Terracing in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico: Cycles of Resilience of an Ancient Land-Use Strategy

Abstract

Terracing is an important and ubiquitous landscape feature in the Mixteca Alta region of southern Mexico. It is a land-management strategy that has been in use for millennia, perhaps starting around 300 B.C.E. We discuss terracing as an adaptive and resilient strategy of food production and land management that continues to be culturally significant to modern-day farmers. Through the integration of archaeological, geomorphological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data we document the history of terracing and discuss how Mixtec communities and terraces have responded to natural and cultural perturbations through millennia. We find that different stages in the history of terracing show parallels with the adaptive cycles of a resilient system.