J Archaeol Method Theory (2009) 16:1
–
32
DOI 10.1007/s10816-008-9060-x
Robert M. Rosenswig
Published online: 14 January 2009
#
Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract Formation processes are all too infrequently addressed by archaeologists excavating in Mesoamerica. This paper examines refuse disposal patterns from the site of Cuauhtémoc on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, to provide insight into how the site formed and how artifacts accumulated. This analysis uses materials dating between 1600
–
800 BCE which encompass the centuries before, during and after the late Early Formative or Early Olmec period (i.e., 1250
–
900 BCE). First, I employ sherds and daub from shared open-air middens and trash-filled pits to explore trash deposit formation through the 800 years that the site was occupied.
Next, I use these same classes of data to make synchronic comparisons between five different depositional contexts dating to the Conchas phase (900
–
800 BCE). For all phases, these analyses demonstrate that pit features received more debris than openair middens and that material in the latter contexts were more broken up. Further, the low density of daub from late Early Formative period contexts suggests that distinctive architectural customs may have been practised during this time. Conchas phase refuse indicates that waste disposal locations physically separated an elite residential zone from the rest of society and that elite contexts were more intensively used. Accounting for the formation of archaeological deposits allows for more nuanced interpretations of this early Mesoamerican village.
Keywords Refuse disposal . Site formation processes . Post-depositional processes .
Mesoamerica
R. M. Rosenswig (
*
)
Department of Anthropology, The University at Albany
—
SUNY, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany, NY
12222, USA e-mail: rrosenswig@albany.edu

2
Introduction
Rosenswig
We have long felt that Mesoamerican archaeologists count plain body sherds primarily because they think it would be immoral not to. We don
’ t want to be immoral, so we counted ours also
Flannery and Marcus 1994 :42
Whenever people live in proximity to each other garbage disposal quickly becomes an important matter. Trash accumulates at higher rates with increased sedentism (e.g., Hardy-Smith and Edwards 2004 ), and greater population density often results in more formal refuse disposal patterns (e.g., Arnold 1990 ; Rosenswig
1999 ; Schiffer 1987 :62; Sutro 1991 ; Wilson 1994 :57
–
58). Ethnoarchaeological studies in Veracruz indicate that the accumulation of refuse within individual household middens is the norm among certain agricultural populations (Arnold
1990 ). However, recent work from the Philippines documents that, with average house compounds almost half the size of those in Mexico (282 sq m vs 156 sq m), trash is transported further away from houselots (Beck 2006 :39
–
40). Not particularly surprisingly, these studies suggest that habitation density has an influence on discard patterns and, when neighbors live closer together, trash is carried farther from residences (Hayden and Cannon 1983 :152; Schiffer 1987 :60
–
61). Certain households might (or might not) transport their trash repeatedly to the same location.
However, over multiple generations, the middens that develop around a site will eventually combine refuse from a cross-section of society. In situations where secondary deposits accumulate over long periods of time, their composition can reflect both the occupation span and number of people living at a site (e.g., Boone
1987 ; Needham and Spence 1997 ; Pauketat 1989 ; Rafferty 2001 ; Stein et al.
2003 ).
Thirty-five years ago, Schiffer ( 1972 ) published his influential paper arguing that middens and other such secondary refuse are produced by artifacts moving from systemic to archaeological contexts. The ensuing Binford
–
Schiffer Debate (Binford
1976 , 1981 ; Schiffer 1985 ) addressed the nature of data recovered from archaeological contexts and helped spur a flurry of studies that examine formation processes (Binford 1978a , 1982 ; Hayden and Cannon 1983 ; Needham and Spence
1997 ; Scarborough 1989 ; Schiffer 1983 , 1987 ; Varien and Ortman 2005 ; and see reviews by Shott 1998 , 2006 ). Shott ( 2006 :2) notes that: “ Formation theory emerged from the realization that the archaeological record is not a faithful, complete depiction of the cultural past but a systematically refracted one.
”
Examining the processes responsible for artifact assemblage formation helps to more accurately interpret past behavior from the material residue that survives into the present.
Compared to their colleagues working north of the Rio Grande, Mesoamericanists have less often addressed formation processes. This is undoubtedly due in part to a perceived lack of glamour when compared to excavating elaborate tombs, caches, and pyramids (Shott 2006 :4). However, the act of building cities and large pyramids results in a high proportion of secondary refuse being disturbed and redeposited within architecture (Moholy-Nagy 1997 :300; Schiffer 1987 :111; Stark and Ohnersorgen 2001 :254). Such redeposition further mixes up midden remains and can cover

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 3 deposits under tons of later materials. Massive earth moving activities also make it difficult to assess all but the final phase of refuse disposal patterns in urban
Mesoamerican settings. There are, however, notable exceptions to this lack of attention to the study of formation processes among Mesoamericanists (e.g., Cowgill
1970 ; Hirth 1993 ; Sabloff et al.
1987 ; Smith 1992 ). In particular, scholars working in Veracruz (Arnold 1990 ; Hall 1994 ; Killion 1990 , 1992 ; Pool 1997 , 2003 ; Stark and Ohnersorgen 2001 :253
–
296; Wendt 2005 ) and Chiapas (e.g., Clark 1991 ; Deal
1985 , 1998 ; Hayden and Cannon 1983 ) have demonstrated sensitivity to formation processes (and see Sutro 1991 ). These studies emphasize that the majority of archaeological data (i.e., that from middens and other assemblages in secondary contexts) are very different from either systemic assemblages or primary deposits such as caches and burials. As Binford ( 1981 :197) observes:
“
...the archaeological record does not generally carry the intuitively obvious information regarding the
‘ quick time ’ events and ‘ human episodes ’ which one would expect from an ethnographer or a preserved Pompeii.
” One important goal of studying formation processes is to identify secondary refuse from which to reconstruct the average behavior that past peoples engaged in during archaeologically defined ceramic phases (Hayden and Cannon 1984 :191
–
201, Rosenswig and Masson 2002 ; Santley
1992 :177; Smith 1992 ). But, not all secondary deposits developed in the same manner, and so understanding how a site (and the deposits within it) formed is necessary to more accurately reconstruct past behavior. In this paper, century-long blocks of time (aka phases) form palimpsests of the waste disposal practices that are assumed to reflect the average manner in which trash was dealt with (Binford
1981 :197
–
198; Rosenswig 2007 :5
–
6).
While formation studies encompass a wide range of approaches, in this paper I focus on how one early sedentary community in Mesoamerica was occupied and the manner in which trash deposits accumulated and preserved. To do this, I present ceramic and daub data from the site of Cuauhtémoc (Rosenswig 2005 ), located in the Soconusco region on Mexico ’ s Pacific coast (Fig.
1 ). I begin by briefly reviewing Schiffer ’ s discard equation. Next, the Early and Middle Formative culture history of the Soconusco is outlined and the excavations carried out at Cuauhtémoc are described. Due to modern agricultural drainage ditches, a remarkable subsurface view of the site was recently exposed. This allows for the reconstruction of
Cuauhtémoc as a village located on high ground above the seasonal flooding in the region (Rosenswig 2006a , b ). Such settlement conditions resulted in open-air, village middens that developed accretionally around the edges of Cuauhtémoc during its
800-year occupation from 1600
–
800 BCE
1
. This long occupation makes Cuauhtémoc an ideal location to examine site-level formation processes. Unlike many early
Mesoamerican sites (e.g., Santley 1992 :155), Cuauhtémoc was never covered over
1
Uncalibrated radiocarbon years before the Common Era (BCE) are used throughout this paper in order to maintain consistency with the published literature. Phase limits follow Clark and Cheetham ( 2005 ), which updates Blake et al.
( 1995 ). Calibrating these dates will move them back by a century or two, so, for example, the Barra phase begins at 1900 cal. B.C. rather than 1600 BCE in radiocarbon years. For the purpose of this paper, the most important factor is the relative chronology. The relative sequence of these phases has been well established, and so the sequence of developments here remains unchanged regardless of calibration to precise calendar years.

