Reconstruction Early Formarmative Village Organization in Oaxaca

Society for American Archaeology
Reconstructing Early Formative Village Organization in Oaxaca, Mexico Author(s): Michael E. Whalen Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Jan., 1983), pp. 17-43 Published by: Society for American Archaeology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/279816 . Accessed: 04/02/2011 14:15
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RECONSTRUCTINGEARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION IN OAXACA, MEXICO Michael E. Whalen
Large-scaleexcavationdata are used to reconstructsome of the organizational features of a small villageof the EarlyFormative period (ca. 1500-850B.C.)in the southernMexicanhighlands.Data from the community's residential and cemetery zones are analyzed in considerationof (1) the nature and number of village components;and (2)methods used to integrate these components.It is argued that the community was organized around some form of lineal descent group, which held corporate title to essential resources. Low-level redistributionof foodstuffs and the display of supralocal symbolsare also suggested to have been aspects of community The data and interpretationsof this investigationare comparedto the results of Early organization. Formativestudies in other areas of highlandMesoamerica. THE EARLY FORMATIVEperiod is generally defined by Mesoamerican archaeologists as extending from ca. 1500 B.C. to ca. 850 B.C. In broad developmental terms the Early Formative period is the time of the establishment and elaboration of the sedentary agricultural village. By the end of this period there are indications of rapidly increasingly social complexity, as we see the beginning of that consolidation of the regional polities that would characterize much of Mesoamerica in the succeeding Middle Formative. Considerable progress has been made in elucidating the type, size, composition, and distribution of Early Formative communities, as reflected in Flannery's Early Mesoamerican Village (1976b). Surveys in the southern highlands of Mexico (Varner 1974; Kowalewski 1976; Blanton et al. 1979; MacNeish et al. 1972) have revealed Early Formative settlement systems composed of a few large communities and a greater number of small scattered villages. Marcus (1976:89), comparing site sizes in the highland valleys of Oaxaca and Tehuacan with those of the coastal lowlands of Guatemala, concluded that small hamlets of 1 to 2 ha in area and including up to 10 houses may have composed 90% of all Early Formative residential sites. The internal organization of these communities is still poorly understood. Although general studies of organizational aspects of Early Formative societies exist (e.g., Pyne 1976; Drennan 1976a), little attempt has been made to reconstruct the internal social structures of individual villages. This is a serious deficiency, for the organization of Early Formative societies cannot be understood adequately without intensive studies of community structure. The collection of organizational data from a number of communities will ultimately provide a basis for understanding the social composition and structure of Early Formative societies. Detailed community studies can be carried out within a general framework applicable to any culture or time period. Basically, human communities are composed of groups of various kinds bound together by a variety of integrating mechanisms. Investigation of the social structure of any community might, therefore, begin with specification of the number and nature of its components. Attention could then be turned to the mechanisms by which these components are regulated and integrated. The present study applies this procedure to a consideration of the organizational structure of a small Early Formative village of the southern Mexican highlands.
Michael E. Whalen,Departmentof Anthropology,Universityof Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104 Copyright? 1983 by the Society for American Archaeology
0002-7316/83/01001 7-27$3.20/1
17
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THE PHYSICAL AND CULTURALSETTING The present study focuses on the Early Formative period in the Valley of Oaxaca, which lies in the southern highlands of Mexico (refer to Figure 1 for all locations mentioned in the text). Good physical descriptions of the Valley of Oaxaca have already been published (e.g, Flannery et al. 1967; Kirkby 1973; Smith 1978), showing a broad, Y-shaped valley floor with a permanent river, piedmont zones flanking this floor, and high surrounding mountains. The climate of the region is semiarid, with above 600 mm of annual summer rainfall. For the purposes of this discussion, the northern arm of the valley will be referred to as the Etla branch, the southern arm as the Zaachila branch, and the eastern arm as the Tlacolula branch. Early Formative cultural development in the Valley of Oaxaca centered in the Etla branch, which is the location of the regional center of San Jose Mogote. This site is estimated to have been 70 ha in size and to have contained a population of 700 by the middle of the Early Formative (Blanton et al. 1979:374). What have been interpreted as public buildings are present on the site from
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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION
19
ca. 1350 B.C. (Flannery and Marcus 1976:380). There is also evidence of specialized production of ornaments of shell and magnetite at Early Formative San Jose Mogote (Flannery and Winter 1976:38-40). Blanton et al. (1979:374) argue that more communities and more people were located around San Jose Mogote than anywhere else in the Valley of Oaxaca. One of these neighboring communities, frequently referred to in the course of this study, is Tierras Largas, excavated and reported by Winter (1972). At 6.8 ha (Blanton et al. 1979:374), Tierras Largas is considerably larger than other known Early Formative villages in the Valley of Oaxaca, although it is only one-tenth the size of San Jose Mogote. Other Early Formative sites reported in the Tlacolula and Zaachila branches of the Valley are small hamlets, measuring under 2 ha in area (Blanton et al. 1979:374), few in number, and widely scattered. It appears, therefore, that settlement system development did not proceed at a uniform rate everywhere in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Early Formative. One area (the Etla branch) appears to have been the focal point of growth and development, while other areas (the Zaachila and Tlacolula branches) seem to have progressed more slowly. The extent of supralocal organization in the Early Formative Valley of Oaxaca is not yet clear. It is likely that some form of supracommunity structure, centered on San Jose Mogote, existed in the Etla branch of the Valley. Relations between San Jose Mogote and the small, scattered, rural communities elsewhere in the Valley are not well understood. While all parts of the Valley share a common material culture tradition, this cannot be automatically translated into confirmation of political or economic dominance. While intercommunity contact doubtless existed between Oaxacan Early Formative villages, we are presently unaware of the forms it may have taken. At the level of community structure and composition, we find that all investigated Early Formative villages in the Valley of Oaxaca consisted of small wattle-and-daub (mud and stick) houses. Some of the houses at San Jose Mogote had been coated with white lime plaster, while others there and at smaller communities were apparently unplastered. Flannery (1972, 1976a) argues that all of these houses accommodated nuclear families. Winter (1972, 1976) holds that the nuclear family household was the basic building block of early villages in Oaxaca. Household units are thus interpreted as the remains of this domestic group; they usually consist of a small, rectangular, wattle-and-daub structure with associated food storage pits, ovens, work areas, trash middens, and human burials. Most communities of this period seem to have had no public buildings. The Early Formative village that provides the data used in this study is located in the Tlacolula branch of the Valley of Oaxaca, near the modern Zapotec-speaking community of Santo Domingo Tomaltepec (Figure 1). The Tomaltepec site is situated near the mouth of a canyon in the piedmont zone, where a permanent stream descends from the mountains to the valley floor. The area of the site is about 1 ha. Early Formative occupation at Tomaltepec began in the latter part of the local Tierras Largas phase (ca. 1400-1150 B.C.). Occupation continued into the middle of the Early Formative period, locally known as the early San Jose phase (ca. 1150-1000 B.C.). The site appears to have diminished in size by late San Jose times (ca. 1000-850 B.C.), which terminated the Early Formative sequence. Middle and Late Formative occupations are well represented at Tomaltepec, although they lie outside the concern of this study. Data from the site's Tierras Largas phase occupation are too sparse and too poorly understood to be used effectively here. Accordingly, the present inquiry is confined to the early San Jose phase component of the occupation, dating between 1150 B.C. and 1000 B.C. Excavation data permit division of the early San Jose phase community at Tomaltepec into a residential area containing from five to ten household units, and a cemetery area where the community's adolescent and adult dead were buried. Succeeding sections of this paper will analyze these two zones in a consideration of community structure and organization. RESIDENTIALDATA The theoretical basis for discussion of the early San Jose phase residential area at Tomaltepec is provided by Rapoport (1969) and Fletcher (1977). The fundamental premise behind these
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studies is, in Fletcher's words, "that settlement and house form are closely connected to the internally consistent categories and rules used by human communities. Structures are, in effect, standing representations for the consistent classifications of other categories in the same cultural milieu" (1977:53). Application of this concept to investigation of the internal categories and organizational principles of the Tomaltepec village requires consideration of household unit composition, household-associated artifacts, and household distribution. Household Unit Composition Portions of four early San Jose phase household units were investigated at Tomaltepec. These were designated ESJ-1 through ESJ-4. The most completely excavated unit, ESJ-2, conformed
