A Late Monte Albán I Phase (300–100 B.C.) Palace in the Valley of Oaxaca

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles S. Spencer ◽  
Elsa M. Redmond
Keyword(s):  
Work Groups ◽  
First Century ◽  
Royal Palace ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
San Martín

AbstractA masonry and adobe construction called the “Area I Palace” was excavated by the authors at the site of El Palenque (SMT-llb), located near San Martín Tilcajete in the Ocotlán district of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. The Area I Palace covered 850 m2and consisted of nine interconnected structures, one of which was an elaborate residence that measured 16 m by 16 m and had eight rooms arranged around an interior patio. Several additional platforms and two paved courtyards were probably more ceremonial in nature. There is evidence that multiple work groups were involved in the construction of the palace. The associated ceramics and four radiocarbon samples indicate that the palace was built at the beginning of the Late Monte Albán I phase (300–100 B.C.) and abandoned in the first century B.C. It is argued that the Area I Palace is one of earliest known examples of a Zapotec quihuitào or royal palace.

Rituals of Sanctification and the Development of Standardized Temples in Oaxaca, Mexico

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa M. Redmond ◽  
Charles S. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Hawaiian Islands ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Documented Case ◽  
Early State ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Political Unification ◽  
San Martín

Archaeological investigations at three Formative period sites near San Martín Tilcajete in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, have recovered a sequence of temples. The temples span the period when the Zapotec state emerged with its capital at Monte Albán during the Late Monte Albán I phase (300–100 bc), coinciding with Monte Albán's conquest of neighbouring regions. Zapotec rituals of sanctification practised in pre-state times may have been affected by Monte Albán's military expansionism. The historically documented case of military expansion and political unification of the Hawaiian islands by the paramount, Kamehameha, shows similarities in the adoption of ideology and religious institutions. Among them are the establishment of standardized temples and the ascendance of a militaristic ideology and ritual order attuned to the early state rulers' coercive authority.

Disembedded Capitals Reconsidered

1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Santley
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Craft Specialization ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Site Location ◽  
Labor Input ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca

The concept of a disembedded capital is viewed as a specious construct. The logical foundations of disembeddedness of political authority from local commerical hierarchies are viewed as largely untenable, at least in prehispanic Mesoamerica, and the close parallels between Monte Albán and Teotihuacán in terms of general site location, access to prime agricultural land, level of craft specialization required to meet local needs, and local market patterns suggest that both sites had similar roles with respect to local central-place support hierarchies. An alternative evolutionary model is then offered, one which relates developments manifest in the Basin of Mexico and in the Valley of Oaxaca to an economic and political strategy which seeks to minimize labor input and amount of systemic risk.

The Isthmus and the Valley of Oaxaca: Questions about Zapotec Imperialism in Formative Period Mesoamerica

1990 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Zeitlin
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
Late Formative ◽  
Isthmus Of Tehuantepec ◽  
Outlying Regions

Recent archaeological and epigraphic research suggests the existence of what could be Mesoamerica's first conquest state, centered at Monte Albán, the major Late Formative period Zapotec site in the Valley of Oaxaca. This paper explores the idea of an early Zapotec empire by examining evidence from one of Monte Albán's outlying regions, the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The study is framed in terms of three hypothetical models of political and economic interaction, any one or combination of which could conceivably account for ancient Zapotec relationships with the southern Isthmus and its other hinterland regions.

scholarly journals Ancient palace complex (300–100 BC) discovered in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (15) ◽  
pp. 3805-3814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa M. Redmond ◽  
Charles S. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The North ◽  
North Side ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Late Formative ◽  
Organizational Features ◽  
State Emergence

Recently completed excavations at the site of El Palenque in Mexico’s Valley of Oaxaca have recovered the well-preserved remains of a palace complex dated by associated radiocarbon samples and ceramics to the Late Formative period or Late Monte Albán I phase (300–100 BC), the period of archaic state emergence in the region. The El Palenque palace exhibits certain architectural and organizational features similar to the royal palaces of much later Mesoamerican states described by Colonial-period sources. The excavation data document a multifunctional palace complex covering a maximum estimated area of 2,790 m2 on the north side of the site’s plaza and consisting of both governmental and residential components. The data indicate that the palace complex was designed and built as a single construction. The palace complex at El Palenque is the oldest multifunctional palace excavated thus far in the Valley of Oaxaca.

Hierarchy and Urbanism in Pre-Columbian Central Mexico

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Storey ◽  
Lourdes Márquez Morfín ◽  
Luis Fernando Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Odds Ratio ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Biological Stress ◽  
Health Patterns ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Osteological Paradox ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Intervening Factors

The authors reconstruct biological stress patterns in pre-Hispanic urban settings at Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico (ca. 150 B.C.–650 A.D.) and at Monte Alban in the Valley of Oaxaca (ca. 100 B.C.–A.D. 500). Archaeologically identified rank (via burial location, mortuary elaboration, and settlement pattern data) was reduced into two broad categories—high and low social status. Odds ratio analyses revealed no difference in overall health patterns by status or sex. In other comparisons, higher status individuals appear to have been buffered against various forms of stress. Overall, Storey and coauthors demonstrate potential expressions of “osteological paradox” outcomes, in that social status and health in urban societies is a complex affair: intervening factors (population density, nutrition, and hygiene) structured by an urban setting can crosscut social strata and exert more influence on health than social organization alone.