4 Rosenswig
Fig. 1 Mesoamerica with location of Soconusco sites mentioned in text and phase limits.
and disturbed during the massive earth moving and construction that characterizes the Late Formative and Classic periods.
In the second part of this paper, I present expectations concerning the content of deposits at Cuauhtémoc. Then, the results of ceramic and daub analyses from a variety of depositional contexts are explored. Two sets of patterns are described.
First, diachronic comparisons are presented for materials recovered from open-air middens and trash-filled pits over the 800-year occupation of the site. Second, synchronic patterns are explored from five different depositional contexts during the final Conchas-phase (900
–
800 BCE) occupation of the site.
The Discard Equation
Schiffer ( 1987 :53
–
54) formalized the
“ discard equation
” which assumes that the amount of discarded material is a function of: (1) the length of site occupation; (2) the size of the group that occupied a site; and (3) the rate at which artifacts were discarded. Subsequent studies provide caveats but generally support this commonsense contention (Gallivan 2002 ; Pauketat 1989 ; Varien and Mills 1997 ; Varien and
Ortman 2005 ). Relevant to the length of occupation
—
Schiffer
’ s first variable
— the
Cuauhtémoc data presented in this paper all come from the same site that was occupied by relatively sedentary peoples (see Rosenswig 2006b ), and the seven ceramic phases from which artifact patterns are compared are all of a relatively similar length (100
–
150 years each). Therefore, variability in artifact patterns are not expected to be the result of the length of occupation. Cuauhtémoc thus provides a good case from which to explore accumulation rates as it is a small site occupied over a long period of time (as suggested by Varien and Potter 1997 :209).
The second variable in Schiffer ’ s discard equation is group size. The population at
Cuauhtémoc (measured as hectares of occupation; Rosenswig 2005 :104 – 114, 2007 :
Fig. 7, 2009 ) changed over time. However, with sedentary villagers (or urban city dwellers), a more important variable when addressing artifact discard behavior is

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 5 population density. Population density is not as much of a concern for comparisons of materials from contemporaneous deposits (open-air midden vs trash-filled pits) but is a consideration when making diachronic comparisons of materials from similar depositional contexts (i.e., open-air middens from the seven successive phases of occupation). Denser concentrations of artifacts could reflect more people, as the Basin of Mexico survey assumed for surface remains (Sanders et al.
1979 ). By comparing population size, based on surface remains, to artifact density from excavated contexts the Cuauhtémoc data are used to explore this relationship quantitatively.
Wilson ( 1994 :43) and Needham and Spence ( 1997 :82) further break down
Schiffer
’ s third discard equation variable (i.e., rate of discard). These authors do so by separating: (1) the basic technological and economic adaptation (including fuel needs, building materials and tools used); (2) the level of food consumption (e.g., seasonal differences as well as those between social classes); (3) the frequency of residence rebuilding; and (4) the position of a site in production and exchange networks. These four considerations are some of the culturally interesting topics that can be teased out of site formation studies. Other investigators examine the use-life of different types of ceramic vessels (e.g., Hildebrand and Hagstrum 1999 ; Shott
1996 ; Varien and Mills 1997 ). While useful for making functional inferences about container use, such resolution of analysis is less informative for understanding the more general site-wide formation processes explored in this paper.
The Soconusco and Cuauhtémoc
The Soconusco is one of the earliest regions in Mesoamerica where evidence of rank societies have been documented. Current evidence suggests that, in the Mazatán zone, incipient leaders emerged as a network of interacting elites (Blake and Clark
1999 ; Clark 1994 , 2004 ; Clark and Blake 1994 ; and see Lesure and Blake 2002 ).
Larger villages such as Paso de la Amada were located on the coastal plain away from major rivers (Fig.
1 ). Cuauhtémoc was a small local center during this time and covered 5 ha during the Locona phase (Rosenswig 2005 , 2006a , b , 2009 ). Ceramic vessels used during the first half of the Early Formative period were predominantly small, red dishes many with naturalistic animal effigies (Blake et al.
1995 ; Lesure
2000 ). Ceramic vessels and figurines were virtually identical across the Soconusco between La Cantileña and Guamuchal swamps (see Fig.
1 ) suggesting that this naturally delimited region also formed a cultural area within which sustained social interaction occurred (Coe 1961 ; Rosenswig 2005 , 2008 ).
During the second half of the Early Formative period, white-rimmed, black ware vessels were used and figurine styles changed across the region (Blake et al.
1995 ;
Clark and Cheetham 2005 ; Clark and Pye 2000 ; Coe and Flannery 1967 ; Lesure
2000 , 2004 ; Rosenswig 2008 ). At Paso de la Amada, platform mounds occupied by the traditional elite were abandoned at the end of the Ocós phase and new mounds were built (Blake et al.
2006 ; Lesure 1997 ). After the Cherla phase, there was an abandonment of Paso de la Amada and the other Mazatán settlements (Blake and
Clark 1999 ). During the Cuadros and Jocotal periods, the political center of the region shifted in the Mazatán zone to the shores of the Coatán River at the sites of

6 Rosenswig
Cantón Corralito and then Ojo de Agua (Clark 1997 ; Clark and Blake 1989 :391;
Cheetham 2006 ; Pérez Suárez 2002 ; Pinkowski 2006 ). In the area around
Cuauhtémoc, as in the Mazatán survey zone, overall population (measured as hectares of artifact scatters) fell during the Cherla and Cuadros phases; and then increased markedly during the Jocotal phase when the Cuauhtémoc site grew to cover 7.5 ha (Rosenswig 2005 :Fig. 4.5, 2009 ). Ceramic and figurine styles from across the Soconusco changed in tandem, which indicates that the land between the two large swamp systems continued to function as an integrated culture area (Coe and Flannery 1967 ; Rosenswig 2005 , 2008 ).
La Blanca rose to prominence in the southeastern part of the Soconusco during the early Middle Formative Conchas phase (Love 1991 , 2002a ). The site quickly grew to cover at least 100 ha (Love 2002a :55). A 25-m-high mound, measuring
120×140 m at its base, was constructed at La Blanca, and I have previously estimated that it would have contained at least 140,000m
3 of fill and required 53,846 person days of labor to complete (Rosenswig 2000 :Table 3). This made it the largest mound built in Mesoamerica at the time, earlier than the better known 30-m-high central mound at La Venta (Love 1999a , b ). There were at least 43 house mounds at
La Blanca and the site was at the center of a multi-tiered settlement system (Love
2002a ; Rosenswig 2005 , 2007 , 2009 ). Due to the virtual abandonment of the
Mazatán zone to the northwest (Blake and Clark 1999 :64) and the Río Jesus zone to the southeast (Pye and Demarest 1991 ), the surrounding populations was incorporated into the newly emerging La Blanca polity during the Conchas phase
(Blake et al.
1995 ; Love 1999b ; Rosenswig 2007 , 2009 ). To date, excavations have only been carried out at three Conchas phase sites: La Victoria (Coe 1961 ), La
Blanca (Love 2002a ), and Cuauhtémoc (Rosenswig 2005 ).
Cuauhtémoc represents a third-tier center within the La Blanca polity during the
Conchas phase and measured 10 ha when Mound 3 (rising 5 m above the site) was built (see Fig.
2 ). Cuauhtémoc
’ s central mound was one-fifth the height of the one at
La Blanca and the population occupied an area one-tenth as large. While smaller in size (5 m vs 25 m), more labor relative to population size (10 ha vs 100 ha) was invested in mound construction than at La Blanca. Cuauhtémoc
’ s elite families occupied Mound 2
— a 1-m-high, 100-m-long platform in the center of the site.
Mound 2 is interpreted as an elite habitation area because the trash documented on the south side of the mound contained the only fancy Ramirez wares documented at the site (Rosenswig 2006b ) and evidence that elite sponsored feasts produced distinct ceramic, groundstone and faunal debris (Rosenswig 2007 ). People living on
Mound 2 were located at the middle of the site and their residences were physically elevated above other residents of the community.
La Blanca and Cuauhtémoc were then abruptly abandoned after the Conchas phase. This demographic collapse in the region has recently been documented quantitatively by a systematic survey carried out in a 28-sq km area immediately around the Cuauhtémoc site (Rosenswig 2005 , 2009 ). During the subsequent part of the Middle Formative period, large population centers were reestablished in the
Mazatán zone of the coastal plain at Huanacastal (Clark and Pye 2000 ), Ujuxte developed further south on the coastal plain (Love 2002b ), and the site of Izapa began to grow during the Middle Formative Period on the nearby piedmont, reaching its maximum extents during the Late Formative (Lowe et al.
1982 ).

