Household Intensification in the Mixtec Cacicazgo: Excavation of a House and Terraced Fields

Introduction

Mixtec cacicazgos during the Postclassic period (A.D. 800-1521) were agricultural powerhouses whose inhabitants modified their environment through terracing (Spores 1969; Balkansky et al. 2001; Pérez 2001). Scholars attribute agricultural intensification to demography, socio-political demands, or environmental uncertainty (e.g. Boserup 1965; Denevan 1987; Kirch 1994; Morrison 1996). Some scholars, furthermore, argue that state-level initiatives are necessary catalysts to intensification (e.g. Kolata 1986, 1991; Sanders, Parsons, and Santley 1979). In the Mixteca Alta (Figure 1), the correlation between the agricultural terracing system known as lama-bordo and high regional population densities might suggest that population pressure caused intensification, and that powerful rulers administered the system. Other anthropological studies, however, suggest that the agrarian smallholder—or the food-producing peasant household—might independently create and operate intensive agricultural systems (Evans 1990; Netting 1993; Smith 1994).

FAMSI sponsored excavations at the Mixteca Alta hill-town of Nicayuhu (Figure 2), in San Juan Teposcolula Oaxaca, suggest that the agrarian smallholder household could have independently built and farmed lama-bordo terraces. State-level initiatives, in other words, were not required for the creation of intensive agricultural systems in the Mixteca Alta. Bottom-up initiatives towards intensification originated from farmers’ intimate knowledge of the local environment, and as such resulted in sustainable agricultural practices. The agrarian smallholder household was an economically effective and stable social form throughout Mesoamerican prehistory, persisting through numerous short-term political fluctuations.

Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page