PANAMA

Humans were present in Panama during the late Pleistocene, but it is not until the end of the fifth millennium BC that evidence of sedentary behavior is apparent. The site of Cerro Mangote, a shell midden, was discovered in the 1950s on the Pacific coast of Panama (McGimsey 1956). The preponderance of shell in the excavated food residues led to the conclusion that shellfish constituted the dietary staple, and the early radiocarbon dates, ca. 5000 BC, led to the hypothesis that the path toward sedentism in Panama began with the establishment of a fishing economy. Although that hypothesis has not been completely negated, we now know that the subsistence economy in Panama at the time was much more complex than that revealed by the piles of shells excavated at Cerro Mangote.

The first clues came from re-excavations of Cerro Mangote in the 1970s, using excavation techniques that enhanced the recovery of food remains. The analysis of those remains indicated that the dietary breadth of the people who lived at the site was much greater than had been inferred from the earlier excavations. A range of terrestrial animals was hunted, including deer, iguanas, and various rodents. Sea birds, estuarine fish and fish from sandy beaches are also included in the faunal remains. Cerro Mangote was situated near the mouth of the Santa Maria River, but its inhabitants ranged widely in their quest for meat. In terms of its total dietary contribution, deer meat was as important as shellfish (Ranere and Hansell 1978).

A second clue came from studies of the palaeoenvironment through pollen and botanical remains in lake cores. These revealed that from the early to mid-Holocene there

Was an increased incidence of fire and a reduction in the size of the tropical forests in the foothills, even during periods when average annual rainfall was increasing. A series of small sites in the same region, revealed mainly by scatters of stone tools, indicated that human agency was responsible for the burning and clearing, probably done for economic purposes (Piperno, Bush and Colinvaux 1991).

The third and most unexpected evidence of the complexity of the food economy was the discovery of the presence of domesticated plants dating to the early to mid-Holocene. Like the environment of coastal Ecuador, the hot, humid conditions of Panama are not conducive to the preservation of plants unless they are thoroughly carbonized. The identification of the floral side of the ancient diets, therefore, has been achieved through the recovery and analysis of microscopic remains, mainly phytoliths and starch granules recovered from the soils of archaeological sites, from food processing tools, and from the teeth of human skeletons. Maize, manioc (Manihot esculenta), arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea L.), and yams (Dioscorea sp.) have been identified as domesticates that were being cultivated in Panama at the time that Cerro Mangote and other small-scale sites were occupied (Piperno 1994; Piperno and Pearsall 1998; Piperno, Ranere, and Hansell 2000).

Finally, chemistry of the collagen and apatite of bones from human burials excavated at Cerro Mangote has revealed that maize comprised a significant portion of the diet (Norr 1995). Cerro Mangote, then, does not attest to a small group of fisher folk settled along the Panamanian coast living off of shellfish, but provides a small window on a highly mobile society that was trekking between the inland hilly country and the littoral on a seasonal or periodic basis. Both sub-regions have diverse habitats and food resources. Crops, maize among them, were cultivated in swidden plots in the hills, where collecting and hunting activities were carried out as well. Along the littoral, shellfish, fish, crustaceans and seabirds were exploited on the sandy beaches, in the estuaries and in the mangroves.

The fact that Cerro Mangote was more than just a camping place where food was consumed is attested by the human burials. Like the Las Vegas people, the ancient Panamanians buried their dead in a special location, simultaneously honoring their ancestors, consecrating an important camping place and, through repeated rituals, emphasizing their continuing relationship with a specific landscape.

Although Cerro Mangote may represent the beginnings of a process that led to sedent-ism, the development was slower in Panama than in Ecuador, despite the comparably early presence of domesticated food plants. By 2400 BC, the site of Monagrillo was established. Its size is 1.4 ha making Monagrillo the largest site in Panama up to that time (Cooke and Ranere 1986, 1992). Situated in the same estuarine region as Cerro Mangote, Monagrillo seems to have served the same functional role as Cerro Mangote, i. e., a base camp for a highly mobile population exploiting a broad range of food resources, including agricultural products. A significant increase in the frequency of milling stones at Monagrillo and other sites, from 2400 BC onward, indicates a greater reliance on processing foods, probably for storage, and probably a greater reliance on maize. Monagrillo marks the first appearance of pottery in Panama, another indicator of food processing and storage and usually associated with a greater degree of sedentism. The pottery, however, was poorly fired, rarely decorated, and occurs at a much lower frequency than at the Valdivia sites in Ecuador or the San Jacinto sites in Colombia (to be discussed below) (Cooke 1995). The number of sites in the upland regions increased dramatically, all reflecting short-term occupations. Concurrently, environmental degradation accelerated, including almost complete deforestation. These changes may reflect an intensification of slash-and-burn agriculture to the point that fallow periods were so short that the forests were unable to regenerate (Piperno and Pearsall

1998). It was not until late in the first millennium BC, however, that settlements associated with the cultivation of the rich bottom lands are evident in the river valleys.

In Ecuador, where the cultivation of domesticated plants began at about the same time as in Panama, the transition to sedentary agricultural villages occurred about three millennia earlier. We can only speculate about why the alluvial bottom lands in Panama remained unexploited for so long. Perhaps the remains of the earliest settlements in the Panamanian valleys have been washed away by the rivers or buried by sedimentation of the flood plains. Also, the low firing temperatures of the Monagrillo pottery cause it to disintegrate more readily than the Valdivia pottery, making Monagrillo sites more difficult to discover. Judging strictly from the evidence, it seems that the population increases associated with Monagrillo and the intensification of agriculture did not lead directly to the establishment of permanent villages; however, until more research is focused on the possibility of coeval settlements in the valleys, we cannot exclude the possibility that such villages did exist.