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Figure 2. Plan of the ESJ-1 platform. Foundation stone alignments have been used to project the platform's sides into the unexcavated area. The platform lay beneath 4 m of later construction.
Whalen]
21
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visible in the background.
and ESJ-4 closely to the general householdunit model outlinedabove. Excavated portions of ESJ-3 resembled ESJ-2in house construction, associated features, and artifact assemblage. Household unit ESJ-1,on the other hand, differed slightly from its contemporaries. The ESJ-l householdunit evidently consisted of a structure set atop a small mud and stone platform. The platform was about 4 m wide, with vertical sides about 1 m high. The length of the structure is unclear, as only three sides were uncovered.In the center of the platformwas a large quadrilateral pit or cell. Figures 2 and 3 show a plan and a section of the platform and internal cell, as well as a view of the construction technique employed. What remained of the cell
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measured some 2.5 by 1.5 m with a depth of 1 m. The remnant volume of the cell was nearly 4 m or more than four times the average capacity of individual household storage pits excavated at Early Formative communities in the area. The walls and floor of the cell were covered with a hard adobe plaster. It is suggested that the structure served as a large-scale storage facility for perishable items. That the platform also served a residential function is suggested by the enormous quantities of domestic garbage found in association with it. Utilitarian pottery, grinding stones, bone, charcoal, corn, and other carbonized plant remains were all present in quantity. This material lay both around the platform and in the cell. The platform and the debris may be assumed to be contemporary, as the same distinctive early San Jose phase ceramics were found in the rubble fill of which the platform was constructed (Figure 3) and in the domestic debris upon it. No sherds of later periods were present in these deposits. It is assumed that a house with which the debris was associated once stood atop the platform, although its position with respect to the cell is unclear. The top of the platform had been disturbed by construction activity in the succeeding Middle Formative period, so that posthole patterns could not be discerned. Chunks of burned, pole-impressed daub were scattered through the deposits, however, implying that the ESJ-1 house was a structure of the common Early Formative sort. Household unit ESJ-2 appears to be more typical of the community. The house excavated there is an unusual find, as it is a nearly complete early San Jose phase house floor with posthole alignments forming four walls (Figure 4). The house sat directly on the ground, without a platform of any sort. Walls were mud plaster over a layer of light sticks or canes, and the roof was presumably thatch. The house measured 4.9 by 2.2 m, with a floor area of 10.8 m2. Flannery (1976a:23) reports that roughly contemporary houses excavated in the Valley of Oaxaca measured 5 to 6 by 3 to 4 m. The ESJ-2 house would fall at the smaller end of this scale. Work areas and trash pits surrounded the ESJ-2 house. Household units ESJ-3 and ESJ-4 were much less intensively excavated. Hearths, storage pits, and trash pits were discovered in these deposits. The pits were found to be filled with domestic garbage, including course utilitarian pottery identical to that of ESJ-1 and ESJ-2, animal bone, chipped and ground stone, and carbonized plant remains. No house floor was found in either case, although each excavated area contained pole-impressed burned daub chunks. It therefore seems likely that a wattle-and-daub house once stood in the vicinity of each of these clusters of features. Both the ESJ-3and ESJ-4deposits lay near the surface, without visible mounding. In neither case is there any trace of a house platform. It appears that these houses were of the type represented by ESJ-2 at Tomaltepec and by a number of other examples from contemporary sites (e.g., Winter 1972; Flannery 1976a). It is therefore assumed that similar types of residential units characterized the entire village. One of these households was distinguished from its fellows by the presence of a small platform, including what is suggested to have been a large-scale storage facility. The role of this structure in the socioeconomic life of the community will be considered presently. Household-Associated Artifacts All investigated early San Jose household units have comparably heavy concentrations of domestic trash. This trash includes charcoal and carbonized plant remains, chipped stone tools and debris, ground stone tools, animal bone, and heavily sooted local pottery. These artifact assemblages indicate similar ranges of domestic activity in every investigated household. Note that this does not imply that all household artifact assemblages were identical in composition. Domestic refuse associated with the platform house (ESJ-1)includes a few items that were rare or absent in other household units. Deer bone, for instance, is present in great quantity at ESJ-1, although it is much less common at ESJ-2, ESJ-3 and ESJ-4. A total of 150 pieces of deer bone came from ESJ-1 while only 97 fragments were recovered from all other early San Jose household units
Whalen]
23
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Disturbed
01 m
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walli
i,
~~ ~ ~
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Figure 4. Plan of the ESJ-2house floor. The photograph shows the floor from the same point of view, alhuhat an earlier point in excavation.
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[Vol.48, No. 1, 1983
combined. This difference cannot be attributed to sample sizes, as the total volume of excavated earth at ESJ-2, ESJ-3, and ESJ-4 was several times greater than that of ESJ-1. Obsidian shows a similarly uneven distribution within the community, although it is nowhere very common. There are no obsidian sources in the Valley of Oaxaca, so that all of this high quality tool-making material was imported. Obsidian at the Tomaltepec site was found only in very small fragments, showing that each piece obtained was extensively used. Household unit ESJ-1 alone contained 55.6% of all obsidian recovered from early San Jose phase proveniences. Other imported, nonutilitarian objects such as marine shell and mica are found exclusively in ESJ-1 deposits, albeit in minute quantity. Nowhere is there any large quantity of imported, and therefore expensive, material in the Tomaltepec early San Jose village. Nevertheless, what exists is concentrated in the ESJ-1 household unit. Household Distribution A final point to be considered is household distribution within the Tomaltepec community. There is a body of theory in anthropology which suggests that a society's spatial organization reflects at least some of the roles, statuses, and distinctions upon which its social organization is based (e.g., Clarke 1977). A corollary assumption is that fewer spatial distinctions are expected in societies where relatively few social distinctions exist. Data presented so far suggest that little differentiation of any sort existed among Tomaltepec households. Such household distribution data as we have for Tomaltepec also support this conclusion, for a common spacing appears to have been used for all known community components (Figure 5). The center of each household unit is taken to be either the house itself, or the set of features used to define the unit (in the cases of units ESJ-3 and ESJ-4). The center of ESJ-1 lies about 45 m from the center of ESJ-2. Similarly, both ESJ-1 and ESJ-2lie between 40 and 50 m from ESJ-3. The features composing the poorly defined ESJ-4 are about 40 m from ESJ-3, and 50 m from ESJ-2. Testing in intervening areas revealed little Early Formative debris of any kind. Finally, the village cemetery, to be discussed presently, is located some 50 m north of ESJ-2.Testing again produced no evidence of household units in the intervening area. A similar spacing pattern has also been found at the contemporary Oaxacan site of Tierras Largas. Based upon his work there, Winter (1972:85-87) argues that household units of the Tierras Largas and early San Jose phases were approximately evenly spaced, and that distances between household unit centers averaged about 40 m. The spatial arrangement of the known components of the Tomaltepec and Tierras Largas early San Jose phase villages may thus be characterized as simple, with quite comparable distances separating all known households. Moreover, roughly the same distance appears to have been used at Tomaltepec to separate different kinds of community components, including the platform house, ordinary houses, and the cemetery area. It is interesting to note that the number of distance categories in evidence in the Tomaltepec community is increased in the succeeding Middle and Late Formative periods, as society grew and diversified (Whalen 1981). Residential Area Data Summary It has been shown that there are differences among the early San Jose phase households investigated at Tomaltepec. Architectural and artifactual data all imply some prominence for household unit ESJ-1, although it appears that the inhabitants of ESJ-1 did not rise far above their neighbors. Despite the platform, there is no indication that the ESJ-1household differed greatly in size or construction technique from other residences at Tomaltepec or at other contemporary communities in the area. The platform itself clearly represents a greater-than-usual expenditure of energy in house construction; nevertheless, the absolute amount of effort involved is not very great. The artifactual material recovered at Tomaltepec implies that generally similar ranges of activity took place in every household unit. Deer bone aside, the homogeneity of these deposits was notable. Finally, community patterning appears to have involved no spatial distinctions between ESJ-1, its contemporaries, or the cemetery area. The Tomaltepec early San Jose phase
Whalen]
25
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Figure 5.
Distribution of known components of the Tomaltepec Early Formative village.
residential area data suggest a small, simply structured communityin which a few slight differences in wealth and social position were added to a largely egalitarian base.
CEMETERYDATA
A numberof theoretical bases for drawing social-organizational inferences frommortuarydata