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 7
Fig. 2 Cuauhtémoc with locations of excavation units indicated ( below ) and schematic drawing of the north wall profile of the 220-m section of Trench 1 ( above ).
Current Conditions and Archaeological Investigations at Cuauhtémoc
Recent damage to the Cuauhtémoc site is extensive. Mounds 2 and 3 were completely flattened by heavy machinery in the mid-1990s when the area was prepared for banana production. Drainage canals were cut for the plantation that exposed the site in 3-m-deep trenches that are several kilometers long and spaced
100 m apart (Fig.
3 ). These trenches reveal cultural deposits down to the sterile clay substratum and allow this early Mesoamerican village to be documented in crosssections. Although the damage to the site is unfortunate, it provides a remarkably extensive subsurface view of the cultural deposits.
In addition to the 2- to 3-km-long drainage canals, a nearby excavation to build an irrigation pump reservoir to the northwest of the site in 2003 provided a clear subsurface view that confirms the site limits are accurately reflected by surface remains (see Fig.
4 ). This pump basin was dug while we were excavating, a mere
45 m from the edge of the site where thousands of artifacts can be recovered on the ground surface (see Fig.
2 for the location of this basin). No artifacts were present on the ground surface around the excavations of the pump reservoir and we were also unable to find any in the back dirt or profiles produced by this disturbance.

8 Rosenswig
Fig. 3 Cuauhtémoc Trench 1 in 2001 while the north wall profile was being drawn (see Fig.
2 for location). Photo faces northwest.
Therefore, while soils from flattened mounds and excavated canals are spread out, they are not dispersed very far from their original location. This provides remarkable correspondence between the location and temporal periods represented by surface and subsurface assemblages (Rosenswig 2009 ).
Fig. 4 Pump basin excavated in
2003 beyond the limit of the
Cuauhtémoc site (see Fig.
2 for location). Photo faces north.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 9
Cuauhtémoc was systematically surface collected in 2001, and a 220-m-long section of a drainage canal (Trench 1) was mapped where it had cut through the site. The profile of the north wall of this trench revealed a 100-m-wide section of sterile white sand on top of which many occupation levels had been deposited
(Fig.
2 ). After profiling other canals, and subsequent excavations, we have determined that this sand was deposited as a levee from the seasonal river that, until recently, had run by the site. The ancient inhabitants of Cuauhtémoc settled on the sandy high ground that this river discharge had created. From the 220-m profile we also documented what were once open-air middens descending from the village edges that contained superimposed remains from the length of the site
’ s occupation (Fig.
5 ). These deposits are ideal contexts from which to study changing artifact patterns over Cuauhtémoc
’ s 800-year occupation (Rosenswig
2005 , 2006a , b , 2008 ).
During the 2002 and 2003 field seasons, 57 units covering 123.5 sq m were excavated and four additional 50-m-long sections of drainage canals were profiled.
This allowed us to document middens off the edge of the village in detail and provided glimpses of the site
’ s structure, particularly during the final Conchas-phase occupation. Two excavation blocks (Suboperation 1 and 10) were placed next to
Trench 1 and document the open-air middens descending from the east and west sides of the site (see Fig.
2 ). As we knew what to expect (based on the 220-m profile of Trench 1), stratigraphic levels were carefully peeled back one temporal phase at a time (Fig.
6 ). Once the stratigraphy was understood, excavation levels followed natural stratigraphy to minimize the number of temporally mixed collection lots we recovered. Only temporally pure deposits are used for the following analyses.
Fig. 5 Open-air midden in the stratigraphy of Trench 1
’ s north wall and the location of Suboperation 1 behind (see Fig.
2 for location). Photo faces northwest.

10 Rosenswig
Fig. 6 Excavations at Suboperation 1 (see Fig.
2 for location), an open-air midden on the east side of
Cuauhtémoc (see Fig.
5 for the position of this excavation block next to Trench 1). Suboperations 1c and
1d are shown at the interface between Conchas and Jocotal phase deposits. Photo faces east.
Figure 5 illustrates how Suboperation 1 was placed 2 m north of Trench 1 and Fig.
6 shows it in the process of being excavated. First, arbitrary levels were used to excavate three units (those already removed in Fig.
6 ) leaving two 1×2 m units in between. Then, these two units were excavated from the profiles of the three units already excavated. The two units being excavated in Fig.
6 were photographed after
Conchas-phase levels had been removed and before the level containing Jocotal remains was begun. The closer unit is higher than the farther one as this excavation block is located on the eastern edge of the site where village middens descend down to the level that was seasonally inundated. Such an excavation strategy could only be followed once the nature of the site
’ s development was understood. The same excavation strategy was followed at Suboperation 10 to document an open-air midden at the other side of the site (Fig.
7 ). Suboperation 10c and 10d are shown at the same stratigraphic level but the latter is lower than the former as the midden descends off of the west side of the site.
The excavations carried out at Cuauhtémoc have allowed for a detailed reconstruction of the site
’ s formation and growth through time. Thick gray clay, found 2
–
4 m below the current ground surface, forms the culturally sterile substratum that underlies the area. Once exposed to the air, tiny flecks of iron oxidize out of the clay. On top of this, an ancient river deposited a large quantity of culturally sterile white sand in an area that was approximately 100 m wide and over
300 m long. This white sand horizon was documented in Trench 1 and many of the other canals (see Fig.
2 ). The white sand stratum was documented through the

