THE SITE
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| Map of the excavations
at El Macayo. »Enlarge
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The El Macayo site appears to have been a village that was inhabited
over several generations between A.D. 850 and A.D. 1150. It is difficult
to estimate the actual size of the settlement or the prehistoric
population because only a portion of the site has been investigated.
The investigated area consisted of numerous house features and external
pits, including fire pits, storage facilities, and a number of burials.
Given the length of the occupation, it is not surprising that many
of these features were constructed over or excavated through earlier
features; the site map shows an apparent jumble of houses and pits.
Archaeologists use the relative depth of different features as well
as the perceived impact of one feature on another to sort out construction
sequences. Thus, when postholes associated with one structure cut
across and partially destroy the line of holes associated with another
house, this indicates that the former house was constructed after
the latter.
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Map of the Feature 44 house complex. »Enlarge
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An artist reconstruction of a pithouse at
El Macayo. »Enlarge
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The residents lived in houses made from a post framework covered
with brush and coated with a thick layer of sun-dried mud. The entire
structure was erected in a shallow pit, with the post frame anchored
into postholes. The floor plans are most often sub-rectangular or
elliptical, with a hearth located just inside the entryway. Some
houses had large storage pits excavated into the floor, others had
benches or sleeping platforms built on a frame of short vertical
supports anchored into the floor. Residences were sometimes reused
as storage facilities.
Various pits and hearths surrounded the exteriors of structures.
Villagers used pits for a number of purposes, including food storage,
cooking, and disposal of trash and other waste. At El Macayo, archaeologists
identified roughly twenty-eight exterior fire pits/hearths and over
140 pits of other types. As with the structures, pits were often
layered, with one pit cutting the wall of an earlier one, or cutting
through an earlier house.
In those cases where the fill of these pits contained trash or
other material, analysts examined the contents to discover the pit’s
function. Soil from the bottom of pits was examined for pollen or
charred seeds, which would indicate what foods were being stored
or cooked, and what kinds of plants the environment supported. Plants
such as grasses and corn release pollen as part of their reproductive
cycle. Because pollen grains typically have unique shapes and physical
characteristics, researchers are able to identify the plants that
produce them. The presence of certain plants has implications for
the kind of environment in which they must have existed. Allergy
sufferers are well aware of the constant “rain” of pollen
in the environment, which changes with the seasons and with what
plants are in the immediate area.
Pollen studies and macrobotanical analysis of charred plant remains
(usually recovered from flotation samples) are our primary means
of understanding of the prehistoric diet. At El Macayo, pollen analyses
indicated that although the resident populations were agriculturalist,
much of their diet was based on wild plant products, such as grass
seed, berries, and mesquite beans.
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