investigating chinampa farming

7/31/2019 Investigating Chinampa Farming

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Fall/Winter 00

I nves t iga t ing Ch inam pa Farm ingby Virginia Popper

Excellent preservation at CH-AZ-195 provides information on

plant use and farming activities for the two hundred years of

occupation

Maize growing on chinampas

How th e Aztec Em p i re fed the bu r geon ingpopu la t ion o f i t s cap i ta l , Tenoch t i t l an , has longintrigued researchers. Most of Tenochtitlansestimated 150,000 to 200,000 inhabitants at thetime of Spanish contact were not food producers.The system, known as chinampas, of drainingswamps and building up fields in the shallow Basin ofMexico lakebeds, was a remarkable form of intensiveagriculture that Jeffrey Parsons of the University of

Michigan suggests provided one-half to two-thirds ofthe food consumed in Tenochtitlan.

At the time of Spanish contact, shallow lakescovered approximately 1000 km2 of the Basin ofMexico. Archaeological surveys show that largeexpanses of the lakes were converted intochinampas. Today the lakes are almost completelydrained and covered by urban growth, but a fewpockets of chinampa agriculture survive, includingthe popular tourist attraction, the Floating Gardens


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Chinampa agriculture

My research uses plant remains excavated from anEarly Aztec site (Ch-Az-195) to address the issue ofthe development of chinampa agriculture and, more

specifically, to address questions about the economyand land use at what, from its location in thelakebed, appears to be a small hamlet associatedwith chinampa farming.

Ch-Az-195 is a small mound that lies approximately1 km southeast of Xico Island and 1.8 km from theeastern shore of Lake Chalco. Eight small mounds ontop may be households and one larger rectangularmound may be a public building. One excavation unitrevealed remarkably rich and finely stratifieddeposits that extended down 370 cm before hittingthe high water table. This area of the site served atdifferent times as a midden of domestic refuse, anarea of fill, and a habitation or patio area. Theunusually wet conditions in the lower two-thirds ofthis excavation unit prevented the decay of plantmatter and preserved a rich array of plant remains.


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Excavating Ch-Az-195

These plants represent a number of activities at thesite: food production and preparation, collection ofuseful weedy plants, and craft production. Foodplants include the major cultigens (maize, beans,squash, and chile), all of which are recorded asgrowing in chinampas. Fruit trees are represented bythe hard pits of Mexican cherry, Mexican hawthorn,and prickly pear. These generally grow on thePiedmont slopes ringing the lakes, although somemay have grown on Xico Island. The abundance ofseeds from plants exploited for their edible greenleaves (quelites) show that these plants were readilyavailable and probably eaten. These grow as field

weeds on chinampas. Many of the plants recoveredfrom Ch-Az-195 have recorded medicinal uses.Various grasses and bulrush were used for baskets,mats, and other items. Cotton (the only plant foundat the site that does not grow in the Basin of Mexico)and maguey were used for clothing. The charcoalprimarily oak and pine collected from the Piedmontforestsrepresents wood that served as fuel,building material, and material for canoes and tools.

The excellent preservation at Ch-Az-195 provides

information on plant use and farming activities overthe approximately two hundredyear span of theoccupation. The plant remains suggest it was afarming site rather than a mound built in the lakebedsolely for fishing or mat making. Chinampa cropsoccur in all levels, and the presence of maize stalkssuggests that at least some maize was grown nearbyand not imported as cobs or kernels to the site. Inaddition, the abundance of seeds from edible greensfrom the lowest levels of the site implies that these


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common field weeds grew on fields near thesettlement or on the site. Not all of the plants,however, were necessarily grown on nearbychinampas. Perennial fruits, and perhaps even somecrops, came from the lakeshore, the Piedmontslopes, or Xico Island. It is unclear to what extentthe Ch-Az-195 farmers cultivated fields in thesezones, collected in these zones, and/or traded for

produce from these zones. Some evidence points toincreased intensification of agriculture and adecrease in the use of Piedmont resources over thespan of the site.

Carbonized maize cobs, maize kernels, and beans

My research examines the diversity of plant use andfarming at chinampa settlements. The data from

Ch-Az-195, however, are not representative of theentire chinampa system. Plant use and agriculturewill vary with local environmental, economic, social,and political conditions and with the populationcharacteristics of a particular settlement. Todocument and understand this variation, I amplanning additional excavations from other locationsand time periods.

Virginia Popper is director of the Paleoethnobotany Lab at the Cotsen Institute of

Archaeology at UCLA. Backdirt editors can be reached at [email protected]

investigating chinampa farming

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