have appeared in the past decade, as summarized by Tainter (1978) and Braun (1981). Behind all mortuary studies is the premise that discernable associations exist between the form and complexity of mortuary behavior and the form and complexity of social organization. As a result, we
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AMERICAN ANTIQUITY
[Vol.48, No. 1, 1983
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Figure 6. Plan of the Tomaltepec village cemetery. expect to be able to use mortuary behavior as a sort of monitor on the general state of the social
system.
The Tomaltepec cemetery contained at least 80 individuals (Figure 6). While the cemetery area
was not completely excavated, test pits around the perimeter of the excavated area indicate that
most burials were recovered. Three categories of interments were encountered: (1) 60 primary, articulated burials capable of yielding data on mortuary treatment; (2) 9 disarticulated burials so
badly disturbed that little information could be recovered; and (3) at least 11 secondary burials
accompanying some of the primary interments. The succeeding discussion considers the age and
sex attributes of the cemetery burials, as well as variation in their mortuary treatment. Age and sex identifications were made in the field laboratory by Dr. Richard G. Wilkinson, Qaxaca Project
osteologist. Since time was short, the analyst was not able to make detailed observations of injuries, pathologies, or disease in the population.
Whalen]
27
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AMERICAN ANTIQUITY
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Cemetery Composition The first task in evaluating the Tomaltepec cemetery is to determine what elements of the population were buried there. Is selection evident for or against particular age and sex groups? Table 1 presents the data necessary for consideration of this question. Included in the table are the age and sex data for all Tomaltepec cemetery burials, whether primary, disturbed, or secondary. With these and other data, Table 2 was constructed to examine the proposition that cemetary burial was the primary means of disposal of adult dead from the Tomaltepec village. The table compares the age profile of the Tomaltepec cemetery burials against those of all Early and Middle Formative burials from other Oaxacan sites, and against several Hopewell and Mississippian cemetery populations. The object is to determine whether the Tomaltepec profile is skewed by omission of particular age categories, or whether it can reasonably be assumed that most villagers were being buried in the cemetery at death. Table 2 shows that infants and children were included in the Tomaltepec cemetery in far lower proportions than is characteristic of other mortuary populations. Infants and children composed between 30 and 50% of the Oaxacan, Hopewell, and Mississippian samples. In contrast, infants and children composed less than 6% of the Tomaltepec cemetery population. It is clear, therefore, that most infants and children were excluded from this cemetery. The circumstances under which a few members of this age group were buried in the cemetery remain unclear. Some remains of infants and children were also found in trash deposits in the residential portion of the community. Mortuary treatment of this age group thus appears to have been more variable and less formal than that accorded adolescents and adults. Adolescents occur in the Tomaltepec cemetery in comparable proportion to their occurrence in other populations shown in Table 2. The Adult I group of the Tomaltepec cemetery population differs most from those to which it is compared. Young adult mortality at Tomaltepec was apparently very high, and this trend continues into the Adult II group. The Adult III population at Tomaltepec falls within the range of occurrence of this age group in the other populations in Table 2, although it is one of the lower values. It is likely that there were simply fewer people of this age group in the Tomaltepec population after the high death rates of the Adult I and II age groups. The Adult IV proportion is low when compared to the Hopewell and Mississippian cemetery populations and to the general Oaxacan Middle Formative burial sample. However, the Tomaltepec Adult IV proportion compares much more favorably with that of the other Early Formative Oaxacan burial sample. These data suggest that Oaxacan Early Formative villagers seldom exceeded 50 years of age. The data of Table 2 show a good deal of variation between different populations and different areas. Some of this variability is undoubtedly due to incomplete recovery of burial sets. Also involved is our inability to determine accurately the age of every burial and skeletal fragment recovered. Moreover, we are dealing with different cultures and time periods, so that mortality rates cannot be expected to be identical. Nevertheless, the Table 2 data provided no basis for arguing that major segments of the adolescent and adult population of the Tomaltepec community are unrepresented in the cemetery. The implication of these data, then, is that cemetery burial was the major method of disposal of adolescent and adult dead from the Tomaltepec village, while most children were disposed of otherwise. Also to be considered is the question of selection by sex for interment in the cemetery. Table 1 shows numbers of identified males and females in the Tomaltepec cemetery. Male and female totals are equal, although a large number of burials could not be identified by sex due to poor bone preservation. Nevertheless, males and females are present in sufficient numbers to suggest that both were buried in the cemetery in the nearly equal proportions in which they exist in human populations. Naturally, we have made the corollary assumption that burials unidentifiable as to sex include about equal numbers of males and females. The mortuary treatment of individuals of undetermined sex is compatible with this suggestion. The data of Table 1 show differing high risk periods for males and females. It is evident that death rates for Tomaltepec females are highest in the 20-29-year bracket, declining sharply
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thereafter. Tomaltepec males, on the other hand, suffered their highest death rate between 30 and 39 years. A very similar situation seems to have existed among Early Formative burials from the sites of Tierras Largas and San Jose Mogote. The Tierras Largas and San Jose phases were combined for this comparison because the number of individuals involved is small. Individuals not identified by sex are not included in this discussion. Using the age and sex data provided by Winter (1972:Appendix B), it was determined that five of six females (83%) for which age could be determined were adolescents or adults of less than 30. In contrast, all seven of the Early Formative males identified by age were over 30. Thus, while the Tierras Largas and San Jose Mogote sample is so small as to permit no firm conclusions based on it alone, it seems to follow the pattern recognized at Tomaltepec. This situation is also quite similar to that reported by Saxe (1971:45) in a Mesolithic Nubian cemetery population, where 72% of females, but only 53% of males, died in or before the 25-30-year age bracket. Saxe observes that young females with obstetric vulnerabilities would be selected out of the population during the first few pregnancies. Those surviving the first pregnancies would be likely to continue living until they succumbed to disease, accident, or other misfortune. Males, Saxe continues, seem to have suffered a steadier attrition, without the early high risk period to which females were exposed. Accordingly, it is argued that the particular age/sex combinations observed in the Tomaltepec cemetery can be attributed to the dynamics of the population under the assumption that most adult villagers of both sexes were buried there at death. Mortuary Treatment The 60 cemetery burials that were sufficiently complete to allow analysis show a very high level of similarity in position and orientation. Fifty-nine individuals (98%) were prone, with heads in the normal face-forward position. Facedown burial of this sort is occasionally encountered at other Early and Middle Formative sites (e.g., Drennan 1976b:250; Grove 1974:25). Nevertheless, Tomaltepec is unusual in that facedown burial is nearly ubiquitous there. A single male was supine, with the head in the standard position. All burials were oriented along east-west axes, with most heads slightly south of east. Only 8% of the cemetery burials (5 of the 60 considered here) lay with their heads to the west, although they were still placed in the standard prone position. Reasons for these departures from the common cemetery position remain obscure; the deviant burials have no other remarkable features, and they include junior and senior males and females. In spite of general uniformity of position and orientation, there did exist some potentially significant variation in preparation for burial. Forty-four primary, articulated burials were arranged with their legs extended in the normal position (Figures 6 and 7). All identified women were fully extended, as were most males. There is a second group of burials, however, distinguished by the folding, or flexing, of the legs tightly against the upper body (Figure 8). The body was then laid in the standard facedown, head-to-the-east position. It should be emphasized that this burial pattern has never been reported from other Early Formative communities in the Valley of Oaxaca, nor from other Mesoamerican cemeteries of that time. Ten bodies were found in this position in the Tomaltepec cemetery. Five of these ten individuals were identified as male; the others were poorly preserved or badly disturbed adults of undetermined sex. Since no flexed burial was identified as female, we may be dealing with a sex-specific pattern. The flexed set includes the complete range of ages represented in the cemetery; two fall into the 20-29-year age bracket, two were 30-39, two were 40-49, one was over 50, and three were so badly disturbed as to be classifiable only as "adults." Six other burials of men and women were damaged so severely that leg position could not be determined. Mortuary offerings were present with two-thirds of all articulated burials. By far the most common offerings were sooted, well-worn, domestic vessels. Males averaged 3.3 vessels per burial, while females showed a very comparable value of 3. Tests of association were conducted between vessel types and attributes of age, sex, and flexure. Very few significant associations resulted, even at the 0.1 level, attesting to a marked lack of formality in association of particular
