Household Intensification in the Mixtec Cacicazgo: Excavation of a House and Terraced Fields
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Research Year:  2002
Culture:  Mixtec
Chronology:  Post Classic
Location:  San Juan Teposcolula, Oaxaca, México
Site:  Nicayuhu

Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Project Goals
Research Design and Methods
Preliminary results
Conclusion
List of Figures
Sources Cited

Abstract

"Household Intensification in the Mixtec Cacicazgo: Excavation of a House and Terraced Fields" is a FAMSI sponsored research project that combines archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography to learn about the Postclassic Mixtec commoner class—the terrace farmers. The project followed a program of mapping, surface collecting, extensive excavation of two Postclassic Mixtec commoner houses and test excavations at a lama-bordo terrace and twenty agricultural contour terraces at the terraced hill-town of Nicayuhu in San Juan Teposcolula, Oaxaca. The project is currently in the analysis phase. The preliminary results of this study suggest that food-producing commoner households may have independently built and managed agricultural terraces supporting the thesis that Netting’s (1993) agrarian smallholder pattern characterizes the socio-economic organization of Mixtec agricultural intensification and the commoner household’s role in society. This study has generated important and until recently unavailable data on agricultural terrace construction and on the lifeways of Prehispanic terrace farmers.

Submitted 02/28/2003 by:
Verónica Pérez Rodríguez
veroperezrdz@hotmail.com

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