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 11
Fig. 7 Excavations at Suboperation 10 (see Fig.
2 for location), an open-air midden on the west side of
Cuauhtémoc. Trench 1 is seen in the background and the photo faces southwest.
middle of the site. This sand was likely the reason this location was initially favored for habitation, as it provided high ground for the community above the seasonal flood waters (Blake 1991 :32). Such high ground would have been particularly desirable as even today many of the inhabitants of the area are evacuated for a few months each year during the rainy season because the floors of their houses are under water.
Above the sterile white sand, a layer of yellow sand contains the Barra, Locona, and Ocós deposits. Above this, a dark brown stratum with a high clay content and
Cherla through Conchas phase materials crosses the site (see Fig.
2 ). This distinctive stratigraphic change suggests that the site might have been occupied in a different way beginning in the Cherla phase. Perhaps the underlying sand was finally covered over by occupational debris by this time, after approximately three and a half centuries of occupation. Alternatively, activities carried out at the site could have produced more organic material or more clay was transported back to the site. Within the strata containing Cherla, Cuadros, and Jocotal sherds there is usually no clear differentiation in soil color or texture. This suggests continuous occupation that resulted in the gradual accumulation of debris. During the Conchas phase, the manner in which Cuauhtémoc was occupied changed again. The site grew to cover a larger area than it had before (10 ha), and deposits generally contain an even higher level of clay than during the late Early Formative phases.
The 220-m profile (and subsequent excavations) document that the entire east side of the site was expanded by 30 m using construction fill to raise a larger area above

12 Rosenswig the seasonal floods (see Fig.
2 ), and that two conical mounds were built at the site
(Rosenswig 2005 :122
–
132, 2006c ).
Ten trash-filled pits were also documented across the site during the 2002 and
2003 seasons. The pits date to all of Cuauhtémoc
’ s occupation except for the
Barra and Cuadros phases. These features provide another type of deposit that contains refuse in secondary context. These pits were located within the settlement and, consequently, the trash that filled them was not transported as far as that deposited in the open-air middens at the site
’ s edges. These two contexts of discard provide evidence from different aspects of the waste management system employed at Cuauhtémoc.
These ten pits were encountered both within excavation units and eroding out of the walls created by drainage canals cut through the site. Figure 8 shows an Ocós phase, bell-shaped pit descending through Barra and Locona yellow sand levels and into the sterile white sand. Such pits may have served as storage locales before they were filled with trash and abandoned. In other cases, pits were encountered in the walls of drainage canals. At Suboperation 7, a Conchas-phase pit was discovered in the south wall of Trench 2 (Fig.
9 ). Based on stratigraphy and artifact composition, we determined that this was one of the features associated with
Mound 2, the Conchas-phase elite residential platform at the center of the site
(Rosenswig 2007 ). Figure 10 shows a Cherla-phase pit feature encountered in the west wall of one of the smaller drainage canals (see Fig.
2 ). This was a large trashfilled pit that contained a diverse array of artifacts including many thousands of shells.
Fig. 8 Ocós-phase trash-filled pit in the west wall of Suboperation 2 l (next to Suboperation 7; see Fig.
2 for location). Photo faces northwest.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns
Fig. 9 Conchas-phase elite trash-filled pit feature and elite midden above yellow sand horizon at Suboperation 7 on the south side of Trench 2
(see Fig.
2 for location). Photo faces south.
13
Fig. 10 Cherla-phase pit feature in Suboperation 3c (see Fig.
2 for location). Photo faces west.

14 Rosenswig
Ceramic Sherds and Daub at Cuauhtémoc
Ceramic sherds and daub remains were analyzed for this paper. Sherds are commonly used to measure site occupation span due to their ubiquitous nature in most sedentary societies (e.g., Varien and Ortman 2005 ) and their assumed constant rate of deposition (e.g., Hardy-Smith and Edwards 2004 ; Varien and Mills 1997 ).
Daub is less often studied but ends up in trash deposits as structures made of mud deteriorate
2
(e.g., Hall 1994 ; Hoag 2003 ; McIntosh 1975 , 1978 ; Stark and
Ohnersorgen 2001 ). Daub debris is produced as structures collapse or are torn down and rebuilt. Daub remains are then disposed of along with broken pottery and other classes of household refuse.
Formation processes are evaluated using ceramic and daub from excavations undertaken at Cuauhtémoc in 2002 and 2003 (Rosenswig 2005 :Appendix 1). A total of 52,920 ceramic sherds weighing 835.6 kg and 2,300 pieces of daub weighing 33 kg from temporally unmixed deposits at Cuauhtémoc form the basis of the following analyses (Table 1 ). All materials were counted and weighed in our field laboratory. Weights were obtained using a balance scale accurate to ±10 g.
For the following analysis, the densities of sherds and daub are calculated as both count and weight per cubic meter excavated. In addition, the average size (count/ weight) of these two classes of data was also calculated (see Hall 1994 :35
–
36).
Schiffer ( 1987 :279) observes that:
“ the capability of simple variables such as total quantity, ratios, and frequency distributions to supply insights into formation processes have been insufficiently explored.
”
I present such simple variables to explore the formation of deposits at Cuauhtémoc.
Deposit Definition and Expectations
The diachronic patterns presented here compare evidence from open-air middens and trash-filled pits for the seven phases of Cuauhtémoc ’ s occupation. What I refer to as open-air middens are called surface trash dumps by Stark and Ohnersorgen
( 2001 :255) who define them as
“ deposits where trash is swept or deposited. Artifact size should be moderate, assuming some trampling occurs or some small items are occasionally swept here. Density would be high, assuming use of the dump over a period of time.
”
Trash-filled pit is a term used by Stark and Ohnersorgen ( 2001 :245
–
255) who predict their contents as:
“
Artifact density could be high if the pit were filled mainly with trash rather than dirt. Both small and large objects may end up in pits through clean-up efforts...Hazardous trash is more likely to end up in pits than in surface trash dumps
”
.
The five Conchas-phase depositional contexts compared below include open-air village middens and trash-filled pits as well as middens and trash-filled pits from
2
Some of the smaller pieces of daub documented at Cuauhtémoc could be burnt clay. While much of what
I call daub is large and contains wood and grass impressions (see inset in Fig.
16 ), I cannot be absolutely sure that the smaller, more eroded fragments are not small pieces of burnt clay. For the purpose of this paper, however, such distinctions are not crucial as both classes of data were part of the debris from domestic contexts and similar post-depositional forces would have acted on both burnt clay and daub.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 15
Table 1 Summary Counts, Weights and Minimum Number of Vessels (MNV) of Ceramic Sherds as well as Counts and Weights of Daub Recovered from Cuauhtémoc
Ceramic Sherds
Count Weight (kg) MNV
Daub
Count Weight (kg)
Excavated volume (m
3
)
Barra
Village midden
Locona
Village midden
Pits
Ocós
Village midden
Pit
Cherla
Village midden
Pit
Cuadros
Village midden
Jocotal
Village midden
Pit
Conchas
Village midden
Village pits
Elite midden
Elite pits
Construction fill
Total:
2,406
7,941
594
1,289
213
1,425
722
2,848
1,312
123
25,646
601
5,929
776
1,862
52,920
24.317
98.880
8.745
21.650
1.710
24.570
8.510
38.080
21.925
2.720
465.335
11.850
72.645
10.490
34.625
835.562
112
458
63
91
8
138
45
162
93
17
1,403
50
266
64
147
3,053
161
504
50
44
11
28
165
23
21
21
717
60
477
416
18
2,300
2.200
6.340
0.460
0.690
0.050
0.680
1.680
0.450
0.580
0.610
11.105
1.550
6.240
4.880
0.430
33.065
7.294
20.909
0.741
2.815
0.096
2.661
0.430
3.256
2.292
0.152
26.265
0.470
5.056
0.539
5.232
77.669
elite contexts around Mound 2 and artifacts excavated from the construction fill used to build Mound 3. The non-elite, Conchas-phase midden and pit deposits are similar to those from earlier periods, and the elite deposits are depositionally similar except for their association with a higher status segment of society. Artifact differences between non-elite and elite open-air middens as well as between nonelite and elite trash-filled pits are expected to reflect behavioral differences between these segments of society (see discussion in Rosenswig 2007 ). Finally, construction fill is a quite different type of deposit. Stark and Ohnersorgen ( 2001 :
254) predict that what they call trashy fill
“
...results from using artifact-laden deposits to build or reshape a mound. High or moderate breakage is expected assuming that it is not convenient to dig up fill containing large items. Density should be correspondingly low or moderate.
” Their trashy fill is similar to what I more generally refer to as construction fill. Artifact density is expected to be even lower in such contexts when both clean fill and trashy fill were used for mound construction.
The average artifact size from a deposit is determined by breakage and wear to artifacts through movement, trampling, soil chemistry, etc. (Schiffer 1987 :267). The more times artifacts are moved, the more breakage and wear is expected to have affected a given assemblage. Artifacts in primary contexts such as burials and caches are expected to be larger than in secondary contexts and both are expected to be larger than artifacts recovered from midden and transported to be redeposited in

