Fig. 10.3 Metepantle with Agave, Ixtacuixtla, Tlaxcala. Photo J. M. Pérez Sanchez

Maintaining and reconstructing metepantles is the responsibility of farmers and their families. There is also collaboration between families for the harvest (Pérez 2014). However, because young people choose to work in urban environments like Tlaxcala, Puebla, or Mexico City, farmers often hire workers to plant and harvest corn (Fig. 10.3).

10.5Terraces in the Basin of Mexico

In the early 1950s, Ángel Palerm and Eric Wolf conducted the first terrace studies in the basin of Mexico in the northern Acolhuacán (northwest Mexico City) region. They divided it into four zones: the Sierra, the Somontano, the arid zone, and the valley (Fig. 10.4). Palerm and Wolf (1972) identified, in the Somontano area, agricultural terraces in several villages where maize was cultivated for subsistence and flowers for sale in Mexico City. In San Miguel Tlaixpan and San Nicolas Tlaminca, people cultivated on adobe and stone irrigation terraces. Local administrations were responsible for distributing the terraces’ irrigation water according to each terraces’ size, and people built their houses on or near the terraces.

Palerm and Wolf (1972) report other sites with terraces in the hills of San Joaquín to the north and Tetzcutzingo to the south of Acolhuacán. In both hills,

Fig. 10.4 Map of Acolhuacán, basin of Mexico. Source Sanromán (2013)

the terraced landscape is associated with water canals for irrigation. The hill of Tetzcutzingo is completely terraced, and there is archeological evidence of baths and terraced gardens where the king Netzahualcoyotl had his recreation area. Water came from the springs of the Sierra de Tlaloc through a network of canals specially made for this purpose.

Studies from the 1990s (Sokolosky 1995; Rodríguez 1995) describe the conditions of terraces in various villages of Acolhuacán. For example, in San Jerónimo Amanalco and San Juan Tezontla the terraces are located between the villages and are associated with irrigation systems through a network of canals and water deposits. The walls or edges, constructed with stones, retain the terraces. Other types of walls have maguey plants to hold the soil on slopes and prevent erosion, as in the metepantles of Tlaxcala. The main crops are maize, beans, barley, flowers, and fruit trees.

It was still common in the 1970s, in the town of Purificación Tepetitla, for houses to stand next to the approximately 3000 m2 agricultural terraces, where crops of maize, fruit trees, flowers, and medicinal plants prevailed. In the following decades, this village’s terraces were impacted by population increase, subdivision of land, and abandonment of agriculture (Ennis-McMillan 2001).

Fig. 10.6 Terraces of Tlaxomulco, Toluca. Photo J. M. Pérez Sanchez

of the high slope are in poor condition and have been abandoned; maguey is cultivated on some of them because it does not need permanent care, given that it resists low temperatures.

Pérez and Juan (2013) report that there are terraces in other areas of the Toluca Valley—for example, in the villages of Zacamulpa Tlalmimilolpan, San Isidro, La Concepción, and Xochicuautla in the Sierra de Las Cruces, whose altitude ranges from 2400 to 2800 m above sea level. In Ocoyoacac, on the southern slope of the archeological zone, there are terraces with rock walls and drainage canals, where the endemic vegetation consists of wild cherry (capulín), hawthorn (tejocote), and maguey (Fig. 10.7). South of the Toluca Valley, in Santa María Jajalpa, there are records of corn cultivation in bancal-type terraces, which are associated with ditches. Other sites with possible terraces are the hill of Tlacotepec, the northern slope of Nevado de Toluca, San Miguel Balderas, Santa María del Monte, and various hills in the State Park Sierra Morelos of Toluca. On the terraces of Santa María Jajalpa, family groups carry out work and maintenance, and, occasionally, they hire one or two workers for planting and harvesting (Medina 2010).

10.7Terraces in Oaxaca

Oaxaca is one of the places with the highest presence of terraced landscapes, according to Donkin’s research (1979) and recent studies, such as those by Pérez (2006, 2015, 2016) and Heredia et al. (2008). In the Mixteca Alta, Pérez Rodríguez describes terraces in Jazmín Hill (Nochistlán), while Donkin identifies terraces in Coixtlahuaca, Nochistlán, Huajuapan, Tamazulapan-Teotongo, Yolomecatl,

Fig. 10.7 Terraces of Ocoyoacac, Toluca Valley. Photo J. M. Pérez Sanchez

Huamelulpan, Achiutla, and Tilantongo-Monte Negro (Fig. 10.8). In Tamazulapan and Yolomecatl, Donkin found abandoned terraces with fractured walls and eroded surfaces, and, to the north of them, he found terraces, which were more conserved and functioning, irrigated by stone canals that flow into ravines. Other terraces have smaller stone canals measuring only a few meters long.

In the southern half of the Sierra de la Mixteca, terraces are predominant, from the North and East of Nochistlán to Coixtlahuaca. Northeast of Nochistlán; East of Yanuitlán; and West of Apaola, Santa Maria Apasco, and Coixtlahuaca, most of the terraces are cultivated, in contrast to the contour terraces which have been abandoned. In another region, the valley of Oaxaca-Tlacolula, stone terraces are in use, but some sloping terraces have not been cultivated and are abandoned.

From archeological studies of the Jazmín Hill landscape in the Mixteca Alta Central, Pérez (2006) identifies terraces of the lama-bordo type—a long series of terraces built in the drains and ravines that capture adjacent slope floors. These terraces spread from the hilltops to the bottoms of the valleys and can measure up to four kilometers in length. Despite the terraces being abandoned for a long time, they are still present and contribute to reduce soil erosion (Pérez 2015).

In some excavated sites on Jazmín Hill, terraces are associated with urban centers, and narrow terraces—one and two meters wide—have been found, which were modified over time and have served to “stabilize soils, create broader areas for living and working, serve as roads or as possible green areas […] to produce food,

Fig. 10.8 Map of Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca. Source Pérez et al. (2017)

for [recreation] and […] to create green barriers between neighbors” (Pérez 2015: 83). Currently, farmers using lama-bordo terraces cultivate maize (cajete and temporary; Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus sp.), pumpkin (Cucurbita sp.), and chilacayota (Cucurbita sp.) (Pérez 2006).

A recent study by Pérez (2016) shows the construction method for the terraces in Huamelulpan, Santa María del Rosario, and San Pedro Coxcaltepec:

[…] process in which green and dry brush is cut and piled in mountain drainages in a cross-channel direction to retain soil and sediments washed down from the hills during the rainy season. Called bordos, these brush barriers are lined in the front with stones found nearby to create a permeable retention wall. The stones are carefully fitted like a jigsaw puzzle, but they are not cut or bound with mortar. The placement of stones is progressive and begins after the brush bordos have already begun to collect sediment. Low, vertical rows of stone are positioned in front of the brush bordos to create the base of a terrace wall. As the rains continue to transport more sediment, additional stone rows are placed slightly upslope and at a tilt, increasing terrace height. (Pérez 2016: 22)

This type of terrace construction protects the crops and prevents the wall from collapsing from the strong water currents that seep into the walls. Family groups (four to eight people) are in charge of terrace maintenance, and, when the work is too much for one group, the cooperation of two or more family groups (gueza) is required. Due to the migration processes in which young people participate, families here must occasionally, as in the Tlaxcala region and the Toluca Valley, hire workers for planting or weeding (Pérez 2016).