Guilá Naquitz

Information

Guilá Naquitz Cave is the westernmost of a group of six rockshelters that extend for about 600 m along the base of a 20-40 m high cliff overlooking a small valley that feeds into a small tributary of the Río Mitla (Kirkby et al. 1986:43-44). The archaeological site was discovered and excavated by Kent Flannery and his team in 1966 as part of a larger survey and test excavation project examining caves and rockshelters near Mitla in the Tlacolula arm of the Valley of Oaxaca (Flannery 1986:65). To date, this site has produced the earliest known, directly dated, maize macroremains (Piperno and Flannery 2001).

ID Other ID Type Subtype Uncal BP (years) ± 1 σ (years) Median cal BP (years) Lower cal BP (years) Upper cal BP (years) δ13C Contaminated?
21 Beta-132511 MacroSample cob 5420 60 6222 6313 6002 No
279 Beta-132510 MacroSample cob 5410 40 6229 6296 6025 No

Attached Files

Guila_naquitz_google_earth_view_facing_west
Google Earth View of Guilá Naquitz cave location looking west towards the Tlacolula subvalley and beyond it, the main Valley of Oaxaca (Image Date: 3/24/2009).
Guila_naquitz_google_earth_view_facing_east_towards_mitla_fortress
Google Earth view looking east past Guilá Naquitz cave towards Mitla Fortress in the Tlacolula subvalley (Image Date: 3/24/2009).

References Cited

Benz, B. F.
        2001      Archaeological evidence of teosinte domestication from Guilá Naquitz, Oaxaca. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 98(4):2104-2106.

Flannery, Kent V.
    1986    Guilá Naquitz in Spatial, Temporal, and Cultural Context. In Guilá Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico, edited by K.V. Flannery, pp. 31-42. Academic Press, Orlando.

Kirkby, Michael J., Anne V. Whyte and Kent V. Flannery
    1986    The Physical Environment of the Guilá Naquitz Cave Group. In Guilá Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico, edited by K.V. Flannery, pp. 43-61. Academic Press, Orlando.

Piperno, D. R. and K. V. Flannery
    2001    The earliest archaeological maize (Zea mays L.) from Highland Mexico: New accelerator mass spectrometry dates and their implications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 98(4):2101-2103.