Calcified microbial mats date prehistoric canals—Radiocarbon assay of organic extracts from travertine

Winsborough, Barbara; Caran, S. Christopher; Neely, James A.; Valastro, Salvatore

doi:10.1002/(sici)1520-6548(199601)11:1<37::aid-gea2>3.0.co;2-b

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Nishikawa et al, 2012) to date organic materials extracted from much smaller samples of travertine, and by coupling AMS with photomicroscopy (Rainey and Jones, 2010) to better understand travertine diagenesis in relationship to identifying dateable organic fractions. Four of the six samples from the 1993 study were pretreated following (Caran et al, 1995;Winsborough et al, 1996). Organic extracts from the four treated tecuate travertine samples produced 2-sigma date ranges between cal.…”

Section: Chronology Of the Fossilized Canal Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The tecuates consist of cemented and calcified carbonate mud interbedded with laminates ranging from thin organic films to diverse microbial mats containing diatoms, cyanobacteria, other algae, fungi, mosses, liverworts, calcium carbonate precipitates, detritus, and airborne particles including pollen and phytoliths (Figure 2c). These aggrading travertines thereby “fossilized” the irrigation canal networks of the Tehuacán Valley (Caran and Neely, 2006; Caran et al, 1995; Neely, 2001; Winsborough et al, 1996). Travertine accumulations forming tecuates contain multiple facies representing aquatic ecologies and characteristics of local flow and deposition, which in this case provide insights into how canals were maintained.…”

Section: The Environmental Context For Prehispanic Irrigation In the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Organic carbon fractions extracted from travertine were radiocarbon dated from six samples in 1993 and 17 samples from the 2000 field season by the Radiocarbon Laboratory of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona using the liquid scintillation method on Beckman counters and calibrated in OxCal (version 4.4.2) with the IntCal 20 calibration curve for the Northern Hemisphere (Reimer et al, 2020). Caran et al (1995) and Winsborough et al (1996) developed a method to extract, decalcify, and concentrate organic carbon fractions from travertine for radiocarbon dating. Organic carbon fractions must be targeted for dating, as dates from samples containing inorganic carbon would largely reflect the age of the inorganic carbon from the Cretaceous limestone aquifer.…”

Section: Chronology Of the Fossilized Canal Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Relict canals of the Tehuacán Valley, Mexico: A Middle- to Late-Holocene dryland socio-hydrological system

2022

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The travertine-lined irrigation canal networks of the Tehuacán Valley, Mexico allowed pre-Hispanic indigenous communities to overcome risks of crop failures in an arid setting. Segments of these systems are still in use today, therefore understanding when and how these irrigation networks functioned allows us to identify which attributes of a coupled socio-hydrological system are important for maintaining the long-term resilience of irrigation systems in drylands. This paper summarizes the results of an interdisciplinary study of this prehispanic irrigation network involving mapping, radiometric dating, and diatom analyses of materials extracted from the travertine lined canals. All of the canal networks were functioning by ca. 2000 BC, at the transition from the Late Archaic to the Formative period, which is before archeological evidence for widespread community-level aggregation. Provocatively, some canals are potentially as old as 6000–4000 BC, which would mean that hunter-gatherers initiated irrigation coevally with the introduction of semi-domesticated maize, a tropical species which would require supplemental water in this arid context. The canals both facilitated agricultural intensification and enhanced the distribution of aquatic ecosystems. The resilience of these systems to their unique spring dependent context demanded frequent maintenance and the integration of multiple canal networks to mitigate geohydrological vulnerabilities of reduced discharge. These conditions set up a long-term reciprocal dynamic between people and water in the Tehuacán Valley. The results demonstrate that rigidities inherent to tightly coupled socio-hydrological systems in dryland settings were overcome by institutional arrangements first developed by indigenous communities deep in prehistory.

