Polity and Ecology in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca

Foreword

xv Foreword in the early 1960s richard macneish designed a groundbreaking regional archaeological study focused on mexico’s tehuacán valley. Enlisting the collaboration of specialists in paleobotany, zoology, geology, geography, hydrology, lithic technology, ethnography, and ethnohistory, macneish and his colleagues applied the results of theirtehuacánfieldandlaboratoryresearchtoaprocessual-ecological model through which they fashioned a wide-ranging reconstruction of sociocultural evolution in that arid highland valley. Beginning with the arrival of nomadic hunter-gatherers, their story continued through the development of agriculture, settled village life, and increasing sociopolitical complexity, right up to the time of the sixteenth -century spanish conquest of indigenous mexico. the enduring legacy of macneish’s tehuacán project lies not only in its compelling demonstration of the value of interdisciplinary research but as an example of the importance of studies in hinterland regions at a time when much archaeological attention was focused on the more spectacular centers of high pre-columbian civilization. a half century later, art Joyce and his colleagues continue in that interdisciplinary tradition with their study Polity and Ecology in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca. Building upon the region’s earliest archaeological research by donald Brockington, to whom this volume is dedicated, Joyce has gathered a group of researchers to xvi foreword employ their diverse expertise toward a comprehensive reconstruction of Formative period archaeological and paleoecological developments in this underappreciated Pacific coastal region of mesoamerica. Joyce himself was introduced to the río verde region of the oaxaca coast as a graduate student participant in a 1986 project involving archaeological reconnaissance and some small-scale excavation. Previously noteworthy mainly as the locus of a Postclassic and early colonial period statelet at tututepec, the region at the time was gaining renewed attention not so much for its own achievements but as an exemplar of a hinterland region conquered by an emergent late Formative period Zapotec empire, the capital of which lay a couple of hundred miles to the northeast in the highland valley of oaxaca. His interest stimulated in part by the conquest hypothesis, Joyce returned to the río verde region in 1988 for his doctoral dissertation project. along with his excavations at several sites and construction of a regional ceramic chronology, Joyce joined with raymond mueller, a specialist in physical geography and soil science, for a geomorphological analysis of the río verde’s changing hydrology. collectively their objective was to elucidate the river’s impact on the development and expansion of maize agriculture and human settlement. a chapter in this volume by mueller, Joyce, aleksander Borejsza, and michelle goman reports on the updated results of their geomorphological research into the effects of anthropogenic and natural highland erosion on agricultural growth and population on the lower río verde floodplain. their conclusions are enhanced by the results of recent paleoecological analyses of sediment cores drawn from one of the region’s coastal lagoons, the formation of which was found to be owed in part to deposition from the highland erosion . as discussed in a chapter by goman, Joyce, and mueller, the estuarine lagoons came to serve as new sources of food. the results of microbotanical, archaeozoological, odontometric, and osteological analyses of materials recovered from lagoon and floodplain cores and archaeological excavations provide valuable insights into the dietary record of the río verde’s Formative period inhabitants, including their adoption of maize agriculture, as well as their health and disease. What became the most controversial facet of Joyce’s original río verde archaeological research was his conclusion that the region did not fall victim to imperialism, contrary to what others had interpreted as epigraphic evidence to that effect found on stone carvings at monte albán, the Zapotec capital, and from the widespread adoption of a grayware pottery style emanating from the highland state. in this volume a chapter by andrew Workinger, drawing on data from his excavations at the río verde site of san Francisco de arriba, and another by marc levine comparing río verde’s local grayware with that of the monte albán variety, have, in my opinion, pretty much put the question to rest. Workinger evaluates the “world system” concept of core domination of periph- xvii foreword eral regions against other models of interregional interaction and finds it deficient in accounting for archaeological evidence from the lower río verde, not only for the Formative but for a later time period when teotihuacan reigned as...