Almost 10 years after its exploration, At the San Gregorio Atlapulco archaeological site in Mexico City, a new discovery has been made about the processes that led groups of hunter-gatherers from the final Pleistocene to become sedentary communities, during the middle Holocene period.
This discovery was the result of experimental archeology work by a scientific team made up of specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), who They recovered artifacts and traces of plant processing and identified their residues.
Using scanning electron microscopy and other techniques, traces of wear on the artifacts from use were analyzed, the results of which confirmed grinding activities on their surfaces. The research team proposed a methodology that is used for the first time in Mexico, based on starch analysis, and the results showed the presence of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), corn (Zea mays), tomato (Physalis sp.), chili (Capsicum sp.) and yam (Dioscorea sp.).
To achieve identification, experimental work was carried out, with the use of several species of plants, fruits and tubers, in order to create a reference catalog, comparable with the residues found in archaeological materials.
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The findings indicated that the diet of these societies was based on the collection of plants and resources from the lake plains complemented with the consumption of domesticated plants such as corn, during a period of climatic improvement, prior to the emergence of the earliest ceramics in the center of what is now Mexico.
These studies have revealed a rich archaeological record in San Gregorio Atlapulco that allows us to investigate the subsistence strategies of hunter-gatherers in that area, 6,000-3,500 BC, during a transition phase towards the development of early villages, in which the The use of grinding devices to process vegetables played an important role in their subsistence.
This better defines the preceramic period and corroborates the main role that lake communities played in the development of the first sedentary groups and the adoption of domesticated plants for their food.
The research is part of the project “Settlement, initial agriculture and village societies in the Basin of Mexico”, co-directed by researchers Guillermo Acosta Ochoa, from the Anthropological Research Institute (IIA-UNAM); Patricia Pérez Martínez, from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH-INAH), and Joaquín Arroyo Cabrales, from the INAH. Its objective is to evaluate two important processes in the human history of the Basin of Mexico: the initial settlement and the development of agriculture.
Added to this research was a project directed by IIA researchers Emily McClung and Guillermo Acosta, which proposes a study to evaluate the middle Holocene, in particular the periods called Playa (6500 BC) and Zohapilco (3500 BC), proposed by archaeologist Christine Niederberger, with the purpose of determining processes such as sedentary lifestyle, village development and early agriculture in the lake communities in the south of the basin.
The results of the study will be announced in the February 2025 edition of the journal “Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports”, in the article “Archaic grinding stone tools in the basin of Mexico. A study through wear-wear analysis and micro -residues”.
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