16 Rosenswig tertiary contexts such as construction fill
3
. As with density, assuming similar sedimentation rates and disturbance processes occurred in similar depositional contexts, variability may be interpreted as being due to different cultural practices.
However, variability in mean size of artifacts from contemporaneous assemblages that were recovered from different depositional contexts must first be accounted for in terms of attritional processes. Ultimately, the goal of this sort of study is to account for such biasing
“ noise
” caused by formation processes so as to more confidently interpret artifact patterns in cultural terms (but see Binford 1981 ).
Diachronic Patterns from Open-air Middens and Pits
Density of Ceramic Sherds and Daub at Open-air Middens Over Time
The densities of ceramic and daub remains were calculated from open-air middens dating to each phase using both count and weight (Fig.
11 ). The results, based on count or weight, are similar for each class of material. Sherds recovered from middens show a progressive increase in density through time with 330 sherds/m
3 and 3.3 kg/m
3 during the Barra phase and 976 sherds/m
3 and 17.7 kg/m
3 by the
Conchas phase (Fig.
11 A). Rather than reflecting an increase in the number of people occupying the site, or an increase in overall ceramic use (consumption intensity), this pattern is explained in large part as the result of larger vessels with thicker walls being produced through time. It is well established that ceramic vessels were made progressively larger during the phases discussed here (Blake et al.
1995 ;
Clark and Cheetham 2005 ; Coe 1961 ; Rosenswig 2005 ). This Soconusco pattern is consistent with Needham and Spence
’ s ( 1997 :82) observation that changing tool technology affects deposition patterns. Increase in overall vessel size through the phases of Cuauhtémoc
‘ s occupation result in more ceramic material in circulation even if the total number of vessels in use during any given phase remained relatively constant.
3
I refer to construction fill as being in tertiary context. South ( 1977 :297) refers to these types of deposits as
“ displaced refuse
” and Schiffer ( 1987 :111) observes that they represent a
“ specialized kind of scavenging
” that require special consideration. The collection of large quantities of material for architectural construction projects creates a class of deposits not often considered by those who study formation processes and work with hunter-gatherers or early horticultural groups. Some trash could be incorporated directly into construction fill as it was produced, and so not spend time in midden deposits.
Or, trash in provisional discard locations could be transported directly to the location of mound building activities. However, these sources of material were likely not the primary source of construction fill.
Mound building was an episodic activity and, when it occurred, would have required substantial quantities of fill. Therefore, nearby soils would likely have been mined to minimize transport efforts so that the middens surrounding the site would have been collected. Construction fill was thus systematically transported more than secondary midden deposits (which themselves are usually transported more than once). Tertiary contexts such as construction fill are thus defined as having been moved more often and thus the artifacts contained within these deposits exposed to more mechanical attrition. Such tertiary contexts are particularly relevant to sedentary societies that build large mounds and occupy the same site for centuries or millennia. Schiffer ( 1987 :124) notes that:
“ in intensively occupied settlements
… whose boundaries are constrained by cultural or natural barriers, one would expect that any earthmoving processes would have a greater probability of encountering previously deposited materials. This effect is intensified in settlements with considerable longevity...
”
Schiffer is describing precisely the situation at
Cuauhtémoc and most sites excavated by Mesoamerican archaeologists.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 17
Fig. 11 Ceramic ( A ) and Daub ( B ) counts and weights from open-air middens by excavated volume for each of Cuauhtémoc seven phases of occupation.
The density of daub recovered from open-air middens at Cuauhtémoc shows a decrease through time until the Cuadros phase and a distinct increase during the
Conchas phase (Fig.
11 B). Measured as weight, similar daub density is documented during most phases (0.25
– 0.30 kg/m
3
), with lower density during the Cuadros phase
(0.14 kg/m
3
) and higher density during the Conchas phase (42 kg/m
3
). Measured as counts, daub density ranged between 15 – 24 pieces/m
Ocós phase, between 5
–
10 pieces/m
3
3 during the Barra through during the Cherla through Jocotal phase, and
27 pieces/m
3 during the Conchas phase. These measurements calculated as counts or weights are generally consistent with each other and document the highest daub density during the Barra, Locona, and Conchas phases.
The lower overall density of daub remains deposited in open-air middens during the Cherla through Jocotal phases may reflect less architecture having been built at the site during this time. Alternatively, the same number of structures could have been built using less daub for each. This latter possibility of relatively less investment in each structure could have occurred if houses were occupied for less

18 Rosenswig time (on average) during this period. Cherla, Cuadros, and Jocotal are also the three phases from which the fewest deposits have been encountered at Cuauhtémoc
(Table 1 ), so any patterns must be interpreted cautiously.
It is worth noting, however, that there is also a curiously small number of Cuadros and Jocotal phase burials documented to date across the Soconusco and that almost all lack grave goods (Rosenswig 2000 :Appendix 1)
4
. The low density of house debris at Cuauhtémoc (reflected by daub remains) may be a function of the relatively small number of deposits documented from these phases, skewing the results. In addition, the lack of burials from these time periods may be due to the small amount of work carried out at sites occupied during these time periods. Saitta ( 1994 :208
–
210) argues that while the
“ ambiguity
” in the archeological record caused by negative evidence may be attributed to too little work having been undertaken (and thus an incomplete picture of past patterns), such lack of evidence should at least be considered to be a real cultural pattern. If the paucity of Cuadros and Jocotal burials known in the Soconusco was the result of cultural practices (rather than simply missing data), then perhaps fewer burials were interred during the late Early
Formative period. For example, burials left in trees, curated in houses, or any other above-ground location, would produce fewer remains to be recovered by archaeologists. Similarly, the use of less construction materials (i.e., daub) deposited in trash during these phases could be the result of either fewer houses or houses covered in less daub than earlier or later times. While it is always difficult to interpret the absence of evidence convincingly, the late Early Formative was also a period when dramatic changes to political organization (Clark 1997 ) and representational conventions (Clark and Pye 2000 ; Lesure 2004 ) are documented in the Soconusco. It would not be surprising if changes to architectural and burial practices also occurred at this time.
Density Compared between Open-air Middens and Pits Over Time
For all phases, the density of sherds recovered from shared middens is lower than their density from pits (Fig.
12 A). For example, Jocotal middens contain 9.57 kg/m
3 whereas Jocotal pits contain 17.89 kg/m
3
. This indicates that more sherds were deposited in pits and/or that they were subsequently exposed to less erosional processes than were open-air middens off the edge of the site. This pattern is even more pronounced for daub, which was as much as five times denser in pits than in open-air midden deposits (Fig.
12 B). This is not surprising as objects discarded in pits near domestic locations were not transported as far or moved as often compared to those artifacts that made their way to the middens around the edges of the site.
Further, objects deposited in pits were exposed to less trampling, weathering, etc.
(Hammond and Hammond 1981 ; Gorecki 1985 ) compared to trash discarded at the
4
Recently, in the Mazatán zone of the Soconusco, four Cherla and Cuadros phase interments were encountered at the site of Cantón Corralito (Cheetham 2006 ). Future work at this important site will hopefully raise the total number even higher. One of these interments dated to the Cuadros phase was placed in the ground surrounded by 12 greenstone axes. While this feature could be interpreted as either a burial or a sacrifice it is the only known Cuadros phase interment of human bones with associated offerings.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 19
Fig. 12 Density of ceramic sherds ( A ) and daub ( B ) weights by excavated volume from open-air middens and trash-filled pits.
edge of the site. Pits near residences therefore initially received more artifacts from the immediate area and the objects deposited in them were then subjected to less post-depositional attrition. This would also explain why daub from open-air middens is found in relatively lower density (compared to the level documented from trashfilled pits) than the difference of ceramic density from these different depositional contexts. Fired clay is more resistant to attritional processes than unfired clays and mud that are deposited in open-air middens and thus exposed to the elements
(Fig.
12 A, B). Such differences in artifact density between classes of material are what Schiffer ( 1987 :282) calls differential “ concentration indexes ” . In this case, the differential preservation patterns between sherds and daub reflect a process similar to the differential survivorship of faunal species, elements and/or portions of elements based on the density of bone (e.g., Binford 1978b ; Binford and Bertram 1977 ;
Gifford 1981 ). The difference in the extent of preservation of daub compared to ceramic sherds is due to its unfired nature and the greater effect of post-depositional attrition on the softer daub.
Differential survivorship patterns based on artifact durability are not particularly surprising, but the Cuauhtémoc data provide clear quantitative evidence for their

