Models of Archaic period economy in the Lower Pecos River region of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, are based primarily on coprolite, faunal, and macroplant analysis of materials recovered from rockshelters. The models maintain that during the Middle Archaic period residential mobility is reduced and tethered to rockshelters in canyons near water, and diet dominated by the plant resources lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla), sotol (Dasylirion texanum), and prickly pear (Opuntia spp.). I use archaeobotanical analysis and actualistic studies to determine the contents of earth-oven features, the number of plant food calories produced by ovens, and the quantity of refuse they generate. Considered within the framework of a diet-breadth model, the data demonstrate that return rates and caloric yields for lechuguilla and sotol processed in earth ovens are typical of a broad spectrum, low-return economy. Intensive use of these low-ranked resources indicates periods of subsistence stress beginning in the Early Archaic period and continuing through the Late Archaic. Use of low-ranked, high-cost resources in canyon zones indicates that food and fuel resources were quickly depleted forcing high residential mobility. Depletion of local resources, not the distribution of water sources governed residential mobility.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2694211.pdf

Earth-oven plant processing in Archaic period economies : An example from a semi-arid savannah in south-central North America

Assessing Diet and Seasonality in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands: An Evaluation of Coprolite Specimens as Records of Individual Dietary Decisions

A re-evaluation of late prehistoric and archaic chronology in the Rio Grande Delta of south Texas

Diet and seasonality in the Lower Pecos: evaluating coprolite data sets with cluster analysis

A spatial analysis of rock art located within the lower Pecos region of southwest Texas and northern Mexico reveals the presence of a recurring motif that depicts anthropomorphic figures passing through an opening in a serpentine arch. An extensive review of the ethnographic literature and archaeological record of cultures within Mesoamerica and the Gran Chichimeca indicates that this motif is widespread and generally associated with specific beliefs about the shamanic journey into the spirit world. Based on analogies drawn from the ethnographic literature, the lower Pecos region motif can be interpreted as a pictographic representation of the shamanic journey made by Archaic Chichimecans into the spirit world. The evidence also indicates that the cosmologies of the cultures within Mesoamerica and the Gran Chichimeca were well established in the Chihuahuan Desert at least 4,000 years ago.

Shamanic Journeys into the Otherworld of the Archaic Chichimec

From the Gulf to the Rio Grande: Human Adaptation in Central, South, and Lower Pecos Texas

The South Texas area, Region 3 of the Southwestern Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is synthesized from archeological and bioarcheological perspectives. Three distinct geographic units within Region 3 are treated in detail: Central Texas Plateau Prairie, South Texas Plains, and Lower Pecos Canyonlands. More than 11,000 years of human adaptation are chronicled for this area, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande along the border with northeastern Mexico. Particular attention is devoted to a consideration of the region's prehistoric record; significant problems and data gaps are outlined. For the first time, a compilation has been done of the bioarcheological resources of this region, providing analysis and initial interpretation of the human osteological remains of its early inhabitants. The Historic era has also been summarized, particularly the Native American populations and the record of the AngloEuropean immigrants who replaced them. To help characterize the prehistoric human utilization of the region, a series of adaptation types were developed and can be tested by future research.

/pdf/bioarcheological-synthesis-for-from-the-gulf-to-the-rio-52lndz6pi5.pdf

D. Gentry Steele

Papers

From the Gulf to the Rio Grande: Human Adaptation in Central, South, and Lower Pecos Texas

BIOARCHEOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS for "From the Gulf to the Rio Grande: Human Adaptation in Central, South, and Lower Pecos Texas"