Tehuacán Valley

[tey-wah-kahn, -wuh-kan]

noun

1. a desert valley site in Puebla, Mexico, where aridity has preserved the vegetable remains of communities from 9000 b.c. to historic times, thus documenting the transition from hunting and gathering to the largely agricultural subsistence of the full Neolithic phase (1500–900 b.c.).

Example Sentences

In the 1960s Richard S. MacNeish, of Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, led an archaeological team that meticulously combed Puebla’s Tehuacan Valley for signs of early agriculture.

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Like the Peruvian littoral, the Tehuacan Valley lies in a double rain shadow, sandwiched between two mountain ranges.

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Ultimately, MacNeish’s team found 23,607 whole or partial maize cobs in five caves in the Tehuacan Valley.

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Mangelsdorf’s side found itself on the defensive; litis had gleefully pointed out that the “wild maize” cobs from the Tehuacan Valley were identical to those of an unusual, fully domesticated variety of popcorn from Argentina.

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The sum of these questions led to full-fledged agriculture—not just in the Tehuacan Valley, but in many places in southern Mexico.

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