Archaeological Survey in the Coastal Chontalpa de Oaxaca, México

Introduction

In the southeastern part of the modern Mexican state of Oaxaca, a linguistically isolated indigenous group occupies the high mountain ranges of the Sierra Madre del Sur and the coastal piedmont and plain toward the Pacific Ocean (Figure 1). Since the first Spanish report described these people, they have been known as "Chontales" (Nahuatl: "strangers") of Oaxaca (see Relación de Chichicapa 1984; Relación de Nexapa 1984; Burgoa 1989) Traditional ethnographic and historiographic descriptions on the prehispanic and early colonial Chontals have usually relied on the small number of Spanish accounts that promoted the stereotype of uncivilized barbarians living in caves or flimsy shelters without any centralized political organization (Basauri 1940; Taracena 1941; Turner and Turner 1971).

More recently, however, studies on colonial documents, and a cursory archaeological reconnaissance along the eastern Oaxacan coast revealed that this stereotype needed to be differentiated. Pictorial and textural sources from the coastal Chontalpa suggest that the colonial villages of Aztatlan (modern Santiago Astata) and Huamimillollan (modern San Pedro Huamelula) were actually the successors of important prehispanic communities (see Gerhard 1972; Bartolomé and Barabas 1992; Camacho 1993; Kroefges 1998).

This report presents some results of an archaeological fieldwork project (PARH¹) designed to study the settlement history at the Río Huamelula valley in the coastal Chontalpa (Figure 2). One question was if there is any evidence for a settlement that can be identified as the prehispanic center and the subsequent colonial cabecera of Huamelula, the largest settlement in the 16^th century on the eastern Oaxacan coast. Further, the project also aimed at locating Aztatlan, another colonial Chontal cabecera further south at the shore, abandoned in the late 17^th century after a series of pirate attacks (Gerhard 1972:126). A study of the artifacts and settlement pattern at these sites and other sites at the Río Huamelula should contribute necessary information to understand ancient political organization and culture history in the coastal Chontalpa and to evaluate the traditional Chontal historiography.²

From March to July 2001, locally hired workers and I conducted a surface survey along the Río Huamelula valley and test excavations at the archaeological site. The analysis of artifacts and their distribution was started in August 2001 but has not yet been fully completed.

Endnotes

1. The Proyecto Arqueológico del Río Huamelula, Distrito de Tehuantepec (PARH) was approved by the Consejo de Arqueología in 2000 (Oficio Número C.A. 401-36/1339). I would like to thank FAMSI for providing the basic funds of this project. I thank the Consejo de Arqueología of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México City, and the Centro INAH Oaxaca for their support, as well as the municipal authorities of San Pedro Huamelula and Santiago Astata. Finally, many thanks to the numerous collaborators in Huamelula, Astata, and Oaxaca.

2. This issue will be more fully treated in the on-going doctoral thesis, prepared at the Department of Anthropology, University at Albany–SUNY.

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