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Section: Chronology Of the Fossilized Canal Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Environmental Context For Prehispanic Irrigation In the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Chronology Of the Fossilized Canal Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Relict canals of the Tehuacán Valley, Mexico: A Middle- to Late-Holocene dryland socio-hydrological system

2022

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“…Por otra parte, se ha utilizado a esta microalga junto a otros materiales biológicos, como macroalgas, esporas, briofitas y plantas acuáticas, para obtener dataciones del radiocarbónica de canales prehispánico, ya que estos organismos quedan atrapados en las capas de travertinos, cuando se precipitan junto a los carbonatos (CaCO 3 ), conformando las cubetas fosilizadas de evidentes canales prehistóricos (Winsborough et al 1996). Por último, también se han analizado las diatomeas de otras estructuras hídricas, como los pozos de agua arqueológicos, mostrando su utilidad tanto paleoecológica como sedimentológica para la caracterización de estas evidencias (Meltzer y Collins 1987;Neely et al 1995).…”

Section: Restos Bioarqueológicosunclassified

La arqueología desde el microscopio. Aportes interdisciplinarios de las diatomeas a las problemáticas arqueológicas

Grana

2018

Rev. Mus. Antrop.

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<p>Actualmente, las problemáticas arqueológicas generaran datos no solo desde la propia de la disciplina sino también desde teorías y metodologías provenientes de otras disciplinas. La Diatomología, una disciplina que forma parte de las Ciencias Biológicas, ha demostrado ser una importante herramienta para la Arqueología. El análisis de diatomeas ha sido aplicado en reconstrucciones paleoambientales, en el análisis de procesos de formación de sitio, en material arqueológico como el estudio de procedencia de materia prima para la cerámica, en el estudio del manejo prehistórico del agua y suelos, en los restos bioarquelógicos y, por último, en la conservación del patrimonio tangible. El objetivo del presente trabajo es realizar una revisión crítica de la evolución y estado actual de los análisis diatomológicos en cuestiones arqueológicas, principalmente incluyendo los estudios latinoamericanos. Para ello se propone discutir las potencialidades y limitaciones de estos estudios, con el fin de generar un puente conceptual que sea de utilidad para investigadores interesados en trabajar con estas líneas.</p>

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“…The ubiquitous Aztec relic terraces in central Mexico have seen little recent attention, however (Smith and Price, 1994). Maya water management has been addressed by Scarborough and others (Scarborough, 2003;Scarborough et al, 1995;Scarborough and Isaac, 1993); additional studies of Mesoamerican irrigation include Hunt (1994), Nichols and Frederick (1993), and Winsborough et al (1996). An important recent article discusses the role of karst depressions (bajos) in shaping Maya settlement and land use patterns.…”

Section: Intensive Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

New World States and Empires: Economic and Social Organization

Smith

Schreiber

2005

J Archaeol Res

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We take a critical perspective in discussing recent publications on the archaeological study of the ancient state-level societies of Latin America. For some topics, such as intensive agriculture and exchange, data are far ahead of theory, whereas for others (e.g., gender and ethnicity), theory has outstripped data. Craft production, a topic that has achieved a good balance of data and theory, is one of the success stories of recent Latin American archaeology. After a discussion of sources of data, we review these and other topics (e.g., consumption patterns, household studies, social organization) in terms of both data and theory. In a second review article, we cover the topics of politics, religion, urbanism, and the processes of change.

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Calcified microbial mats date prehistoric canals—Radiocarbon assay of organic extracts from travertine

Cited by 14 publications

References 20 publications

Relict canals of the Tehuacán Valley, Mexico: A Middle- to Late-Holocene dryland socio-hydrological system

Relict canals of the Tehuacán Valley, Mexico: A Middle- to Late-Holocene dryland socio-hydrological system

La arqueología desde el microscopio. Aportes interdisciplinarios de las diatomeas a las problemáticas arqueológicas

New World States and Empires: Economic and Social Organization

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