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Regional Variation in the Importance and uses of Maize in the Early and Middle Formative Olmec Heartland: New Archaeobotanical Data from the San Carlos Homestead, Southern Veracruz

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Amber M. VanDerwarker  and
Robert P. Kruger
Amber M. VanDerwarker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93101-3210 (vanderwarker@anth.ucsb.edu)
Robert P. Kruger
Affiliation:
Facultad de Antropología, Universidad Veracruzana, Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico (mightyolmec@yahoo.com)
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Abstract

This article presents an archaeobotanical analysis from the site of San Carlos, a small Early/Middle Formative period homestead situated in the Coatzacoalcos River basin in the southern Veracruz lowlands, approximately 9 km southeast of San Lorenzo. Although archaeobotanical data from the Olmec heartland have become more widely reported in recent years, we still lack sufficient data to capture regional and temporal variation in plant foodways. Thus, we report the macrobotanical data from San Carlos and provide a quantitative comparison with existing data sets from other southern Veracruz sites with Early and Middle Formative components (La Joya and Tres Zapotes). Comparative analysis reveals that these three sites vary dramatically in terms of the ubiquity and abundance of maize, in addition to the frequencies of different fruit types. We interpret these differences in terms of (1) settlement location with respect to geographical positioning in terms of access to riverine wetlands and their resources and (2) their association with areas of developing sociopolitical power structures.

Este artículo presenta los resultados de un análisis arqueobotánico de materiales obtenidos en el sitio de San Carlos, un pequeño asentamiento del Formativo Temprano/Medio, ubicado en la cuenca del Río Coatzacoalcos, a aproximadamente 9 km de San Lorenzo, en las tierras bajas del sur de Veracruz. Aunque en los últimos años se han publicado más datos arqueobotánicos sobre el área nuclear olmeca, todavía nos falta información para captar las variaciones regionales y temporales del comportamiento alimenticio. Por ello, presentamos los resultados macrobotánicos de San Carlos y proponemos una comparación cuantitativa con los datos de otros sitios del sur de Veracruz que tienen elementos del Formativo Temprano y Medio (como La Joya y Tres Zapotes). El análisis comparativo revela que hay mucha variación, tanto en la ubicuidad y abundancia del maíz en estos tres sitios, como en las frecuencias de diferentes tipos de frutos. Interpretamos estas diferencias con relación a (1) la ubicación de los asentamientos con respecto a su situación geográfica, particularmente asociada a su acceso a zonas ribereñas y a sus recursos y (2) su asociación a áreas con estructuras de poder socio-político en desarrollo.

Type
Themed Section: Diet, Disease, and Social Change
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 509 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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