Archaeological Survey in the Coastal Chontalpa de Oaxaca, México

Diagnostic Pottery

Ceramic vessel fragments constitute the main artifact category. We collected 5,598 sherds during survey and excavation. They represent a minimum of 2,133 vessels, based on the distinction of attribute combinations such as paste, surface treatment and decoration, as well as vessel form. The ceramics are generally badly fragmented and eroded so that it was impossible to establish the entire appearance of any vessel.

Most vessels appear to have been produced with a local clay that obtains a brown to orange color when oxidized, or a gray color under reductive firing conditions. Coarse brown-orange paste was mostly used for ollas, comales, and large bowls, while fine brown-orange and gray wares were predominantly used for bowls. A prominent ceramic paste is a very fine, white, kaolin-like paste, which occurred in small amounts at the sites of RH01, RH12 around Huamelula, and at RH07, RH08, and RH09 further south. This ware is reportedly very frequent at the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec during the Formative and up to the Early Postclassic periods (Zeitlin and Zeitlin 1990, Zeitlin 1993), and may have been imported into the PARH study area from those Isthmian production centers.

Many of the slips and paintings on the vessels may have disappeared in the soil. Our inventory of pottery decoration is very low and we therefore lack stylistic indicators for a chronological distinction of most sherds. Diagnostic incised decorations are very rare (Figure 4). Nevertheless, some vessel types and attributes are diagnostic and show similarities with pottery styles from outside areas; these indices thus enable us to assess a rough chronological position of the associated sites and features. The most frequent diagnostic feature is the presence of support feet from presumable tripod vessels. I did not identify any ceramic mode that would indicate Formative period occupations in the PARH area. Diagnostic artifacts reflect Classic, Postclassic, and colonial period occupations.

The so-called Talun-carved pottery constitutes one of the most diagnostic ceramic styles of the coastal Chontalpa de Oaxaca. Brockington defined this type on the basis of complex figurative and glyphic scenes and elements produced by molding, modeling and carving. Talun-carved ceramics seem to be firmly dated to the Late Classic period at the Oaxacan coast (Brockington 1966), and they resemble similarly decorated vessels from the Classic period Gulf Coast and the western Maya lowlands (see Winning and Gutiérrez Solana 1996). At RH01 Huamelula - Barrio La Soledad, we found one small fragment and recorded another fragment in the collection of the Museo Chontal (Centro Coordinador Indigenista) in Huamelula (Figure 4a, and Figure 5, shown below). Brockington and Long (1974), as well as Urcid (1993), suggested that the distribution of this vessel type may have coincided with the immigration of Chontals from Tabasco into southeastern Oaxaca.

However, Chontal-Maya from Tabasco and the Oaxacan Chontal are two unrelated languages, and the origin and course of the Oaxacan Chontal migration is still enigmatic (see Turner and Turner 1971, Winter 1986). Since the overall number of Talun-carved vessels is small and its distribution widely scattered over multiethnic southern Oaxaca, I would hesitate to link this vessel style exclusively to Chontal migrants. However, Chontal migration may have accompanied or followed a generally close interaction between southern Oaxaca and the cultures of the Gulf Coast and the western Maya lowlands during the Late Classic as the distribution of shared stylistic and iconographic traits illustrate. As shown below, various traits of portable stone sculpture and obsidian additionally indicate an exchange of economic and ideological goods that linked the Gulf coast with the Pacific coast of southern México and Guatemala during the Late Classic period.⁴

Slab supports are usually found on conical bowls (Figure 6, shown above); similar vessels are known for the Early and Late Classic periods in the Northern Yucatán area (see Vallo 2000), the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec (see Wallrath 1967) and on the central part of the Oaxacan coast at Sipolite and Bocana Copalita (Brockington 1966; Joyce, personal communication, University at Boulder, Colorado, 2002). Brockington and Long (1974) also considered a possibly Early Postclassic date (A.D. 900- 1200) for those slab supports he had found on the Oaxacan coast.

Short conical and short effigy supports seem to be of the Early and Late Classic period (A.D. 300 - 900), although Brockington and Long (1974) also suggest an Early Postclassic date for some (Figure 7, shown above). Long conical and long effigy supports are commonly associated with the Late Postclassic period. They are present at the sites of RH01, RH02, RH03, and RH04 around Huamelula, as well as at RH07, RH08, and RH09 further south at the coastal plain (Figure 8, shown below). The diagnostic, Mixtec-related red-on-cream bichrome vessels or codex-style polychrome vessel paintings are very rare in the PARH area; although Brockington and Long (1974) reported such vessels from Hualakgoce, the PARH survey did not detect a single fragment of either type. However, the Museo Chontal at Huamelula hosts one polychrome support fragment painted in the Mixteca-Puebla codex-style.

Glazed and wheel-made vessels are diagnostic for post-Conquest pottery but they occur only in low frequencies at the PARH sites. It seems that much of the colonial pottery may have been based on the Late Postclassic ceramic tradition, especially the vessels of the coarse ware. A broad variety of clay figurines (Figure 9, shown below) were recently found by school children at RH01 Huamelula-La Soledad, together with figurines found during PARH, they still need to be examined for stylistic similarities with other regions.

Previous surface finds close to the ballgame court produced two so-called hachas and a Gulf coast style tenoned stone head (Figure 10, shown below). A fragment of a stone yoke was also reported from Huamelula. These stone sculptures are considered to be a characteristic set of ritual ballgame paraphernalia at the Gulf coast and the Guatemaltecan Pacific coast (see Wilkerson 1991; Parsons 1991). At the Río Huamelula, this complex is found at the sites of Huamelula, Hualampamo and Hualakgoce, in addition to two hachas from San Vicente Mazatán some 40 km further east. During the Late Classic period, these coastal communities engaged in this pan-regional cult that connected the Gulf coast over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Guatemaltecan Pacific coast that Parsons (1978) had described as the "peripheral coastal lowlands" (see also Zeitlin 1993). The settlements of Hualampamo and Hualakgoce–from which Brockington also reported the presence of the hacha-yoke complex–as well as Huamelula all appear to have flourished as secondary regional centers during this period.

Endnote

4. PARH collected 282 obsidian fragments during survey and excavation. A sample of 33 black and light gray fragments was submitted to the Missouri University Research Reactor for an abbreviated neutron activation analysis to determine their volcanic sources. This analysis, kindly supported by a subsidiary grant from the National Science Foundation, will allow a comparison between the obsidian imports at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (see Zeitlin 1982) and sites at the western Oaxacan coast (see Joyce et al. 1995).

Previous Page  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page