, Vol. 28, pp. 98–110. Austin.Google Scholar
Hester, J. A. Jr. 1953. Agriculture, Economy and Population Densities of the Maya. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Yearbook 52, pp. 288–92. Washington.Google Scholar
Kelly, Isabel and Palerm, Angel 1952. The Tajin Totonac, Part I. Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication 13. Washington.Google Scholar
Kidder, A. V. 1940. Archaeological Problems of the Highland Maya. In The Maya and Their Neighbors, pp. 117–25. Appleton-Century, New York.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1923. American Culture and the Northwest Coast. American Anthropologist, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 1–20. Menasha.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1948. Anthropology. Harcourt, Brace, New York.Google Scholar
La Farge, Oliver and Byers, D. S. 1931. The Year Bearer's People. Tulane University, Middle American Research Series, Publication 3. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Lowe, G. W. 1959. Archaeological Exploration of the Upper Grijalva River, Chiapas, Mexico. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, No. 2. Orinda.Google Scholar
Lundell, C. L. 1937. The Vegetation of Peten. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 478. Washington.Google Scholar
MacNeish, R. S. 1958. Preliminary Archaeological Investigations in the Sierra de Tamaulipas, Mexico. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 48, Part 6. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Nomland, G. A. 1932. Proboscis Statue from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. American Anthropologist, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 591–3. Menasha.Google Scholar
Palerm, Angel 1955. The Agricultural Bases of Urban Civilization in Mesoamerica. In “Irrigation Civilizations: A Comparative Study,” pp. 28–42. Pan American Union, Social Science Monographs, 1. Washington.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. T. 1953. The Anthropogeography of Central Veracruz. In “Huastecos, Totonacos y sus Vecinos,” Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos, Vol. 13, Nos. 2-3, pp. 27–78. Mexico.Google Scholar
Steggerda, Morris 1941. Maya Indians of Yucatan. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 531. Washington.Google Scholar
Stirling, M. W. 1940. An Initial Series from Tres Zapotes, Vera Cruz, Mexico. National Geographic Society Contributions, Technical Papers, Mexican Archaeological Series, Vol. 1, No. 1. Washington.Google Scholar
Termer, Franz 1951. The Density of Population in the Southern and Northern Maya Empires as an Archaeological and Geographical Problem. In Selected Papers of the XXIXth International Congress of Americanists [New York, 1949.], Vol. 1, The Civilizations of Ancient America, edited by Tax, Sol, pp. 101–7. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. E. S. 1950. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 589. Washington.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. E. S. 1954. The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Wauchope, Robert 1950. A Tentative Sequence of Pre-Classic Ceramics in Middle America. Tulane University, Middle American Research Records, Vol. 1, No. 14, Middle American Research Institute, Publication 15, pp. 211–50. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Wauchope, Robert 1954. Implications of Radiocarbon Dates from Middle and South America. Tulane University, Middle American Research Records, Vol. 2, No. 2, Middle American Research Institute, Publication 18, pp. 17–40. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R. 1955. The Prehistoric Civilizations of Nuclear America. American Anthropologist, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 571–93. Menasha.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R. 1956. Problems Concerning Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Maya Lowlands. In “Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the New World,” edited by Willey, G. R., pp. 107–14. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 23. Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R. 1960. New World Prehistory. Science, Vol. 131, No. 3393, pp. 73–86. Washington.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. R. 1959. Sons of the Shaking Earth. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar