Puerto Marques

Puerto Marques is the home of the oldest known pottery found in Mesoamerica, a culture area within the borders of Central America. It is located in the Mexican state of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast approximately three hundred kilometres southwest of Mexico City, just north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. “Pox” pottery discovered there has been dated back to as far as 2400 BC, roughly 3500 years ago. [1] During these times, sedentary lifestyles were yet to blossom so people mostly roamed the land as hunters and foragers, setting up camps and continuously migrating based on the seasons.

Geography

Puerto Marques can be found just south of present day Acapulco, in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Nearly half the terrain is mountainous, with the remaining terrain being a mix of flat or slightly elevated.[2] The Puerto Marques area enjoys a tropical wet and dry climate, depending on the season. It is always hot, with distinct wet and dry periods depending on the time of year. Temperatures typically range 22–32 °C (72–90 °F) on average all year around.[3] Puerto Marques is at the south end of a deep semi-circular bay, and has a developing economy with buildings such as high rise hotels popping up in the area.

History

The development of pottery has been documented at many Mesoamerican sites, and is typically seen as a sign of sedentary life. But in the Archaic period in which this pottery was dated, the role of foragers and hunters was more prominent than the sedentary life, as agricultural developments were yet to be made and resources were used up from site to site as mobile bands moved along the countryside. Pottery and ceramics have often been found at archaeological sites of centuries past, as they preserve well and can allow for research. These artifacts can occur in many different ways.[4] Its earliest level excavation had no ceramics, but in the nearest level upwards appeared “Pox” pottery, so-called because of the pockmarks on its interior surface where bits of fiber temper burned away in the firing process.[5]

Ceramics

Ceramics and pottery play an integral part in learning about ancient Mesoamerican life, and much can be learned from the information they bear. They are made by firing objects made out of clay, and as clay is present in the earth’s crust, it is found all over. Temper is the material that is added to raw clay in order to heighten the clay vessel's durability, and the kind of temper (fiber, grit, shell, etc.) is a way to diagnose common traits that could indicate shared information regarding a technology.[6] “Pox” pottery, for which Puerto Marques is famous, bears a red slip on the exterior, similar to ceramics from the Initial Formative period found in coastal Soconusco, and also to pottery found in Ecuador and even dating years earlier .[7]

Significance

Puerto Marques, and the pottery found there, are significant because it allows research and interpretations to be carried out about the ways of life 3500 years ago. To date archaeological evidence not only helps develop time-lines of the past, but can also help the current day world think of what it would have been like to live that many years ago. Subsistence, identity, migration, economic organization, status, gender, rituals and ideology are only some aspects in which interpretations can be drawn.[8] The pottery found at Puerto Marques serves as a way to relate and understand their social structures, and socio-economic status within the context of their lives long ago.

References

  1. ↑ Evans 2008
  2. ↑ Bahn 2001
  3. ↑ BBC 2011
  4. ↑ Pearsall 2008
  5. ↑ Evans 2008
  6. ↑ Pearsall 2008
  7. ↑ Evans 2008
  8. ↑ Murray 2001

Bibliography

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