Whalen]
31
upper
lower
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skull
Figure 7. Examples of fully extended burials from the cemetery. Burial 1 is an especially good example of a primary male interment with several secondary burials.
vessel forms and sizes with particular types of burials. Other offerings such as awls, grinding stones, figurines, ceramic whistles, stone pendants, jade beads, and a shell ornament are present in minute quality, although there is little evident patterning in their distribution. One of the flexed men had 16 of the 19 jade beads recovered from all cemetery burials. On the other hand, no other men had any beads, while two women had one and two, respectively. Ceramic figurines are found
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4~~~~~~~~~~
upper
lower
v: Vessel sk: Secondary skull
o:Other g): Stone
remains slab
Figure 8. Examples of flexed burials from the cemetery. Burial 3 shows one of the stone grave covers occasionally found over male skeletons.
only with women, while utilitarian awls and grinding stones occur in very small numbers with both extended men and women. A single marine shell ornament was found with an extended male, and a magnetite ornament accompanied a young female. Finally, two senior flexed men wverethe only ones to have a few small stone slabs (about 10 x 20 x 5 cm) laid down over their backs as a sort of grave cover. Mortuary offerings also include examples of a design motif of supralocal significance. The Fire Serpent and the anthropomorphic feline face known as the Were-jaguar are symbols that were widely distributed over Early Formative Mesoamerica. Joralemon (1971) interprets both motifs as deities of the Gulf Coast Olmec religion, although agreement is not complete on this point. However, the motifs are generally thought to have had a pan-Mesoamerican ritual or symbolic significance. Each of the two symbols has been argued to predominate in different Oaxacan Early Formative villages, or in different residential groups in large villages (Pyne 1976). Pyne's study should be taken as suggestive rather than conclusive, although subsequent work (Flannery and Marcus 1976:381) lends support to the hypothesis of differential use of the motifs in Early Formative Oaxaca. Flannery and Marcus argue that the large Oaxacan Early Formative site of San Jose Mogote was divided into spatially discrete residential wards, with the east and west wards characterized by the Fire Serpent motif, while the south ward displayed the Were-jaguar. Further indication of differential use of these motifs comes from the Tomaltepec village, where only Five Serpent motifs were recovered. Figure 9 presents two complete examples of Tomaltepec Fire Serpents. Three males and a fourth individual of undetermined sex were accompanied by Fire Serpent symbols on associated ceramic offerings. Two females had small stone pendents ground into the elongated, shallow "U" motif which is a principal component of the Fire Serpent design (Figure 9). The motif, or a major component of it, is thus displayed by both males and females, ranging in age from 25 to over 50. Two of the senior men of the flexed group have Fire Serpent symbols, although their juniors do not. Fragments of vessels bearing the Fire Serpent motif were present in three of the four excavated household units (ESJ-1,ESJ-2, and ESJ-3),so that
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lI.
II~i~I, 1(wm11mmI
b 0 cm 10
Figure 9. same scale.
Two examples of the Fire serpent motif from the Tomaltepec cemetery. Both vessels are at the
the design occurs in both residential and mortuary contexts. Although never very common, the motif is thus considered wide-spread in the Tomaltepec village. Secondary interments also occur as grave furnishings at Tomaltepec. Secondary remains most commonly consist of skulls, although longbones are sometimes present. The skulls do not seem to be those of decapitated victims, as mandibles and all cervical vertebrae are absent. A number of mandibles were recovered from the litter of disarticulated bone found in the cemetery deposits. These secondary burials were interpreted as the remains of previously deceased Tomaltepec villagers. Secondary skulls were sometimes arranged around the head and upper body of the primary interment. The primary burial was also occasionally covered with a layer of loose limb bones and skull fragments. Secondary burials were poorly preserved, so that age and sex were often impossible to determine. It is clear that secondary burials in the Tomaltepec cemetery were exclusively adults; that they ranged widely in age from 20 to 50 years; and that they were both male and female. The sex identification data for these burials are so poor that proportions of males and females cannot be estimated. Whatever the sexes of the individuals so interred, secondary burials themselves were found to be most common and most numerous with male burials. Four primary male interments had eight secondary burials among them, and it is noteworthy that this group included all three senior flexed men. All primary female burials, on the other hand, had a total of only three secondary accompaniments. As a result of the difficulties of aging and sexing secondary burials, no statements can be made about age and sex associations between primary and secondary individuals. It is evident, however, that the ages and sexes of secondary burials do not always follow those of primary interments. Spatial Organization of the Cemetery Recent studies (e.g., Tainter 1978; Goldstein 1980) argue that the spatial distribution of burial attributes can reflect some of a society's organizational principles. Nearest-neighbor measure-
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ments were used to seek patterns of spatial association among the attributes of age, sex, mortuary offerings, and burial positions present in the Tomaltepec cemetery. The nearest-neighbor statistic is a simple and well-known measure of tendencies toward clustering, random dispersal, or aggregation in two-dimensional space (Clark and Evans 1954; Whallon 1974). The calculations involve a ratio (R) between the mean observed distance to the nearest neighbor in a particular category, and the mean distance that would be expected if the population were distributed at random. The value of R is thus 1 for a random distribution. Values of R on either side of 1 indicate aggregation or regular spacing. A test of significance can be performed on R, with associated probabilities read from a table of areas under the normal curve. The value of R for all burials in the Tomaltepec cemetery was 0.9895. This value is very close to 1, showing no significant departure from randomness. The analysis detected neither significant clustering nor regular spacing. Nearest-neighbor ratios were also calculated for males (i.e., distance to the nearest male neighbor), for females, for males and females, for members of the various age categories, for flexed burials, and for burials with and without offerings. No significant departures from randomness were detected in any case. The implication of these tests, then, is that a random mixture of burials of all sorts existed all over the cemetery. This observation is consistent with the generally low level of differentiation of cemetery burials indicated by the other analyses. Cemetery Area Data Summary The Tomaltepec cemetery was a specialized burial facility associated with the early San Jose phase village described earlier. No contemporary communities are known in the immediate vicinity of Tomaltepec, and it is therefore assumed that the interments are those of Tomaltepec villagers. It is argued that adult status was generally required for burial in the cemetery, and that most of the community's adult dead were buried there. The majority of the dead infants and children were evidently disposed of elsewhere. Discoveries of infant burials in residential zone middens suggests that subadults may simply have been buried near their residences. The mortuary data presented show that most Tomaltepec burials are much alike in position, orientation, grave type, and simplicity of grave furnishings. The only real departure from this pattern is the group of flexed burials, whose senior members received slightly more elaborate treatment than any other cemetery occupants. The spatial organization of the cemetery seems to have been random, a pattern consistent with the generally low level of differentiation suggested by the other burial data. There appears to have been no segregation or clustering of individuals of different ages, sexes, burial positions, or quantities of mortuary offerings. COMMENTS ON COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION There are two basic problems to be considered with regard to the organization of human societies. These are (1) the composition of a society, and (2) the means of integration of its component elements. The early San Jose phase data will now be considered in terms of these questions. Societal Composition The Tomaltepec community was a small one, most probably including half a dozen very similar households and 20 to 30 people. Extant data are tantalizing, but ambiguous, regarding the presence of societal components beyond those of individual and household. The flexed burial position of some individuals in the cemetery could signal membership in an association of some type. Inasmuch as flexed burials identified as to sex were exclusively male, it has been suggested that this burial pattern may have been sex-specific. However, the significance of flexed burials remains unclear. Symbolic recognition given to shared characteristics of some of the men of the village is apparently involved. The data in hand are not sufficient to determine whether the flexed burials represent a kinship unit, a suprahousehold group or association of another sort, or an unrelated set of individuals whose burial position recognizes some common experience or
