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CHANGING APPROACHES TO MAIZE PREPARATION AT CERRO PORTEZUELO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2013

Martin Biskowski  and
Karen D. Watson
Martin Biskowski*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, 4010 Mendocino Hall, Sacramento, CA 95819-6106
Karen D. Watson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, 4010 Mendocino Hall, Sacramento, CA 95819-6106
*
Email correspondence to: biskowsk@saclink.csus.edu
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Abstract

Analyses of grinding tools at Cerro Portezuelo provide an unusual opportunity to study changing subsistence priorities. Evidence in the Teotihuacan and Mezquital Valley indicates that established patterns of dependence on maize may have been interrupted during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic periods. Grinding tool collections in both locations contain unusually high frequencies of closed-surface grinding tools (trough metates and mortars), which are less efficient for intensive maize grinding than the open-surface tools commonly used during both the Classic and Late Postclassic periods. While analyzing the Cerro Portezuelo grinding tool collection presents many problems because of imprecise chronology, this collection also contains an unusually high frequency of closed-surface tools that can be attributed to its Epiclassic and Early Postclassic inhabitants. Thus, Cerro Portezuelo contributes to a growing picture of subsistence after the collapse of Teotihuacan in which maize was deemphasized and may have been replaced by amaranth and other foods.

Type
Special Section: Recent Research at Cerro Portezuelo
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , Spring 2013 , pp. 213 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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