Settlement and Subsistence at Early Formative Soconusco: El Varal and the Problem of Inter-Site Assemblage Variation


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Series: Monographs 65
ISBN: 978-1-931745-79-6
Publication Date: Mar 2010
Price: Hb $50.00, Pb $25.00
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Richard G. Lesure

The Soconusco region, a narrow strip of the Pacific coast of Mexico and Guatemala, is the location of some of the earliest pottery-using villages of ancient Mesoamerica. Mobile early inhabitants of the area harvested marsh clams in the estuaries, leaving behind vast mounds of shell. With the introduction of pottery and the establishment of permanent villages (from 1900 B.C.), use of the resource-rich estuary changed. The archaeological manifestation of that new estuary adaptation is a dramatic pattern of inter-site variability in pottery vessel forms. Vessels at sites within the estuary were about seventy percent neckless jars -- "tecomates" -- while vessels at contemporaneous sites a few kilometers inland were seventy percent open dishes. The pattern is well-known, but the the settlement arrangements or subsistence practices that produced it have remained unclear. Archaeological investigations at El Varal, a special-purpose estuary site of the later Early Formative (1250-1000 B.C.) expand possibilities for an anthropological understanding of the archaeological patterns. The goal of this volume is to describe excavations and finds at the site and to propose, based on a variety of analyses, a new understanding of Early Formative assemblage variability.
Table of Contents

Part I: Archaeologcal Investigations at El Varal

Chapter 1. Site Assemblage Variation in Early Formative Soconusco by Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 2. Field Investigations and Materials Recovered by Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 3. The Structure and Formation of the Vasquez Mound by Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 4. Excavations by Richard G. Lesure and Tomas Perez Suarez

Part II: Analysis of Find and the Issue of Intra-Site Variability

Chapter 5. Changing Patterns of Shellfish Exploitation by Richard G. Lesure, Alina Gagiu, Brendan J. Culleton, and Douglas J. Kennett
Chapter 6. Crab Exploitation in Early Formative Soconusco by John Dietler and Thomas A. Wake
Chapter 7. Fishing in te Mangroves at Formative-Period El Varal by Thomas A. Wake and David W. Steadman
Chapter 8. Macrobotanical Remains from El Varal, with a Comparison to Inland Sites by Virginia S. Popper and Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 9. Pottery by Richard G. Lesure and Isabel Rodriguez Lopez
Chapter 10. Artifacts of Stone and Shell by Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 11. Ceramic Artifacts by Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 12. Radiocarbon Dating by Michael Blake and Richard G. Lesure
Chapter 13. Shellfish Harvesting Strategies at El Varal by Douglas J. Kennet and Brendan J. Culleton
Chapter 14. Artifact Synthesis and Intra-site Assemblage Variability by Richard G. Lesure

Part III: Inter-site Differences: Settlement, Subsistence, and Community

Chapter 15. Subsistence in the Estuary by Richard G. Lesure, Thomas A. Wake, and David W. Steadman

Chapter 16. The Manufacture and Content of Pottery Vessels in Early Formative Mazatan by David M. Carballo, Richard G. Lesure, Jelmer W. Eerkens, Douglas J. Kennett, Stuart Tyson Smith, Hector Neff, and Michael D. Glascock

Chapter 17. The Organization of Salt Production by Richard G. Lesure

Chapter 18. Concluding Hypotheses by Richard G. Lesure