This book is about an archaeological site in the lower Río Verde Valley of western Oaxaca about 6.5 km from the Pacific coastline. The investigation of La Consentida became the basis for Hepp's 2015 doctoral dissertation and ultimately this book. The site was first recorded in 1986 during regional reconnaissance and then surface sampled, and the deposit was probed with one test pit in 1988. Having believed that the site pertained to the Middle or Late Formative period, archaeologists were surprised at an Early Formative date of around 1950–1640 BC on a sample of wood charcoal from the test pit. Sherds indicated an assemblage of vessel forms including bowls, jars, and bottles, and obsidian debitage suggested a local lithic industry. Further exploration of the site seemed warranted, so the site was mapped in 2000, and further excavations were conducted at the site in 2009 and 2012.
This book presents the results of the 2009 and 2012 seasons of excavations and subsequent laboratory analysis, as well as an exploration of the nature of mobility, subsistence, and social organization during the Early Formative occupation of the site. It also discusses how these three cultural aspects may have been related.
The La Consentida site covers an area of 4.5 ha and has one mounded feature, an earthen platform 300 × 100 m and 5 m high. Excavations were conducted at 10 locations during the 2009 and 2012 seasons; they ranged in depth from 1 to 5 m, with most depths being around 2.5 m. The stratigraphy is illustrated in 17 excellently detailed profiles, and horizontal areas are illustrated in nine informative floor plans.
Because the precise stratigraphic locations of the radiocarbon-dated samples and the dated burial within the profiles are not shown, there is no opportunity to independently assess the chronological range of the entire depositional history at the site. There are eight radiocarbon dates, with the center of the range of seven of them between 1795 and 1610 BC. These samples appear to have come from relatively deep stratigraphic levels. There is a central date of 580 BC from a relatively shallow level that Hepp thinks may have been contaminated, but the temporal span of Formative occupation may be longer than is suggested.
Laboratory analysis was conducted on ground and chipped stone; pottery and stone beads; possible mirror fragments; bone tools; pottery vessel forms and decoration; and pottery figurines, ocarinas, discs, and possible masks. In addition, 14 human burials are analyzed, especially the teeth and long bones. Of considerable importance to the focus of the study is the analysis of faunal remains.
To contextualize his interpretations regarding the nature of mobility, subsistence, and social organization during the Early Formative occupation at La Consentida, Hepp provides a masterful 35-page discussion of debates by archaeologists regarding the three factors, especially for the Early Formative period in this general area of Mesoamerica.
Regarding mobility, Hepp concludes there is no single line of archaeological evidence that provides an absolute material signature of sedentism. He correctly notes instead that ethnographic information points to some complicated forms along a continuum from mobility to sedentism. Some Mesoamerican frontier groups practiced sedentism when cultivation was possible but became mobile when environmental conditions became less favorable for cultivation.
There seems to be a similar problem of determining exactly when people who had been experimenting with domesticates became farmers and of differentiating between “horticulture” and “agriculture.” Hepp argues that, at least for the coast, agriculture appeared after sedentism, in part because of the abundance and variability of wild resources found there. His argument considers the varying degrees of the relative importance of maize in the diet of coastal communities, including the possibility that maize was initially important for making maize beer (tejuino) and only later for maize flour. The crux of this problem is the transition between primary dependence on wild sources of food to primary dependence on food from domesticated plants, something hard to determine from archaeological data.
As for interpretations of social organization, Hepp explores various models that might describe how social inequality arose in the Early Formative. He dedicates a good part of this section to a critical discussion of the “aggrandizer” model, one he favors over the “fertile land” model. He claims that even the simplest societies have some social inequality and that the central problem may be leadership and how it is acquired. Hepp's conclusion is that there appears to be no single sufficient archaeological indicator for social complexity.
Hepp then provides separate chapters on the shift to sedentism, diet and changing culinary tastes, and diverse social identities at La Consentida. The primary evidence for a shift from seasonal mobility to sedentism is that the use of portable multifunctional ground stone tools decreased in favor of less portable ones with more specialized functions, although some 85% of all ground stone tools were recovered from the upper levels of the excavation. There are no Archaic sites in this area; the first inhabitants at La Consentida used pottery vessels, and their use of ceramic vessels increased through time. The only evidence of domestic architecture comes late in the occupational sequence, when the population of the site may have reached about 80 persons. For the earlier ground stone tools, Hepp focuses on the “polisher/hammer stone” that he thinks may relate to hide processing in the Archaic. Such tools are abundant in Late Postclassic sites along the coast of Jalisco, where they may also have been used for processing hides.
Information on subsistence comes mostly from the analysis of faunal remains, of the function of stone tools, and of human remains. About 75% of the faunal remains are of a type of large coastal catfish; also found are remains of crocodiles, peccary or deer, iguanas, and mud turtles. For a coastal site, relatively little shell was recovered from the four middens sampled. The shells are not identified as to species, but include mangrove mussels, oysters, clams, and crabs. Analysis of human remains shows consumption of maize throughout the Formative occupation, but tooth wear and maize grinding stones increase through time, whereas ceramic bottles that may have been used for corn beer decrease.
As for social organization, Hepp argues that La Consentida was heterarchically complex with diverse social roles, including communal labor organizers, dancers, musicians, ballplayers, feasting facilitators, and ritual specialists. This conclusion is based on the large earthen platform; ceramic figurines, ocarinas, and masks; items of jewelry; and human burials. Some of the arguments are a stretch. The idea of ballplayers is based on a possible large belt on one figurine fragment, and the idea of dancers rests primarily on three large bumps on one leg fragment that Hepp says might represent “bells.”
Next, Hepp turns his attention to evidence of interregional interactions, first comparing his Tlacuache ceramic assemblage to those of Barra and Tierras Largas in southern Mesoamerica and of Capacha and El Opeño in West Mexico. The Tlacuache assemblage is unusually diverse and differs in several ways from presumably contemporary assemblages, primarily in its scarcity of tecomates, the presence of grater bowls, and the abundance of jars. Although sunburst designs and “belted” jars indicate some similarity with Capacha pottery, much about Capacha pottery is dissimilar, such as the hollow figurines, punctated-triangle decoration, “rose” ware, and the absence of grater bowls. There is some change in pottery through time at La Consentida: the frequency of bottles decreases, whereas the frequency of grater bowls increases, but apparently within the range of an Early Formative occupation. Although Hepp presents a well-reasoned argument for participation in a Pacific Coast Formative interaction sphere based on the ceramics, an analysis of 40 obsidian objects surprisingly points only to ties with obsidian sources in the highlands of eastern Central Mexico and near the Gulf Coast.
The archaeology reported here is excellently done and presented, with extremely thorough bibliographical support. It will likely provide fodder for debates by archaeologists working on the Early Formative for many years to come.