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characteristic. Additional skeletal analyses might help to resolve this problem, although the data now in hand are not sufficient to do so. It is argued that the village was characterized by relatively low levels of differentiation among its parts. Mortuary, architectural, and artifactual data all support this conclusion. The most notable difference among households in the village was the presence of a small platform beneath household unit ESJ-1. Minute quantities of exotic, imported items (obsidian and marine shell) and large amounts of deer bone were concentrated in the ESJ-1 unit. Flexing of some burials has been noted in the cemetery. A few burials had offerings of jadite beads and tiny magnetite mirrors, while the overwhelming majority of burials lacked any of this exotica. The data in hand thus suggest that the Tomaltepec early San Jose village shows the attributes of a simple system: i.e., few components, and little differentiation among them. Structure and Integration Interpretation of social-organizational principles from archaeological data is difficult at best, and firm conclusions are often impossible to reach. Several statements can be tentatively made using the Tomaltepec data, although what follows is intended to be a working model rather than a definitive pronouncement. The organizational structure of the Tomaltepec village seems to have involved some form of suprafamilial lineal descent group which held title to essential resources (e.g., arable land). This supposition is based on ethnographic studies of the organizational correlates of cemetery use. The relation between the occurrence of cemeteries and the structure of societies has been considered by several anthropologists. A basic hypothesis on cemeteries and social organization was posed and tentatively validated by Arthur Saxe, who argued that: To the degree that corporategrouprights to use and/orcontrolcrucial but restricted resources are attained and/or legitimizedby means of lineal descent from the dead (i.e., lineal ties to ancestors) such groupswill maintain formal disposal areas for the exclusive disposal of their dead, and conversely [Saxe 1970:119]. Elsewhere, Saxe (1971:5 1) cites New Guinea ethnographic data (drawn from Meggitt [1965] ) to argue that the importance of ancestors, as measured by the degree of permanence of burials and by increasing specialization of burial areas, covaries with the need to emphasize continuity of descent groups that can assert titles to valuable resources. Carrying on from this point, Goldstein (1976, 1980) reviews a broad sample of ethnographically known societies and restates Saxe's hypothesis as follows: In brief, not all corporategroupsthat controlcritical resources throughlineal descent will maintainformal, exclusive disposal areas for their dead. But if a formal,boundeddisposal area exists, and if it is used exclusively for the dead, the society is very likely to have corporate groups organizedby lineal descent. The more organizedand formal the disposal area, the more conclusive this inference [Goldstein1980:8]. The village burial area at Tomaltepec was a special purpose area on the edge of the community. No contemporary cultural features of any sort have been found there, and no adult burials or fragments thereof were found anywhere except in the cemetery. All individuals in the cemetery were buried in the same type of grave, with near-complete uniformity of burial position and orientation. It is argued that this bounded, formal, well-organized disposal area carries the implication of some kind of corporate structure organized around lineal descent. Recognizing the importance of corporate resource control, Kent Flannery observes that: the origins of sedentary life had more to do with the installationand maintenanceof permanentfacilities, and the establishmentand maintenanceof hereditaryownershipof limitedareas of high resource potential than it did with agricultureper se.... The placing of permanent,nucleated communitieson or near localized areas of strategic resources probablychanges groupideologyfrom one of weak territorialityto a pattern of a small, defended core area versus a large, undefendedperiphery,further emphasizedin concepts of descent [Flannery1972:28-29].
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Flannery goes on to assert that repositories for multiple secondary burials, or saving of ancestor skulls, are one possible result of this emphasis on descent. He notes that "without written deeds, the presence of the ancestors frequently serves as the group's best evidence that the land was theirs 'since time began' " (Flannery 1972:29). Another set of clues to the nature of the social and economic order in the community is provided by what has been interpreted as a large storage facility in the ESJ-1 platform. The existence of such a facility implies that the political and economic structure of the village may have involved some form of redistribution through a central place, perhaps by a subset of the community. Unfortunately, as Steponaitis (1981:323) observes, economic activity involving food collection and distribution leaves little trace in the prehistoric record. Economic activities involving food must therefore be traced by indirect means, the most obvious of which is presence of large storage facilities. It has been suggested that the cell inside the ESJ-1platform was such a facility. The construction of the cell suggests large-scale storage of perishable goods of some sort, possibly foodstuffs. The thick adobe plaster with which the cell was lined is similar in construction to that of the smaller bell-shaped food storage pits that occur with Early and Middle Formative household units all over the Valley of Oaxaca. It is reasonable to suggest pooling and distribution of food stuffs as an economic activity; Dalton (1977:202) notes that such exchange and distribution commonly occurs in the economic systems of what he terms "stateless societies." Is some form of redistribution consistent with the apparent size and composition of early San Jose phase society at Tomaltepec? Earle (1977:215-216) notes that a number of different kinds and levels of economic activity (with their associated social institutions) have traditionally been lumped under the general term "redistribution." At the community level, these range from what Earle terms simple "share-out," in which interhousehold production is mustered within a single community, to "mobilization," in which intercommunity production is integrated into a "public economy,"' operating within a ranked or stratified society. Finally Earle cites several opinions to the effect that simple levels of redistributive activity such as share-out "are widely represented at all levels of social complexity. This should not be surprising," he continues, "as these forms of redistribution execute general organizational functions found nearly universally in societies" (Earle 1977:216). Moreover, it is important to emphasize that while the simpler forms of redistributive activity discussed by Earle (1977) and Sahlins (1972), among others, all rely on some form of centralized leadership, such authority need not be very great. There are a number of ethnographic studies showing how Melanesian and New Guinean "Big Men" contrive to operate share-out and even simple mobilization systems using little more than kinship ties and the force of their personalities in societies that are not characterized by high levels of social differentiation or political centralization (e.g, Sahlins 1963). It is therefore argued that the general structure of the Tomaltepec early San Jose phase village could have accommodated such a simple redistributive system as is here postulated on the basis of the ESJ-1 platform and cell. Is such a distributive system compatible with what we already know about socioeconomic structure in Early and Middle Formative Oaxaca? The Tomaltepec data do appear to be consistent with these understandings. Pires-Ferreira (1975:6-7), and Winter and Pires-Ferreira (1976:306-311), argue that elite-controlled procurement and redistribution of prismatic obsidian blades seems to occur toward the end of the Early Formative and in the Middle Formative period in Oaxaca. The authors use trace-element analysis of obsidian sources and artifacts, as well as distribution of this material within communities, to outline a model in which prismatic obsidian blades were obtained by the emerging elite of society, pooled at their residences, and finally distributed to lower status households within their communities. The Tomaltepec data are complementary in that they fall chronologically just before the period discussed by Pires-Ferreira and Winter. The Tomaltepec data may, then, provide a glimpse of the base situation (i.e., simple redistribution of foodstuffs) from which elite-controlled redistribution of imported, but essential, materials ultimately developed. Discussion of the integrative aspects of economic activities (e.g., Sahlins 1972; Dalton 1977;
