A03_P18

Archaeological sandals from the Balsas Basin, Mexico

Solis C¹, Martínez Carrillo M², Rodríguez Ceja M¹,  Xelhuantzi López M³, Alvarado J³, Sánchez Martínez F⁴

¹Instituto de Física. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México., Mexico City, Mexico, ²Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México., Mexico City, México, ³Subdirección de Laboratorios y Apoyo Académico, INAH., Mexico City, México, ⁴Centro INAH Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico, ⁵Licenciatura en Ciencia Forense, Facultad de Medicina, UNAM., Mexico City, México

The Balsas basin is a critical geographic region for studying the settlement and development of ancient human populations in Mexico. Located in the central region of Mesoamerica, the Balsas River basin offered numerous rock shelters that provided safe shelter, water, and stable climatic conditions to hunter-gatherer groups that, according to archaeological evidence, would have settled 4,000 years B.P.

In the Balsas Basin caves, professional searchers of archaeological pieces collected various objects, including vegetable fiber sandals (huaraches). The exact place of origin and context from which the pieces were extracted are unknown.

In 1999 the collection of fifty huaraches was recovered by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which constitutes one of the largest collections of pre-Hispanic huaraches recorded.

The first study of the pieces consisted of the macroscopic analysis of each of the huaraches, considering the degree of conservation, structure, morphology, size, and particular characteristics. Then, the botanical identification of the vegetable fibers used to manufacture the pieces was carried out to determine the origin of the plants used for its manufacture. Because there are pieces of different sizes and in different conservation conditions, the possible use of the pieces was determined.

This work presents the radiocarbon-AMS dating of the vegetable fibers of several huaraches to provide information that allows them to be in time within the Balsas Basin area. In the complementary analyses, we sought to identify the plants by stable isotope analysis and to confirm it with genetic analysis.