20 Rosenswig occurrence. In contrast, La Mixtequilla artifact patterns do not meet these expectations and survivorship patterns were the same in trash-filled pits and surface trash dumps (Stark and Ohnersorgen 2001 ). The Cuauhtémoc data also provided clear evidence that the differential preservation between open-air middens and pits occurred and that those differences were consistent through time (Fig.
12 A, B). As a result, this warns against interpreting artifact patterns between different contexts of preservation in simple cultural terms due to such potentially systematic preservation biases.
Mean Size of Ceramic Sherds and Daub Over Time
The final diachronic pattern presented in this paper is the mean size of ceramic sherds and pieces of daub (Fig.
13 ). Rather than measuring each piece individually, average sizes were calculated as the overall weight (measured in kilograms) of each material divided by its count. Unlike the previous density statistics, this measure documents the relative degree to which sherds and daub from each phase were broken up prior to being recovered. However, the data used to produce Fig.
11 are the same as for Fig.
13 , and so results should be interpreted together. As mean artifact size is calculated as weight/count, any discrepancies between the two methods of calculating artifact density are the patterns of mean size. Hall ( 1994 :36) notes that mean sherd weight cannot be directly compared between different regions due to differences in pottery construction techniques and types of clay used by local potters. Assuming that clay sources and techniques used by the potters that supplied
Cuauhtémoc with pottery were relatively similar through time, the data presented here document that the density of sherds increased through time (Fig.
11 A) as did the average size of these remains (Fig.
13 ). This quantitative pattern is attributed to increasing ceramic vessel size, as discussed above in relation to Fig.
11 A. Daub from the Cherla, Cuadros, and Jocotal phase deposits was less dense than from both earlier and later period deposits (see Fig.
11 B). The data presented in Fig.
13 indicate
Fig. 13 Ceramic and daub mean size (i.e., count/weight) from open-air middens for each of
Cuauhtémoc
’ s seven phases of occupation.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 21 that the daub from these three phases was also less broken up than earlier and later phases. The mean size of daub thus strengthens the argument for distinct architectural practices during the late Early Formative period. Daub was both less dense and less broken up. Again, as suggested above, one explanation for a lower density of daub at Cuauhtémoc during the late Early Formative period could be the result of less labor invested in structures and/or shorter residential occupation during this period.
Synchronic Patterns from Conchas-phase Deposits
Five depositional contexts have been defined at Cuauhtémoc from the Conchas phase. These are: (1) open-air middens; (2) trash-filled pits; (3) elite middens; (4) elite pits; and (5) the remains from construction fill used to extend the east side of the site and build Mound 3 (see Fig.
2 ). These five assemblages allow for the synchronic examination of trash disposal patterns when the site reached its maximal extent of 10 ha and the first large-scale earth-moving projects were undertaken
(Rosenswig 2006c , 2007 ). These patterns reflect synchronic differences in depositional rates and states of preservation depending on how, where, and why debris was incorporated into the archaeological contexts from which they were excavated.
Mean Size of Ceramic Sherds and Daub from Five Conchas-phase Contexts
The mean sizes of ceramic and daub remains were calculated for each of the five
Conchas phase depositional contexts (Fig.
14 ). Overall, both classes of data are more broken up in elite contexts than in non-elite contexts (including construction fill).
That the ceramic and daub debris in pits used by the Cuauhtémoc elite was more broken up than that from non-elite pits located at other areas of the site does not appear to be the result of a small sample size (Table 1 ). Instead, as I propose below,
Fig. 14 Mean size (i.e., count/weight) of ceramic and daub remains from five Conchas-phase depositional contexts.

22 Rosenswig it was the result of more intensive use of elite space at Cuauhtémoc which resulted in ceramic and daub waste being exposed to more mechanical attrition (trampling) before being disposed of.
The interpretation that elite space was more intensively used is consistent with the argument that the elite at Cuauhtémoc hosted feasts and other integrative communal events around Mound 2 to help maintain their elevated social position by easing the stress caused by increasing social stratification. Elsewhere, I argue (using ceramic, faunal, and groundstone data from these same Conchas phase deposits) that more serving and less preparation of food resulted from such elite political strategies
(Rosenswig 2007 ). The existence of elite middens along the edge of Mound 2 also indicates that, as well as physically elevating themselves above other members of society, more uninhabited space was maintained around the Conchas phase elite residences in which to deposit their trash.
Contrary to the expectation of Stark and Ohnersorgen ( 2001 :254), construction fill documented at Cuauhtémoc were not more fragmentary than non-elite midden contexts (Fig.
14 ). The larger than expected mean size of the sherds and daub fragments may indicate that the construction fill used to build Mound 3 was collected early in the Conchas phase, and that midden and other materials were relatively quickly amassed and redeposited as fill. Alternatively, this pattern may be explained by the observations of Beck ( 2006 ) and Beck and Hill ( 2004 ) that burying trash provides protection from mechanical attrition.
Density of Ceramic Sherds and Daub from Five Conchas-phase Contexts
The densities of ceramic and daub remains were calculated for the five Conchasphase contexts as both counts and weights (Fig.
15 ). Conchas-phase construction fill contained by far the lowest density of both sherds (355 sherds/m
3 or 7 kg/m
3
) and daub (3.4 pieces/m
3 or 0.08 kg/m
3
) (Fig.
15 A, B). Such low densities are to be expected if these deposits were formed by collecting a mixture of midden material and other soils and then piling and compacting them to create Mound 3. Unlike the other four depositional contexts, the disposal of trash was not the reason that the artifacts contained within construction fill found their way into the archaeological record. Instead, these objects were gathered up along with the matrix they were deposited in, probably mixed with other non-artifact bearing soils, and used to extend the east side of the site by 30 m and build Mound 3. Hall ( 1994 :Table 2) documented that the lowest ceramic and daub densities from La Mixtequilla were from construction fill contexts and that some of the highest artifact densities were from features at residential locations. As mentioned above, the mean size of sherds and daub from construction fill was not smaller than from non-elite middens
(Fig.
14 ). Therefore, low sherd and daub densities in construction fill (that are nonetheless the same mean size as remains deposited in village middens) suggests that midden and culturally sterile soils were used to build Mound 3 and that these materials were not exposed to the types of attrition that would break up the artifacts they contained.
Ceramic remains were denser in elite pits (1,440 sherds/m non-elite pits (1,279 sherds/m
3
3 and 19 kg/m
3
) and in and 25 kg/m
3
) than they were in any of the other depositional contexts explored in this paper (Fig.
15 A). This was likely due to