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Earle 1977) indicates that even simple redistributive activities would provide powerful forces to bind together the segments of a community like Tomaltepec. Such activities may also serve to further the authority or power of the person or agency organizing or controlling the distribution. Postulation of some form of pooling or "share-out" redistribution at early San Jose phase Tomaltepec is thus compatible with the presence of the ESJ-1 platform and cell, with the size and composition of the community, with current understandings of the role of redistribution in preindustrial societies, and with extant models of Early and Middle Formative socioeconomic structure. Symbolism The display of supralocal symbols may have served to integrate the Tomaltepec village on internal and external levels. The stylized Fire-serpent and Were-jaguar figures, pan-Mesoamerican symbols during the Early Formative, are generally presumed to have had mythological or ceremonial significance. There is a tendency for one or another of these motifs to predominate in individual small villages, or in major segments of larger communities in Oaxaca. Tomaltepec, for example, was found to contain only Fire-serpent motifs, albeit in small quantity. Within the Tomaltepec community, the symbols occurred in both residential and mortuary contexts. Three of the four household units investigated contained sherds of vessels bearing the Fire-serpent, and at least eight cemetery burials had associated Fire-serpent motifs. Note that this figure is inexact, for several parts of the cemetery contained additional Fire-serpent vessels that had been broken and scattered by subsequent burial activity. Hence, there is no indication that the Fire-serpent motif was displayed by a single household or group in the Tomaltepec village. Rather, most (perhaps all) households displayed the design on a few of their ceramics. The most common types of utilitarian jars and hemispherical bowls do not bear Fire-serpent motifs; those occur rather on cylinders that do not appear to have been used for everyday cooking tasks, as they lack the sooting that was common on other vessel types. The meaning of these motifs is still unclear. Pyne's (1976) argument that the motifs represent hereditary descent group symbols is not well supported by the extant data, and alternative interpretations are not considered in that study. An alternative explanation of the symbols as supernatural figures with which particular communities maintained special relations accords well with broad patterns of Prehispanic religion, as observed by H. B. Nicholson. An importantfeature of Mesoamericanreligionin general was the concept of a special tutelaryrelationship between a certain deity, the abogadoas Spanishwriters usually phrased it, and a particularsocio-political group.The size of these patronizedentities ran the whole gamutof the socio-politicalspectrum,fromextensive provinces (or, rarely, entire ethnic-linguistic divisions), to small intracommunity sectors.... These tutelary deities seem usually to have been local aspects of spatially more generalized deities [Nicholson 1971:409]. While Nicholson's discussion focused on late Postclassic times (after A.D. 1200), the distribu-
tional patterns recognized by Pyne and others may reveal the antecedents of an old, but consistent, culture pattern in Mesoamerica. Community-associated deities would provide a powerful integrative force in a village like Tomaltepec. Rappaport (1971) argues convincingly for the integrative power of shared acceptance of "ultimate sacred propositions" in human societies. He shows how sanctification can contribute vitally to maintenance of systemic integrity in the absence of developed political authority and coercive power. Display of the same symbols on a supralocal basis also has strong implications for intercommunity integration, although data are presently inadequate to the pursuit of this
issue.
Summary The early San Jose phase community at Tomaltepec has been characterized as composed of small number of domestic groups which were largely equivalent in both formal and functional
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terms. A completely egalitarian society is not suggested, although it appears that the substantial, formalized status distinctions of later times did not characterize this community. Some type of corporate group structure based on lineal descent is implied by the use of a formal, spatially discrete, highly specialized burial area containing both primary and secondary interments. An important aspect of society's internal political and economic organization may have been lowlevel pooling and redistribution of foodstuffs. Supralocal symbols were displayed throughout the village, and it was argued that these served both to bind individual household units and to link the community to its neighbors. The communal village cemetery is asserted to have been a strong integrating device on both internal and external levels. Such a facility asserts the unity of the community while also emphasizing its corporate claims. A REGIONALPERSPECTIVE The supralocal applicability of the organizational interpretations developed from the Tomaltepec data must be considered. In other words, do the Tomaltepec data reflect a set of organizational principles recognizable at other Early Formative communities in the Valley of Oaxaca and in Mesoamerica? Since small hamlets of 1 to 2 ha and up to 10 houses may have composed 90% of all Early Formative residential sites, the Tomaltepec village is an example of a type of community common throughout a large portion of Mesoamerica. There has been very little excavation at such sites, leaving us a marked lack of data against which to compare the Tomaltepec observations. For the Early Formative in the Valley of Oaxaca, intensive large-scale excavations have been conducted only at Tomaltepec, a small village; at Tierras Largas, a medium-sized village; and at San Jose Mogote, a large community. As Figure 1 shows, Tomaltepec is the only one of these intensively excavated sites that lies outside the Etla branch of the Valley of Oaxaca. It will be recalled that the Etla branch was characterized as the most populous, precocious, and rapidly developing portion of the Early Formative Valley of Oaxaca, while the other two branches seem to have been characterized by fewer and smaller communities. There is therefore no necessity to assume that directions and processes of development were identical between Tomaltepec and other Early Formative communities in the Etla branch of the Valley. Finally, it should be emphasized that both San Jose Mogote and Tierras Largas were larger communities than Tomaltepec. They very possibly existed within a larger and more coherent organizational framework, and they may thus have had to deal with kinds or levels of organizational problems that Tomaltepec did not face. The question of commonality of organizational principles between Tomaltepec and its contemporaries in Oaxaca cannot be fully addressed with the data in hand. The situation is much the same in the rest of highland Mesoamerica. Recent investigations in the Early Formative period have been carried out in Morelos (Grove 1970, 1974); in the Valley of Mexico (Tolstoy and Paradis 1970; Tolstoy and Fish 1975; Tolstoy et al. 1977), and in Tehuacan (MacNeish and Peterson 1972). This work has generated a good deal of essential information on the Early Formative, although most of these data do not directly address the particular organizational questions raised at Tomaltepec. Nevertheless, the extant data permit a few general comparative statements. Nuclear-family-sized wattle-and-daub houses characterized many Early Formative Mesoamerican villages (Flannery 1976a:16-24). Most of these houses seem to have been as simple in construction and associated artifact assemblages as ESJ-2 at Tomaltepec. One of the few sources of comparative data on the spatial distribution of these household units is the Coapexco site in the Valley of Mexico (Tolstoy and Fish 1975). The Coapexco site, dating to ca. 1150-1000 B.C., is contemporary with early San Jose phase deposits at Tomaltepec and Tierras Largas. Using intensive surface collection and limited test excavation, the authors define more than 50 "hot spots" and infer them to be structure locations. A nearest-neighbor value of 1.69 was calculated for these "hot spots" using the survey map published by Tolstoy and Fish (1975:99). The Coapexco "hot spots" thus show a distinct tendency toward regular spacing. Contemporary Oaxacan household units at Tomaltepec and Tierras Largas were also approximately regularly spaced.
