Under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Brumfiel, Christopher Morehart will conduct archaeological excavations to study the intensive agricultural landscape surrounding the site of Xaltocan. Xaltocan is located in the northern Basin of Mexico, approximately 30 km northeast of Mexico City, on what was formerly an island in Lake Xaltocan. Xaltocan was settled by the tenth century A.D., and it had emerged as a powerful political center within three centuries. The site was conquered in A.D. 1395, and the area was eventually incorporated into the expanding Aztec empire. The landscape surrounding Xaltocan was engineered to create a hydraulically intensive, raised field agricultural system southeast of the center. The agricultural system, known as "chinampas," is no longer visible on the ground but is visible in aerial photos and in high resolution satellite imagery. Remote sensing data display the chinampas as a complex network of fields and canals. Morehart's research will reconstruct the timing, extent, and organization of chinampa agriculture in relation to the rise and fall of Xaltocan.
Research that targets farming systems is significant as agricultural production constitutes a fundamental component underlying social, economic, and political interaction. Connecting agricultural production to the development and decline of a political center will illuminate the relationship between farmers and the state in the creation, maintenance, and persistence of an agricultural landscape. The chinampa system at Xaltocan provides an unprecedented opportunity to study how levels of control and autonomy over land vary through time and space as political institutions change. This project will focus on the survey of the chinampa zone to locate evidence of possible farming houses. Excavations in potential houses will yield data on how the range of activities between farming households varied as Xaltocan developed, as it declined, and as the area became incorporated into different political systems. Systematic excavations within the chinampa zone will yield stratigraphic, radiocarbon, and ceramic data to reconstruct the spatial and temporal organization of the agricultural system itself. Archaeobotanical data from fields and households will reveal the types of crops cultivated. Comparisons with data from central Xaltocan will address the association between agricultural production and the circulation of produce, particularly the relationships among farmers and between farmers and non-farmers.
This project's broadest significance is its impact for expanding scientific knowledge among the public and students. Locally, this project will contribute to the modern community of Xaltocan by training and employing residents in archaeological research and by developing an exhibit in the community museum on the town's agricultural history. Collaborating with community members will promote the protection of cultural resources in an area undergoing rapid development. Students in the US and Mexico will receive analytical training, especially in archaeobotany, and this project will offer Morehart training in the analysis and interpretation of multiple lines of archaeological data. Lastly, the dissemination of this project's results in reports, refereed journals, book chapters, and at conferences will ensure that the data are distributed for assessment by the scientific community.
