“How could they have been kept hidden for so long?” asked María de Lourdes López Camacho when she drew up the list of the almost intact pieces: among others, vessels and figurines of the most diverse animals, human effigies, some barely sketched. “The pottery is similar to what existed when the pyramid of the Sun was just being built, but we still don’t know if ours are prior to the constitution of Teotihuacán as a city,” explains the archaeologist from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and coordinator of the responsible team that has brought to light the ceramic remains in the second section of the Bosque de Chapultepec, which have made it possible to inscribe the lung of the capital among the oldest sites in the basin of Mexico. “Redefining one of our oldest atlases,” adds López.
The recent discovery, a layer of pre-Hispanic vestiges next to the iconic Xochipilli fountain and just one meter from the surface that hundreds of people cross daily, has just doubled the known temporality for this space, which until now experts dated at 1,500 years ago. “It is surprising to think how many generations must have passed through here and how, despite the changes in the environment, these testimonies remained hidden, only one meter below our feet,” says López, still amazed that the materials were have remained intact for more than 3,000 years. As the expert details, “although the area is surrounded by all the work of the Porfiriato, it has not affected its conservation. There are not even colonial or Mexica intrusions, cultures that would come later, just the concentration of these preclassic fragments.” These are the oldest evidence found, to date, in the Bosque de Chapultepec, the most important urban green space in the capital and which now, thanks to the recent discovery by INAH, appears as an enclave of the Preclassic period (1200-600 BC) .
This stage is characterized by the fundamental changes that transformed the customs and life of humans, “it is the time when the groups ceased to be hunters and began to sow,” says the researcher. It was in the Preclassic when the populations adopted agriculture as the main means of subsistence and villages were established, “forming more hierarchical civilizations, which gave rise to the distribution of work,” says López.
The development of the social organization in this region would display the ceramic arts and the cosmovision, cultural elements characteristic of the populations of the basin of Mexico. As the archaeologist puts it, “stopping having to run after the animals to feed and being able to sow their own food allowed them to develop other skills and share the work.” Customs that experts are getting to know better through the objects that surface in the excavations, such as those recently revealed by the INAH team: arrowheads, spindle whorls, clothing, an awl made of deer bone, tiny steel points and cutting tools. flint, jadeite, slate and flint. “Not only is the wealth of minerals and stones that we have found amazing, but also the variety of colors. We could classify the pieces just by tone!” exclaims López.
According to the specialist, all the pre-Hispanic treasury that her team found earlier this year —under protection at the moment in the archaeological rescue unit of the National Museum of History, in the Chapultepec Castle— is a relic. “From the classic statuettes of coyotes, bird heads, to extremely rare animals that resemble dinosaurs. The most fascinating thing about the pre-classical figures is the heterogeneity of the faces that represent the humanity of the time, without canons that impose beauty. The pre-classical figures have invited me to rethink my congeners”, confesses the anthropologist.
One of the pieces that has caught the attention of his team is a miniature vessel that still contains traces of cinnabar, a mineral highly valued in Mesoamerica as a red pigment and that was used in pre-Hispanic burials. “That is why it seems strange to us that the vestiges of the Bosque de Chapultepec are not directly associated with a burial area, the common denominator of finds from this time period. We have the hypothesis that it may be under the Cárcamo de Dolores”, says López, who laments the lack of budget for archaeological work, “very affected by the economic crisis”. “Our unit does not have direct funds to investigate, but we take advantage of the impact that infrastructure works that are going to be carried out in the area can have for work on anchoring wells and excavation, like this one.”
The initiative that he directs, derived from the declaration of the Bosque de Chapultepec as an archaeological zone, is currently concentrated in an approximate area of 38 by 24 meters, of which only 16% was excavated. “It is very little and we still have a lot to discover. But what we have already found is invaluable. Chapultepec Forest is still perceived only as a recreational or hiking park, very few people see it as an archaeological zone, and even mammoth bones have been found there. It is a place that gives us a new surprise every day!”, says the anthropologist, whose discovery has incorporated the most iconic park in the capital to the historical map that traces the formation of the basin of Mexico.
“El Bosque de Chapultepec, in addition to being the most democratic point of the city, because from the humblest family to wealthy people who go to exercise and run, is going to spend the day there, it is the shared history of the citizens of Mexico. That is why it is so important that these types of finds be socialized, that people know their past and make it their own. Only by knowing our history better can we better interpret the world”, he concludes.
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