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 23
Fig. 15 Counts and weights by excavated volume of ceramic ( A ) and daub ( B ) remains from five
Conchas-phase depositional contexts.
Conchas-phase pits receiving more trash and being exposed to less post-depositional mechanical attrition. This was also true for pit features during the previous 700 years of Cuauhtémoc
’ s occupation (see Fig.
12 A).
Daub density was also calculated for each of the five Conchas phase contexts
(Fig.
15 B). The highest density of daub refuse during this phase is documented in elite pits (772 sherds/m
3 and 9 kg/m
3
), followed by non-elite pit features (128 sherds/m
3
1.2 kg/m
3 and 3.3 kg/m
3
). In comparison, elite middens contained 94 sherds/m
3 whereas open-air middens contained 27 sherds/m
3 and 1.2 kg/m
3 and
. This pattern again indicates that more artifacts were deposited and preserved in trash pits.
These patterns are consistent with, but much more dramatic than, those documented with ceramic remains (compare Fig.
15 A and B). Elite members of society likely built more substantial houses and remodeled them more often with the result that their pits contained more daub fragments. And, as argued above, the area around
Mound 2 appears to have also been more frequently cleaned up.
These elite middens and trash-filled pits were also distinct as the only deposits at
Cuauhtémoc that contained fancy Ramirez ceramic wares (Rosenswig 2007 :Fig. 6).

24 Rosenswig
A higher density of ceramic sherds by count (but not weight) in elite contexts supports the interpretation that elite space was used by more people in closer proximity to each other
— such as at feasts and other public functions. The result was that trash receptacles from these contexts contained smaller pieces of ceramic sherds and daub than those receiving non-elite trash (Fig.
14 ), but received considerably more materials overall (Fig.
15 ).
These interpretations are bolstered when preservation is compared qualitatively.
Conchas-phase daub recovered from an elite pit (Fig.
16 : Suboperation 7) is much better preserved than daub from the open-air village midden (Fig.
16 : Suboperation
10a). The former preserves the impression of straw and wood as well as fingerprints
— from when the wet clay and mud was pressed into Conchas-phase structures. Daub from the latter context has deteriorated so that such impressions are lost and, further, the smooth surface has eroded and is pock-marked. So, while individual pieces of daub are of similar shapes and sizes, those from village middens were exposed to more weathering, and as a result their surfaces are much more eroded than daub recovered from elite pits. These different states of preservation have likely resulted from waste being cleaned up more rapidly in elite contexts before weathering, trampling and other post-depositional processes had deteriorated daub surfaces.
Summary and Discussion
In this paper, I have explored the formation of deposits excavated at Cuauhtémoc.
This was done by reviewing what we learned about the creation of the site on an
Fig. 16 Daub from an elite, trash-filled pit ( Suboperation 7 ) and an open-air midden ( Suboperation 10a ) showing different states of preservation in the two Conchas-phase contexts.
Arrows indicate enlarged examples.

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 25 ancient river levee. Raised ground provided a desirable location that was inhabited by some of the earliest ceramic-using villagers in the region during the Barra phase
(1600
–
1450 BCE). The continued occupation of the site for 800 years attests to the desirability of living above the seasonal flood waters that still plague residents of the coastal plain today. Villagers occupied this high ground, disposed of their waste in middens that developed over the edges of the site, and buried it in pits around their residences.
The composition of middens are generally assumed to reflect overall behavioral patterns at a site (Flannery and Winter 1976 ; Hirth 1993 ; Wilk and Ashmore 1988 ).
Ethnoarchaeological studies have tended to support such assumptions (Deal 1985 ;
Hayden and Cannon 1983 ). Beck ( 2006 ) and Beck and Hill ( 2004 ) have recently documented that, in the Philippines, sherds deposited in middens were representative of overall composition of vessels in use. In Costa Rica, residents of a single isolated household transported their trash at least 10 m to dump it into a drainage ditch
(Lange and Rydberg 1972 :427 – 428). At the highland Maya community of Chanal, while garbage was initially dumped within houselots and nearby streets, this provisional refuse was periodically transported
“
...to the edge of town for dumping
”
(Hayden and Cannon 1983 :125). Arnold ( 1990 :918) describes this pattern as
“ overthe-edge
” trash disposal, which is especially effective when it removes unwanted refuse with the help of a stream that will carry it away (see Sutro 1991 ). Such trash transportation behavior appears to be what has been documented in the open-air middens around Cuauhtémoc.
Archaeological cases also document the pattern of trash accumulation around a settlement
’ s edges. Boone ( 1987 :337) documented that the dumping of trash occurs mostly around the densely inhabited town of Qsar es-Seghir (covering 2.83 ha) occupied during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the Moroccan side of the
Straight of Gibraltar. At the late Early Formative village of El Bajío, Wendt ( 2005 ) also documents higher density of most classes of artifacts beyond the edge of domestic areas. At Cuauhtémoc, shared middens accumulated around the edges of the site during its 800-year occupation. Due to the circumscribed nature of this site
(on high ground above flood levels), settlement density was likely higher and refuse disposal more regular than patterns previously reported ethnographically in
Mesoamerica (e.g., Arnold 1990 ; Hayden and Cannon 1983 ; Deal 1985 ). As a result, we might expect that trash spent less time in provisional discard areas around houses and was more quickly transported to the edge of the site. This is very different than the house-lot model proposed by Killion ( 1990 ) based on a much more dispersed habitation pattern. While making these comparisons, it is worth entertaining the possibility that more formal waste disposal behavior in archaeological contexts may also be due to the higher level of social stratification compared to the modern, ethnoarchaeologically documented cases that are responsible for generating site formation analogies.
At Cuauhtémoc, there was an increase in the density of ceramic sherds (measured as either count or weight) through time that may be the result of increased ceramic vessel size (Fig.
11 A) rather than an increase in breakage or consumption rates. In contrast, densities of daub refuse during the Cuadros and Jocotal phases were lower than during the preceding periods or the subsequent Conchas phase (Fig.
11 B). This daub pattern hints at distinct architectural practices during the end of the Early