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The Coapexco site differs from its Oaxacan contemporaries in structure density. The study area at Coapexco is about 0.8 ha, resulting in a structure density of about 60 per ha. Tolstoy and Fish note that some of these structures were probably not residential, although they are not able to estimate this nonresidential proportion. Even allowing for the presence of nonresidential structures, however, the Coapexco density is considerably higher than that recognized at contemporary Tomaltepec or Tierras Largas. The Coapexco site measures some 50 ha, vastly exceeding the sizes of Tomaltepec or Tierras Largas. It might therefore be more appropriate to compare the structure density of the Coapexco and San Jose Mogote sites, although the necessary data are not available. At present, then, it can only be concluded that intracommunity household patterning and density are still poorly understood for Early Formative Mesoamerica. Other community composition data come from Grove's (1970, 1974) work in Morelos at the San Pablo and Nexpa sites. The Nexpa Early Formative village appears to consist of a small residential area, with burials to one side. The picture is unclear, as the prehistoric site underlies a modern community. Tentative indications are of a village layout reminiscent of Tomaltepec. Grove (1970, 1974) also discusses the San Pablo site, which consists of an Early and Middle Formative residential area, plus two associated burial zones (San Pablo Pantheon and La Juana) each of slightly different age. In this case, both burial zones are outside of, but near, the village. This is comparable to the situation found at Tomaltepec, although a considerable difference in scale is involved. It is estimated (Grove 1970:62) that 150 to 250 burials have been removed by looters from the later San Pablo burial area. The earlier La Juana burial area was also looted, so that no estimate of burial numbers is available. The large and well-known Tlatilco site in central Mexico (Porter 1953) is an additional example of an Early Formative community with associated residential and burial areas. It seems, therefore, that the Tomaltepec pattern of village and associated (but spatially separate) burial area is not unique to that community, but is represented at several known Early Formative sites in Mesoamerica. This discussion raises the question of the frequency of occurrence of cemetery areas during the Early Formative. Specialized cemeteries have not yet been discovered at Tomaltepec's other Oaxacan contemporaries. This does not demonstrate that there are no such cemeteries to be found, of course, for relatively little excavation of Early Formative villages has been done in the area. There could, therefore, be undiscovered cemeteries at many Oaxacan Early Formative sites. Nevertheless, there is some indication that communal cemeteries may not have been of equal importance all over the Valley. Intensive excavations in Early Formative residential areas at Tierras Largas and San Jose Mogote recovered a number of adult burials of all ages and both sexes (Winter 1972:Appendix B). It will be recalled that no adult burials were recovered from equally large-scale residential area excavations at early San Jose phase Tomaltepec. The data suggest that more adults were buried in domestic contexts at Tierras Largas and San Jose Mogote than at Tomaltepec during the Early Formative. This in turn implies that cemeteries may have been less important in community integration at San Jose Mogote or Tierras Largas than they were postulated to have been at Tomaltepec. Such a situation is consistent with Goldstein's (1980:8) caution that communal cemeteries are one frequently used means of maintaining the solidarity of the lineal descent group and asserting its corporate claims. She notes that other means can be turned to the same end. Political authority, for example, can strongly and formally underlie community claims. The origin of such authority in the Etla branch of the Valley may well be reflected by the small public buildings that appear at San Jose Mogote at the beginning of the Early Formative. Another feature of the Tomaltepec village that should be compared on a supralocal basis is the ESJ-1 platform, with its postulated storage cell. It will be recalled that low-level redistribution was suggested to have focused on the platform. This platform was the first of its kind to be discovered at a Oaxacan Early Formative site, although there is no reason to suppose it to be unique in the region. The Tomaltepec platform lay beneath one of several mounds constructed in Late Formative times. It is noteworthy that a number of small Oaxacan Early Formative sites have such mounds, all dating to later times but very possibly concealing Early Formative deposits
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beneath. Similar mounds were present at Tierras Largas, but permit restrictions prevented their excavation. Failure to locate an Early Formative platform at that site is therefore inconclusive. No other small Oaxacan Early Formative villages have been investigated intensively enough to confirm or deny the possible presence of platforms like that at Tomaltepec. Several house platforms are known from San Jose Mogote by 900 B.C., or the initial part of the late San Jose phase (Flannery and Marcus 1976:380). These platforms are solid, however, lacking the central cell of their Tomaltepec counterpart. The San Jose Mogote community is quite large, so that there could easily be undiscovered platforms with central cells. An equally likely alternative is that economic activities were otherwise organized. The Tomaltepec village was a small rural community with a few score people, while San Jose Mogote was a vastly large center with an estimated population of 700 (Blanton et al. 1979:374). In a word, the extant Oaxacan comparative data are such that reference to them does little to aid evaluation of the postulate of small-scale redistribution at Tomaltepec. It should also be observed that house platforms are present at other Mesoamerican Early Formative sites. Grove (1974:19) notes stone structures which he interprets as probable house platform walls at the Nexpa, Morelos, site. Tolstoy et al. (1977:93) note the presence of large, low mounds that "must have supported a residence" at El Terremote, an Early Formative site in the Valley of Mexico. At neither site were these platforms fully exposed. It is therefore impossible to specify either the types or the frequencies of occurrence of house platforms and large storage facilities in Mesoamerica, or even in Oaxaca. It may well be that every Early Formative community had such a structure, with several present at large sites like San Jose Mogote. The question cannot be resolved with the data in hand. A final point to be considered concerns the supralocal Olmecoid symbols (the Fire-serpent and Were-jaguar) which have been found to be differently distributed among Early Formative Oaxacan villages. There are indications that this situation is not unique to Oaxaca. Tolstoy et al. (1977:105) use contingency table analyses to show that figures interpreted as Olmec deities by Joralemon (1971) occur differentially among several Early and Middle Formative communities in Puebla and the Valley of Mexico. The authors use their data to argue for specific community-deity relationships in Early and Middle Formative central Mexico. The situation postulated to have existed at Tomaltepec, then, has also been suggested to occur in the wider Mesoamerican world. Literature has already been cited to indicate that the tutelary deity concept was a common one in later times in Mesoamerica. CONCLUSION This study has tentatively identified several aspects of the organizational structure of an Early Formative community, including a lineal descent group holding corporate title to resources, lowlevel redistribution, and the display of supralocal symbols. It cannot automatically be assumed that other contemporary communities were similarly organized. On the contrary, comparative data show considerable variation in community structure. It has recently been argued (Cordell and Plog 1979) that the prehistoric record is best understood through comparative studies focusing on definition and explanation of variability in local and regional culture patterns, rather than by normative generalization. The Tomaltepec study provides some of the data necessary for such comparison. It is apparent from preceding pages that we have far to go toward adequate understanding of variability in Early Formative community structure. A major impediment to this understanding is clearly sample size. Especially limiting is a lack of large-scale excavation at the smaller communities that composed so much of Early Formative settlement systems. There are also considerable differences in intensity of investigation, techniques, and topics of data collection, and analytical perspective among the few extant Early Formative community studies. As a result, few direct comparisons have been possible between Tomaltepec and its contemporaries. This weakness in comparative data serves to point out profitable methods and directions of inquiry. First, some common analytical goals, pursued whenever possible, would be beneficial in future
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studies of Early Formative villages. Studies including consideration of the nature and number of community components, and the means by which these were regulated and integrated, will provide readily comparable data sets. Second, there are many specific areas of weakness in Early Formative community data. Variation in household unit structure and function is poorly understood. The occurrence and function of house platforms is obscure, as are differences in house size and construction. The distribution of structures within communities has received little attention, as have the social-organizational implications of these patterns. We have very little understanding of production and distribution systems in Early Formative communities. Largescale storage facilities have not been reported at any Early Formative site except Tomaltepec. The absence of such facilities may result merely from lack of excavation; alternatively, more fundamental differences in political and economic structure may be at issue. Further, variability in Early Formative mortuary practices is not well defined. Communal burial grounds seem to have been used to different degrees, although extant data are insufficient for explanation of this situation. Patterns of intercommunity and intracommunity distribution of Early Formative symbols require more analysis, and the meaning and functions of these symbols remain uncertain. Still other aspects of Early Formative community structure doubtless exist unrecognized at Tomaltepec and its contemporaries. All of these data are clearly essential to understanding local and regional variability in Early Formative community structure. Only when we have firm concepts of variability in these and other aspects of Early Formative life will we be able to formulate adequate general definitions of one of Mesoamerica's major developmental episodes. Acknowledgments. The research on which this study was based was funded by the National Science FoundationDoctoral Dissertation ImprovementGrant GS-40325 and by a Ford FoundationField Training Grantmade to the Universityof Michigan.The work was carried out under the auspices of the Mexican National Institute of Anthropologyand History(Concesi6narqueol6gica16/71) and the Universityof Michigan Museumof Anthropology's Oaxaca HumanEcologyProject.Supportat manypoints was generouslyprovided by Dr. KentV. Flanneryof the Universityof Michigan,and by Sr. ManuelEsparzaand Dr. Marcus C. Winter of the Oaxaca I.N.A.H.center.
