MIDDLE AMERICAN FOLK SOIL TAXONOMY∗

∗This paper is based in part upon research supported by the National Science Foundation Grant BNS 7725659 to Barbara J. Williams. We gratefully acknowledge the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Graduate College of the National School of Agriculture, Chapingo, Mexico, for facilitating field work, especially Donald Winkelmann, Heliodoro Díaz Cisneros, Laura Helgera, and Lucila Gómez Sahagún. We thank Heriberto E. Cuanalo de la Cerda, Efraím Hernández X., and H. R. Harvey for fruitful discussions during the course of research, Cecil H. Brown and William Denevan for reviewing and providing helpful comments on the manuscript, and Kenneth Winter for statistical analyses.

ABSTRACT

Middle American folk soil taxonomies exhibit structures similar to those of folk biological taxonomies, but nomenclature patterns are quite unlike those found in other domains. Although many of the properties that differentiate technical soil taxa are recognized also in folk taxonomies, there is a low level of correspondence between technical and folk taxa because of differences in perception of the classificatory unit. To Spanish-speaking campesinos, soil individuals are two- rather than three-dimensional. Nevertheless, field studies indicate that folk taxa represent scientifically measurable and statistically valid discontinuities in the surface soil.

Notes

∗This paper is based in part upon research supported by the National Science Foundation Grant BNS 7725659 to Barbara J. Williams. We gratefully acknowledge the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Graduate College of the National School of Agriculture, Chapingo, Mexico, for facilitating field work, especially Donald Winkelmann, Heliodoro Díaz Cisneros, Laura Helgera, and Lucila Gómez Sahagún. We thank Heriberto E. Cuanalo de la Cerda, Efraím Hernández X., and H. R. Harvey for fruitful discussions during the course of research, Cecil H. Brown and William Denevan for reviewing and providing helpful comments on the manuscript, and Kenneth Winter for statistical analyses.