HOUSEHOLD ECONOMIC SPECIALIZATION AND SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION: The stone-tool assemblage at El Palmillo, Oaxaca

Abstract

This paper examines the stone-tool assemblage recovered from excavations of six Classic-period residential terraces at El Palmillo, a terraced hilltop community in the eastern arm of the Valley of Oaxaca. Based on this analysis, stone-tool production and the processing of xerophytic plants-most important, maguey-were found to be important household craft industries at the site. Yet certain craft activities were practiced in only a few households, while others were enacted more widely but in varying intensities or degrees. This house-to-house variability in production implies a reliance on a system of economic integration in which domestic units at El Palmillo exchanged specific goods with other households at the site as well as more broadly. Through comparison of domestic units, we also found that exotic obsidian and semiprecious stone artifacts were distributed differentially between households, although the extent of the differentiation was less marked than might have been expected at one of the largest Classic-period settlements in the Valley of Oaxaca. Together, these findings point toward a high degree of horizontal, socioeconomic interconnection and integration among household units at El Palmillo.

Shifting Patterns of Obsidian Exchange in Postclassic Oaxaca, Mexico

“…Although many of the likely coastal exports preserve poorly in the archaeological record (e.g., feathers, cacao, and salt), cotton thread production was clearly an important household activity during the Yugüe phase at Río Viejo King 2003). Cotton cloth was more valuable than textiles woven from fibers of the agave plant, which flourish at high elevations (see Haines et al 2004). Additional evidence for textile production at RV0A included fine bone needles and awls (Joyce et al 2001:360).…”

Advances in the Household Archaeology of Highland Mesoamerica

“…Maguey processing figured prominently in the domestic economies of the contiguous settlement of Cacaxtla-Xochitecatl-Natavitas during the Formative and Epiclassic periods (Lazcano Arce 2007;Lazcano Arce et al 2006;Lazcano 2006, 2008;Serra Puche et al 2000). While many researchers have inferred sap extraction for fermenting pulque (based on the presence of chipped-stone scrapers) and maguey roasting (based on botanical remains found in pit ovens) (e.g., Carballo 2009; Haines et al 2004;Parsons and Parsons 1990), the work of Serra Puche and Lazcano has the potential to overturn existing orthodoxy regarding alcohol in the pre-Columbian Americas if, as they claim, it involved distillation (cf. Bruman 1935).…”

Socioeconomic Inequality and Differential Access to Faunal Resources at El Palmillo, Oaxaca, Mexico

“…As at Monte Albán, the most clear-cut and marked differences are in the arrangement and formality of domestic structures and burial features, as well as in specific bodily modifications (i.e., head molding and dental inlays; . Distributional variation in portable objects (ceramics, greenstone, obsidian, and local chipped stone) is present from one residence to another, but the patterning is subtle and more complex (Feinman and Nicholas 2004b;Feinman et al 2002Feinman et al , 2006Haines et al 2004).…”