REFERENCES CITED Blanton, R., J. Appel, L. Finsten, S. Kowalewski, G. Feinman, E. Fisch 1979 Regional evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 6:369-390. Braun, David P. 1981 A critique of some recent North American mortuary studies. American Antiquity 46:398-415. Buikstra, Jane 1976 Hopewell in the lower Illinois valley. Northwestern Archaeological Program Scientific Papers, Evanston. Clark, Phillip J., and Francis C. Evans 1954 Distance to nearest neighbor as a measure of spatial relationships in populations. Ecology 35:445453. Clarke, David 1977 Spatial archaeology. Academic Press, New York. Cordell, Linda S., and Fred Plog 1979 Escaping the confines of normative thought: a reevaluation of Puebloan prehistory. American Antiquity 44:405-429. Dalton, George C. 1977 Aboriginal economies in stateless societies. In Exchange systems in prehistory, edited by T. K. Earle and J. E. Ericson, pp. 191-212. Academic Press, New York. Drennan, Robert D. 1976a Religion and social evolution in Formative Mesoamerica. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 345-363. Academic Press, New York. 1976b Fabrica San Jos6 and Middle Formative society in the Valley of Oaxaca. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoir 8. Ann Arbor. Earle, Timothy K. 1977 A reappraisal of redistribution: complex Hawaiian chiefdoms. In Exchange systems in prehistory, edited by T. K. Earle and J. E. Ericson, pp. 213-232. Academic Press, New York.
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Flannery, Kent V. 1972 The origin of the village as a settlement type in Mesoamerica and the Near East. In Man, settlement, and urbanism, edited by P. Ucko, R. Tringham, G. Dimbleby, pp. 24-53. London. 1976a The early Mesoamerican house. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 16-24. Academic Press, New York, Flannery, Kent V. (editor) 1976b The early Mesoamerican village. Academic Press, New York. Flannery, Kent V., A. Kirkby, M. Kirkby, and A. Williams 1967 Farming systems and political growth in ancient Oaxaca. Science 158:445-454. Flannery, Kent V., and Joyce C. Marcus 1976 Formative Oaxaca and the Zapotec cosmos. American Scientist 64:374-383. Flannery, Kent V., and Marcus C. Winter 1976 Analyzing household activities. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 34-44. Academic Press, New York. Fletcher, Roland 1977 Settlement studies (micro and semi-micro). In Spatial archaeology, edited by David L. Clarke, pp. 47-162. Academic Press, London and New York. Goldstein, Lynne G. 1976 Spatial structure and social organization; regional manifestations of Mississippian society. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University. 1980 Mississippian mortuary practices. Northwestern University Archaeological Program Scientific Paper, Evanston. Grove, David C. 1970 The San Pablo Pantheon mound: a Middle Preclassic site in Morelos, Mexico. American Antiquity 35:62-73. 1974 San Pablo, Nexpa, and the Early Formative archaeology of Morelos, Mexico. Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology No. 12, Nashville. Joralemon, Peter D. 1971 A study of Olmec inconography. Dumbarton Oaks Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology No. 7. Washington, D.C. Kirkby, Anne V. T. 1973 The use of land and water resources in the past and present Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoir 5. Ann Arbor. Kowalewski, Steven A. 1976 Prehispanic settlement patterns of the central part of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. MacNeish, Richard S., and Frederick A. Peterson 1972 Excavations in the Ajalpan locality in the valley center. In The prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley, volume 5: excavations and reconnaissance, edited by R. S. MacNeish, M. L. Fowler, A. G. Cook, F. A. Peterson, A. Nelken-Turner, and J. A. Neely, pp. 161-218. University of Texas Press, Austin. MacNeish, Richard S., F. A. Peterson, and J. A. Neeley 1972 The archaeological reconnaissance. In The prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley, volume 5: excavations and reconnaissance, edited R. S. MacNeish, M. L. Fowler, A. G. Cook, F. A. Peterson, A. NelkenTurner, and J. A. Neeley, pp. 341-495. University of Texas Press, Austin. Marcus, Joyce 1976 The size of the early Mesoamerican village. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 79-88. Academic Press, New York. Meggitt, M. J. 1965 The lineage system of the Mae Enga of New Guinea. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh. Nicholson, Henry B. 1971 Religion in Prehispanic central Mexico. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 10: archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, edited by G. F. Ekholm and I. Bernal, pp. 395-446. University of Texas Press, Austin. Pires-Ferreira, Jane W. 1975 Formative Mesoamerican exchange networks with special reference to the Valley of Oaxaca. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoir 7. Ann Arbor. Porter, Muriel 1953 Tlatilco and the Pre-Classic cultures of the New World. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 19. New York. Pyne, Nanette M. 1976 The Fire-Serpent and the Were-Jaguar in Formative Oaxaca: a contingency table analysis. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 272-270. Academic Press, New York.
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Rapoport, Amos 1969 House form and culture. Prentice-Hall, New York. Rappaport, Roy A. 1971 Ritual, sanctity, and cybernetics. American Anthropologist 73:59-76. Sahlins, Marshall D. 1963 Poor man, rich man, big man, chief: political types in Melanesia and Polynesia. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5:285-303. 1972 Stone age economics. Aldine, Chicago. Saxe, Arthur A. 1970 Social dimensions of mortuary practices. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1971 Social dimensions of mortuary practices in a Mesolithic population from Wadi Halfa, Sudan. In Approaches to the social dimensions of mortuary practices, edited by James A. Brown, pp. 39-57. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 25. Smith, C. Earle 1978 Vegetational history of the Oaxaca Valley. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoir 10. Ann Arbor. Steponaitis, Vincas P. 1981 Settlement hierarchies and political complexity in non-market societies: the Formative period of the Valley of Mexico. American Anthropologist 83:320-363. Tainter, Joseph A. 1978 Mortuary practices and the study of prehistoric social systems. In Advances in archaeological method and theory 1:106-143. Academic Press, New York. Tolstoy, Paul, and Suzanne Fish 1975 Surface and subsurface evidence for community size at Coapexco, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 2:97-104. Tolstoy, Paul, S. K. Fish, M. W. Boskenbaum, K. B. Vaughn, and C. E. Smith 1977 Early sedentary communities of the basin of Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 4:91-106. Tolstoy, Paul, and Louise Paradis 1970 Early and Middle Preclassic culture in the basin of Mexico. Science 167:344-351. Varner, Dudley M. 1974 Prehispanic settlement patterns in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Whalen, Michael E. 1981 Excavations at Santo Domingo Tomaltepec: evolution of a Formative community in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoir 12. Ann Arbor. Whallon, Robert Jr. 1974 Spatial analysis of occupation floors II: the application of Nearest Neighbor Analysis. American Antiquity 39:16-34. Winter, Marcus C. 1972 Tierras Largas: a Formative community in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1976 The archaeological household cluster in the Valley of Oaxaca. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 25-30. Academic Press, New York. Winter, Marcus C., and J. W. Pires-Ferreira 1976 Distribution of obsidian among households in two Oaxacan villages. In The early Mesoamerican village, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 306-310. Academic Press, New York.

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RECONSTRUCTINGEARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION IN OAXACA, MEXICO Michael E. Whalen

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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Platform sides (projected)

EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

S Foundation stone 1j Puddled adobe .. Sherd/stone rubble CD Adobe brick

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

unit (no structure

Distribution of known components of the Tomaltepec Early Formative village.

A numberof theoretical bases for drawing social-organizational inferences frommortuarydata

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

v: Vessel sk: Secondary

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v: Vessel sk: Secondary skull

o:Other g): Stone

EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

Figure 9. same scale.

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

[Vol.48, No. 1, 1983

EARLY FORMATIVE VILLAGE ORGANIZATION

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