2 minute read
7. THE FIRST PHASE 2200-2000 BCE
Highlighted with colours, the structural remains of the first phase of occupation. THE FIRST PHASE 2200-2000 BCE
During the first phase of occupation, the trend was to build houses with curved or sometimes rectilinear walls. They had stone bases with one or two horizontal rows of slabs, lightly compacted mud walls, wooden poles embedded in, or adjacent to them, and roofs made of branches and clay. The houses were orientated to the west and their ends were protected by the natural rock. The latter presented a strong slope to the east and, it is precisely in the eastern sector where, for the moment, the first houses have been discovered.
Advertisement
H32
H42 Large meeting room
H38
Room H16, from the northeast, with its south wall and a large grinding stone in situ. These remains were subsequently disturbed by the burial of AY21, whose side slabs we see in the centre of the image.
View of room H14 from the southwest. H14 was built over the rubble of H16.
AY21
H9-E H14
5 cm
Bracelets found on the floor of rooms H14 (left) and H31 (right).
Globular vessel located in room H42 of zone 3 and a group of faunal remains from H14 and H16.
Among the most notable objects are a closed shell bracelet and an ivory bracelet formed by two semi-circular halves with distal perforations where the threads would pass through to join them together.
These pieces and some vessels of uncertain form accompanied a set of Argaric vessels. The abundance of animal bones concentrated in certain contexts is of great economic importance. The cut marks in many of them reveal processes of dismemberment and butchery, although their high number and density would also point to redistribution and meat consumption practices that are still to be clarified. In any case the abundance of remains of various species reveals the remarkable amount of livestock and subsistence hunting during the initial occupation, in contrast to what is known in the later occupations.
The ivory objects are also in the process of analysis to determine if the raw material came from Africa or the Near East. In any case, they are a good example of the breadth of the exchange networks in which the first settlers of La Almoloya were integrated.
5 cm