26 Rosenswig
Formative period that produced less architectural debris. For all time periods, denser concentrations of both ceramic and daub remains were documented in pits than they were for debris recovered from open-air middens (Fig.
12 ). This pattern is not surprising as pits located throughout the site initially received more trash and were then more protected than the middens that developed accretionally around the site
’ s edges. Further, both the ceramic and daub assemblages were more broken up through time (Fig.
13 ), which suggests that refuse was exposed to more mechanical attrition in this circumscribed village.
During the Conchas phase (900
–
800 BCE), both ceramic and daub remains in elite contexts were more broken up than in non-elite contexts or in construction fill
(Fig.
14 ). This suggests that elite space may have been used by more people in closer quarters than at other locations of Cuauhtémoc. Qualitative assessments of daub show that while refuse from elite contexts was more broken up, preservation was better, with wood, grass, and finger impressions clearly preserved (Fig.
16 ). In contrast, daub from open-air middens was more amorphous and such impressions have been eroded away. In addition, Conchas-phase pits received more trash than either elite or non-elite middens (Fig.
15 ). Conchas-phase construction fill contained fewer sherds and daub remains than any domestic context documented at
Cuauhtémoc (Fig.
15 ).
These synchronic patterns highlight the importance of making behavioral comparisons based on artifact patterns from equivalent depositional contexts. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Daub density in Conchas-phase village middens is within the same range as similar deposits from earlier phases
(Fig.
11 A) but dwarfed by the density of daub remains from elite pits (Fig.
15 B).
To compare the contents of pits used by the Conchas-phase elite to earlier period open-air middens or non-elite pits would make differences appear to be temporal when in fact they are more likely to have been status based (Rosenswig 2007 ). To compare the contents of either open-air middens or trash-filled pits to construction fill would be virtually meaningless. In fact, comparisons from all phases of occupation at Cuauhtémoc show that different preservation conditions consistently resulted in more erosion of artifacts in open-air contexts as well as different rates of erosion between sherds and daub (Fig.
12 ). These synchronic comparisons highlight the fact that comparisons between ceramic assemblages reported in the manner of traditional type-variety descriptions are inappropriate for functional or behavioral analyses because sherds from one site (presented as a single aggregated sample) cannot be meaningfully compared to those from another site unless comparable deposits were sampled. This problem is exacerbated when the contents of construction fill or so-called
“ midden fill
”
(Moholy-Nagy 1997 ) are employed to make cultural inferences without exploring the diverse sources, depositional histories, and post-depositional processes acting on artifacts before they come to rest in the archaeological contexts from which they were recovered.
Conclusion
Thirty-five years ago, Schiffer ( 1972 :163
–
164) observed that:
“
Without a base of explicit, logically related credible laws about the formation processes of the

Early Mesoamerican Garbage: Ceramic and Daub Discard Patterns 27 archaeological record, debates about validity of an inference, or any use of the data from the record, can only focus on epiphenomena of ad hominem arguments.
”
Fifteen years later, he noted that
“
The rigorous treatment of formation processes in inference, in the manner proposed in this book, has scarcely begun
”
(Schiffer
1987 :363). There is still much work to be done.
Rather than fearing immorality as Flannery and Marcus claim to in the epigraph to this paper, tens of thousands of plain body sherds and amorphous lumps of daub have been counted and weighed in order to explore formation processes at
Cuauhtémoc. This has been done to more accurately reconstructed cultural behaviors by exploring variability in artifact patterns resulting from systematic ways in which archaeological deposits form and the artifacts within them preserve. Rather than a question of morality, these measures provide valuable archaeological data that are often over-looked and under-studied.
The study of formation processes has only been undertaken in a handful of cases in Mesoamerica. The current study is similar in intent to those carried out on materials from La Mixtequilla where mean artifact size and overall density are compared between different types of deposits (Hall 1994 ; Stark and Ohnersorgen
2001 ; Ohnersorgen and Stark 2001 ). These simple measures prove an effective way to identify different types of contexts independently of the stratigraphic assessments made during excavation. With greater knowledge of the processes responsible for the formation of deposits at Cuauhtémoc and La Mixtequilla, artifact analyses provide more reliable assessments of cultural patterns. The Cuauhtémoc analysis presented in this paper is also similar in intent to Wendt
’ s ( 2005 ) study at El Bajío, Santley
’ s
( 1992 ) at Matacapan, Pool
’ s ( 1997 ) at Bezuapan, and the papers edited by Pool
( 2003 ) from Tres Zapotes; all document trash density at a site-wide level. The first three of these studies from Mexico
’ s Gulf Coast each document dispersed habitation patterns that conform to Killion
’ s ( 1990 ) house-lot model. In contrast, the residents of Cuauhtémoc appear to have lived in a more circumscribed arrangement on high ground above the seasonal flood zone.
This paper has examined formation processes at Cuauhtémoc and provides insight into four aspects of past behavior. First, after the initial founding of the site circa
1600 BCE, consistent waste disposal patterns resulted in trash dumped over of its sides into the seasonally flooded low ground. The circumscribed settlement resulted in more organized refuse disposal than in other regions of Mesoamerica where residences are more dispersed and there was thus more space to dispose of trash between residences. Second, during the Cuadros and Jocotal phases (1150
–
900 BCE), relatively low density of daub remains suggests that structures may have been less substantially built or less frequently rebuilt. Jocotal-phase sherds are documented by both the Mazatán and Cuauhtémoc surveys to cover more area than any other Early
Formative phase (Clark 1994 ; Rosenswig 2009 ). Alone, this Jocotal-phase increase in the total hectares of artifacts would suggest a higher population but, together with the low daub densities at Cuauhtémoc (and a relative lack of burials across the
Soconusco), a plausible alternative can be proposed that distinct residential patterns emerged at the same time as the residents of the Soconusco were more intensively interacting with the inhabitants of the Gulf Coast (Clark 1997 ; Rosenswig 2005 ).
Third, during the Conchas phase (900-800 BCE), elite contexts contained denser concentrations of ceramic sherds and daub than non-elite contexts suggesting that

28 Rosenswig these areas were kept cleaner than the rest of the site and/or that consumption levels were higher. Further, greater quantities of daub in elite trash locales suggests that the
Conchas-phase elite at Cuauhtémoc may have had more substantial houses and/or rebuilt them more often. Finally, during all phases of occupation, there was systematically better preservation of artifacts in pits than in open-air middens. This leads to one of the most important conclusions of this study
— straightforward functional or behavioral comparisons using artifacts from different depositional contexts are simply not credible.
Studies of formation processes clearly demonstrate that before making cultural interpretations based on artifact patterns, the history of deposits and the formation processes acting on the artifacts and ecofacts they contain must be taken into account. Counts and weights of ceramic sherds and daub fragments provide one simple manner from which to examine formation processes. Such easily acquired data add quantitative rigor to the interpretation of stratigraphy and thus can provide a more informed assessment of the processes responsible for the formation of archaeological deposits. Although many Mesoamerican archaeologists conduct household archaeology, surprisingly few employ their data to explicitly address the formation of the deposits that contain the artifacts they analyze.
Acknowledgments The field work reported here was conducted under a series of permits issued by the
INAH Consejo de Arqueología. Financial support for the excavation and analysis reported here were provided by the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., the New World
Archaeological Foundation (NWAF), the Yale Council of International and Area Studies, a Fulbright-
Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a Social Science and Humanities Research
Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship. Special thanks are extended to Artemio Villatoro
Alvarado for his hard work directing the recording of data reported here and to John Clark (Director of the
NWAF) for logistical and curatorial support. The constructive and thoughtful comments of five reviewers are gratefully acknowledged as are those of Philip Arnold and Robert Kruger. This paper was written while the author held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Montreal and was presented in a discussion group organized by Philip Arnold at the 71st Annual Meetings of the Society for American
Archaeology in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2006. Finally, thanks are extended to James Savelle who directed me to explore how post-depositional processes mediate the interpretation of archaeological data when I was just starting out (Rosenswig 1994 ).
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