Domestic Offerings at El Palmillo

Abstract

Although the topic has received recent attention, relatively little is known about how pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican communities were internally organized and interconnected. In this paper, we examine that question from the perspective of the Classic-period settlement of El Palmillo, in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Previous studies of the valley have postulated that communities often were (and still are) subdivided into barrios, although the modes of integration for those segments are less fully defined. Along these lines, we have previously identified commoner and higher-status houses at El Palmillo (along with associated artifactual and architectural inventories). We also have noted that different commoner houses were involved in distinct suites of craft activity, thereby indicating a degree of economic interdependence among these units. Here we expand our analysis to domestic offerings, which we found to vary across the excavated houses. Adapting a perspective from Durkheim's distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity, we find an expected organic (hierarchical) relationship between the offering assemblages of the higher-status residences and the offerings in commoner house lots. At the same time, we see another axis of variation in domestic offerings that appears more organic (nonhierarchical) in nature. The latter axis of variation at El Palmillo has a clear spatial component, in support of previous hypotheses that barrios or spatially defined social segments were important in Valley of Oaxaca pre-Hispanic communities. At El Palmillo, the definitional features of these social segments appear to have been ideological as well as economic.

Return to Moxviquil: Form and Function in a Small Maya City

“…Other notable hilltop sites in Mesoamerica include Xochicalco (Hirth 2000), Calixtlahuaca (Smith et al 2009), and numerous sites in the Valley of Oaxaca from the largest site in the valley, Monte Albán (Blanton 1978; Flannery 1983), to relatively smaller sites such as El Palmillo (Feinman and Nicholas 2007; Feinman et al 2006; Feinman et al 2008) and Ejutla (Feinman and Nicholas 1992, 2000, 2007). Social and economic status divisions were often reinforced by topography, in which ceremonies, ritual activities, consumption, and high-status residences were often located in the upper topographic levels or terraces, and production activities and low-status residences were located in the lower levels or terraces (Feinman et al 2008). Similarly, distinctions in socioeconomic status and activities could be created within large, internally diverse monumental architecture at sites such as Calakmul (Folan et al 2001:Figures 3 and 4), Tonina (Becquelin and Baudez 1979–1982; Becquelin and Taladoire 1982), and Caracol (Chase and Chase 2001).…”

“…Numerous Maya cities throughout both the highlands and lowlands reflect the strategic positioning and modification of hilltop and ridgetop topography, including (among many others) large cities such as Tikal (Scarborough 1998), Palenque (Barnhart 2001), Tonina (Becquelin and Baudez 1979–1982; Becquelin and Taladoire 1982), Bonampak (Piña Chan 1961), and Utatlan (Wallace and Carmack 1977), as well as smaller cities such as Zacpeten (Pugh 2001), X-ual-canil and Zubin in the Belize Valley (Iannone 2003:25), Topoxte (Wurster 2000), Canajaste (Blake 1985, 2010), and sites in highland Chiapas such as Ecatepec (Culbert 1965), Yerba Buena (Bryant 1988), La Tortuga (McVicker 1969), and Campo de Aviación (McVicker 1969). Other notable hilltop sites in Mesoamerica include Xochicalco (Hirth 2000), Calixtlahuaca (Smith et al 2009), and numerous sites in the Valley of Oaxaca from the largest site in the valley, Monte Albán (Blanton 1978; Flannery 1983), to relatively smaller sites such as El Palmillo (Feinman and Nicholas 2007; Feinman et al 2006; Feinman et al 2008) and Ejutla (Feinman and Nicholas 1992, 2000, 2007). Social and economic status divisions were often reinforced by topography, in which ceremonies, ritual activities, consumption, and high-status residences were often located in the upper topographic levels or terraces, and production activities and low-status residences were located in the lower levels or terraces (Feinman et al 2008).…”

Teotihuacan site 19:N1W5: Mortuary and oxygen isotope evidence for a Michoacan affiliation

“…Typically, such deposits consist of a ceramic vessel sitting upright on the base of a small pit, usually in a patio, with another vessel or simply some large sherds inverted over it as a cover (Spence 2002). These features have a long history in the Valley of Oaxaca, where they represent the long-standing Zapotec practice of burying the umbilical cord and/or afterbirth from a successful birthing in a covered jar in the family patio (Feinman et al 2008; Lind and Urcid 2010:314, n4; Parsons 1936:76). The absence of such deposits in E19 suggests that there was no significant occupation of E19 by Tlailotlacanos despite the architectural evidence of their involvement in its construction.…”