El Gigante Rock Shelter: Archaic Mesoamerica and Transitions to Settled Life

Introduction

The El Gigante rock shelter is one of very few sites in Mesoamerica with lengthy archaeological sequences appropriate for investigations into long term cultural evolution. As the early culture history for this sub-region of Mesoamerica is largely unexplored, the research strategy was designed to answer broad questions concerning three periods of Mesoamerican prehistory. The first of these was the definition of a Paleoindian horizon at the site of El Gigante. The second concerns how the growing hunter-gatherer populations of the Archaic (>4,000 B.P.) capitalized on the variable environmental possibilities presented to them through six thousand years of environmental change. The third research question focused on the development of a specific cultigen, Zea mays, or domestic corn, and its relationship to the established economies of those hunter-gathers in their transition to the more familiar sedentary village life (Flannery, 1976; Joyce and Henderson, 2001).

In comparison to the flourescent cultures of later prehistory, the Archaic period in Mesoamerica is little studied. This unglamourous period is, however, essential to understand as adaptations and adjustments to the myriad of tropical environments during this time provide the basis for the development of complex economies of later periods. The subsistence systems’ preadaptive capacity establishes the potential for cultural evolution and elaboration.

The Archaic life-way in México is sometimes modeled on the "Desert Tradition" of the ethnographically described Great Basin cultures, drawn in large part from Jennings’ investigations at Danger Cave in Utah (Jennings, 1957). This direct historical approach is not appropriate for the case of El Gigante. Research into the hunter-gatherer past at the site of El Gigante indicates a similar adaptation to local environmental conditions. However, those conditions are unique to Highland Honduras and very dissimilar to the semi-arid regions to the north.

Sometime in the late-Archaic a full commitment was made in some parts of Mesoamerica to shifting cultivation and farming economies. This transition triggered many other changes in the societies which followed this path. Domesticated plant species evolved and were moving about the continent (via human action) as early as the middle-Archaic, species such as squash (Curcubita spp.), avocado (Persea Americana.), chili peppers (Capsicum spp.), and of course in the late-Archaic, eventually maize (Zea mays). The later plant, a uniquely preadapted weed, was incorporated into the existing constellations of subsistence foods of the archaic, and changed human society throughout Mesoamerica forever.

Data recovered from the El Gigante rock shelter sheds light on this radical shift to settled life. Evidence from the investigations at El Gigante seems to indicate that the acceptance of such a change was neither uniform nor rapid across Mesoamerica. Maize based agroeconomies (sensu Rindos, 1984) were slow to develop in Highland Honduras.

Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page