Gardens of Prehistory: The Archaeology of Settlement Agriculture in Greater Mesoamerica

3. The Southwestern Ethnographic Record and Prehistoric Agricultural Diversity

SANDERS AND KILLION fields that are fertilized with the ashes and residue of previous crops, green manure from weeding during cultivation, and sheep dung. Animals are penned in small corrals that are regularly moved over the field surface during fallow periods lasting up to two years. Hamlets and isolated farmsteads are sometimes found scattered among the highly productive llano and pajonal parcels, which, being more closely located to settlements, are considered the most desirable class of land and are often also terraced. Most residences, however, are found inside the innermost portion of the infield zone where rastrajo (cornstalk land) cultivation is practiced. Rastrajo parcels, located directly adjacent to or within settlements, represent some of the most highly productive land cultivated by Maya farmers in the region. These plots are cultivated year after year without rest and receive constant inputs of fertilizer in the form of crop residues , green manure, animal manure, and all categories of organic household waste. In most settlements maize fields spread out between dwellings, filling up all the spaces between residences except for a small clear area or patio directly adjacent to the living structure. The more land devoted to rastrajo cultivation, the more dispersed the settlement . While areally the smallest component of the agricultural system in most communities, rastrajo receives as much or more labor input as any other component of the overall agricultural strategy and represents the most staple-oriented form of settlement agriculture discussed thus far.2 CONCLUDING REMARKS Settlement and agricultural systems observed historically and ethnographically in Mesoamerica reveal considerable variation in crops utilized, land-use practices, and the spatial organization of field and residence. Basic human dietary needs require the sustained production of one or more staples in all agricultural systems; in Mesoamerica maize and, to a lesser extent, root crops have provided the bulk of carbohydrate inputs to subsistence. Protein needs are generally achieved on the basis of the favorable amino-acid complementation of maize and beans that are grown and consumed together throughout all areas of 28 HISTORIC RECORD OF MESOAMERICA Mesoamerica. Smaller amounts of protein are also provided by domestic animals, the contribution of which was greatly reduced by the poverty of this sector of the food-producing economy in prehispanic times. Staples, while potentially cultivable on all portions of the agricultural landscape, are generally restricted to areas where larger field surfaces can be maintained. Supplementary nutritional requirements are met by a host of additional crops, the regular consumption of which provides necessary inputs of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients fundamental to good health. These crops, potentially cultivated throughout a community's agricultural territory, are often grown on smaller field surfaces in proximity to the residence within a zone of settlement agriculture. House-lot gardens and intrasettlement cultivation plots (which together form the zone of settlement agriculture), infields (adjacent to the settlement's residential zone), and more distant outlying fields constitute the potential spatial components of most Mesoamerican agricultural systems. These components are organized, to a great extent, in terms of the environmental and demographic parameters that exist in particular regions. The distribution of highly productive and more marginal farmlands, problems associated with the maintenance of soil fertility, and the energetics of small-scale farming systems that run predominantly on human labor sources are all mediated by local population densities affecting patterns of settlement dispersal and nucleation . Political and economic factors, however, also play an important role, further transforming the final configuration of settlement and system of agriculture practiced in any given area. The ethnographic and historic examples of Mesoamerican settlement and agriculture discussed in this chapter are largely a product of political and economic transformations brought about during the five hundred years since the Spanish conquest. Certain factors affecting settlement and agriculture during this time, however, also would have been important during the prehispanic era. Settlement dispersal and nucleation, as noted above, are particularly important processes associated with demographic and environmental factors. The degree of nucleation , however, is also a product of basic farming energetics. Farmers generally attempt to locate themselves with respect to the most highly productive portions of the agricultural landscape so as to reduce the 29 SANDERS AND KILLION distance between residence and field and minimize daily energy expenditures . Domestic animals are ready sources of manure and, as in Stadelman's highland Guatemalan example, can improve fertility and reduce labor expenditures on agricultural plots located outside the zone of settlement agriculture. Drennan (1988...