In 2022, Amber VanDerwarker, Lourdes Budar, Gibrann Becerra, and I initiated a project in the Tlalixcoyan Basin to examine the rise and fall of the settlements responsible for transforming a rather swampy region of Veracruz into a highly productive agricultural niche through extensive raised (drained) fields. Prior to survey, Stoner created a comprehensive remote sensing database of all mounds, raised fields, paleochannels, and depressions that functioned as pools/reservoirs. Survey targeted a sample of those contexts for surface collections that could be dated according to a ceramic typology established for the region. Barbara Stark led the ceramic analysis on the project. 

In 2024, we returned to the region to excavate cored in mounds, raised fields, and residential ponds to unravel the rise and fall of settlement in the region, the process of building mounds and simultaneously creating depressions that acted as residential ponds that would have been a source of not only water for daily use, but of aquatic food species (snails, fish, frogs) that undoubtedly provided food for the household. VanDerwarker will conduct microbotanical analysis of soils taken from all these contexts to identify the types of plant foods eaten in the region.