With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Robert J. Hard, Dr. Arthur C. MacWilliams and John R. Roney will conduct two field seasons of archaeological research in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. The team brings together U.S., and Canadian specialists in archaeology, botany, ethnography, paleoecology, and zooarchaeology to examine the transmission of maize farming from the Mesoamerican heartland into northwest Mexico and the American Southwest. The process by which hunting and gathering peoples modified their lifestyles and became farmers remains a poorly understood, yet fundamental question in human history, since as all civilizations ultimately developed around a farming economy.
For over a century scientists have speculated about the route, timing, and means of transmission of maize and farming technology from Mexico into the American Southwest. For decades major archaeological studies of early farming have been conducted in central Mexico and the American Southwest, little work has been conducted in the intervening 1500 km that includes northwest Mexico, leaving a vast regional gap in our knowledge about this pivotal cultural change. The proposed work in southern Chihuahua seeks to begin to fill in this gap through excavation and analysis of key sites.
The project completed preliminary fieldwork in the study area with the previous support of the National Geographic Society, a High-Risk NSF Grant and the Smithsonian Institution's Radiocarbon Fund. The team identified regions in both the high altitude Sierra Madre Occidental and the more arid lowland regions near water courses that were occupied during the critical Early Agricultural period, ca. 2000 B.C. to A.D. 100. These locations include rockshelters, open-air occupation sites, and sites located on hilltops (known as cerros de trincheras). The team will conduct archaeological excavations with the goal of recovering botanical, artifactual, faunal, paleoenvironmental and other samples that will answer questions about the timing, ecological, and cultural contexts under which early maize was first used in the region. Interviews will also be conducted with local Tarahumara indigenous people and Mesitzo farmers about agricultural strategies in local settings that may be relevant to understanding ancient farming practices. The team will also conduct further reconnaissance and archaeological testing to identify other important sites. In addition to standard archaeological techniques, they will employ the use of light aircraft to identify more hilltop locations, an approach the team has successfully used in this area.
These hilltops sites are likely to provide critical information about the Early Agriculture period, as Robert Hard and John Roney discovered with their previous NSF-funded work 400 km to the north, in the northwest part of Chihuahua. There excavations at the 1200 B.C., Early Agricultural period site of Cerro Juanaquena resulted in the discovery that farming settlements were far earlier than previously believed and that warfare was an important element of the cultural landscape. Their earlier work resulted in revisions to textbooks of the processes involved in the adoption of maize farming. The current project, further south in Chihuahua, represents the next stage of their productive research program.
The broader impacts of the study are that it will contribute significant information concerning a pivotal period and region for which little is known. This study will begin to close the gap the better studied regions of central Mexico and the American Southwest and contribute to answering questions that have been raised for many decades. The work will bring together Canadian and American scholars and contribute to the graduate education of a number of anthropology students. The project is being administered through Mexico-North Research Network, Inc., a consortium of 48 Mexican and U.S. institutions that was founded to enhance international exchange and collaboration among scholars, students, institutions and communities. This network is an ideal administrative context for this project as it can serve to rapidly facilitate awareness and perhaps involvement about this project a wide-range of professionals and the public.
