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

Microfossil Studies

In distinguishing periods of forest succession and anthropogenic forest disturbance indicative of more intensive agricultural practices, palynology is often employed. Rock shelters are not the ideal locations from which to derive samples for paleo-climate reconstruction. Better records for climate studies are available for Lago de Yojoa (Rue, 1989). Single grains of maize pollen were first found by Rue (ibid.) as early as 4770 +/- 375 B.P. at Lago de Yojoa. This pollen record will be valuable in the future analysis of the El Gigante paleoenvironment in combination with the macro-fossil remains.

The location and timing of maize origins are still hotly debated (MacNeish, 2000). Most recent support for a Lowland origin of Zea mays has been based on the identification of single pollen grains, phytoliths or starch grains (Pope et al., 2001; Piperno et al., 2000; Pearsall, 1995; Jones, 1994; Pohl, 1996) in archaeological sites, often rock shelters. In an attempt to wrest more ecological and plant-use data from the site, samples were collected (in EG2000) for pollen studies as well. The extraction of the pollen from the soil was undertaken under the direction of Dr. Andrew Sluyter, previously of PSU Geography Department. We were unable to identify any pollen in any of the samples. As an independent test, we sent samples to Dr. John Jones of Texas A&M. He too was unable to find any pollen. This is most likely due to chemical conditions within the site. A test on soil from stratum III showed alkaline conditions of pH 9. In addition, much of the sediment may be accumulated ash from repeated fires, the heat of which would destroy pollen microfossils.

In a last attempt to extract information from the soil several samples of ground stone artifacts have been forwarded to Dr. Dolores Piperno at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for examination. We hope that her efforts to recover either phytoliths or starch grains from these artifacts will be more fruitful than our palynological attempts.

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