A Diachronic Perspective on the Prehispanic Ceramic Tradition of the Valley of Oaxaca

2018 ◽  
pp. 302-334
Author(s):  
Gary M. Feinman
Keyword(s):  
Pottery Production ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Ceramic Typology

For the prehispanic Valley of Oaxaca (Mexico), including Monte Albán and other sites, the 1967 volume by Alfonso Caso, Ignacio Bernal, and Jorge Acosta has long served as the key guide and reference for ceramic typology and chronology. Although this classic archaeological tome remains the essential source, nevertheless five decades of fieldwork and analysis has led to important temporal expansions in the pottery record as well as refinements, new observations on pottery production, and the extension of relevant research issues, which all enhance the original schema of Caso and his colleagues. This chapter synthesizes and cites many of these new ceramic developments as a basis to take stock of what we have learned during the intervening years and to establish a foundation to investigate shifts in the region’s ceramic complex over three prehispanic millennia.

At the Margins of the Monte Alban State: Settlement Patterns in the Ejutla Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico

1990 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Feinman ◽  
Linda M. Nicholas
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Small Region ◽  
Settlement Pattern ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Over Time

A recent systematic archaeological survey in the Ejutla Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico, enables us to examine long-term settlement-pattern changes in this small region and its shifting Prehispanic relation with the larger, adjacent Valley of Oaxaca. Throughout the sequence, Ejutla was settled less densely than Oaxaca, though the degree of difference varied through time. Ejutla was not a simple microcosm of Oaxaca; rather the former region shifted from a sparsely inhabited frontier to a more-dependent periphery that maintained different degrees of autonomy over time. Through a multiscalar examination of this contiguous area larger than a single valley, new perspectives are gained concerning political and economic relations and processes at the macroregional scale for the southern highlands of ancient Mesoamerica.

Epigraphy and Empire: Reassessing Textual Evidence for Formative Zapotec Imperialism

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas P. Carter
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Ceramic Phase ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca

The walls of Structure J at the Zapotec centre of Monte Albán incorporate monuments, probably carved during the Pe ceramic phase (300–100 bc), bearing distinctively formatted hieroglyphic inscriptions. Alfonso Caso suggested that hieroglyphic compounds on those monuments name regions conquered by Monte Albán. Many scholars accept an elaboration by Joyce Marcus on this proposal—that some of those compounds denote identifiable places outside the Valley of Oaxaca—and see the inscriptions as evidence for the territorial extent of an expansionist, Monte Albán-centred empire in the Late to Terminal Formative periods (300 bc–ad 200). This paper argues that Marcus’ proposed decipherments are implausible because they are structurally inconsistent with one another and with Zapotec scribal conventions for recording toponyms in other inscriptions. The Structure J texts remain undeciphered. Therefore they cannot now serve as evidence for the nature and reach of the Monte Albán polity, and generalizations about state formation that relied on Marcus’ readings need to be reconsidered.

The Impact of Raiding on Settlement Patterns in the Northern Valley of Oaxaca: An Approach Using Decision Trees

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Preliminary Description ◽  
Potential Use

A growing body of data indicates that armed conflict played a role in the creation of complex societies such as chiefdoms and states (Wright 1984; Spencer 1998). For example, according to Wright (1977:382), "most ethnographically reported chiefdoms seem to be involved in constant warfare," and large chiefdoms grew by absorbing their weaker neighbors. Marcus and Flannery suggest that warfare was often used to create a state out of rival chiefdoms: . . . We do not believe that a chiefdom simply turns into a state. We believe that states arise when one member of a group of chiefdoms begins to take over its neighbors, eventually turning them into subject provinces of a much larger polity. (Marcus and Flannery 1996:157) . . . As an example of this process, the authors cite Kamehameha's creation of a Hawaiian state out of five to seven rival chiefdoms between 1782 and 1810. They suggest that something similar happened in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, when a chiefdom in the Etla region seized the defensible mountain top of Monte Albán and began systematically subduing rival chiefdoms in the southern and eastern parts of the valley. If this is the case, there should be a point in the sequence when considerations of defense began to influence settlement choice. In this chapter, our goal is to provide a preliminary description of our efforts in testing the suitability of this model to the Oaxacan case, and its potential use as the basis for a more general model of state formation. In order to test this hypothesis we need some way to operationalize it in terms of the archaeological record in the Valley of Oaxaca. The key phases of the model can be expressed as follows: 1. An early period in which raiding was minimal, and variables relevant to successful agriculture predominate in settlement choices. 2. A gradual rise in friction between social groups prior to state formation. This friction can be represented by archaeological evidence for raiding, the principle form of warfare in tribes and chiefdoms.

Pacific Coastal Laguna Zope

1993 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Zeitlin
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Location ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
Monte Alban ◽  
Political Unrest ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Elite Status ◽  
Isthmus Of Tehuantepec

AbstractRecent excavations at Laguna Zope, on the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, provide interesting insights into the nature of a regional center in the hinterlands of Monte Albán. The excavation focused on an elite-status area of the site dating to the Terminal Formative period, a time when the Monte Albán polity in the highland Valley of Oaxaca was thought to have embarked on an imperialist campaign to turn former exchange partners into tribute-paying subjects. In contrast to the evidence from some other regions of Oaxaca, there was little to suggest that Laguna Zope was ever subjugated. On the contrary, exchange between Pacific coastal Laguna Zope and Monte Albán seems to have flourished during the Terminal Formative despite the political unrest that apparently interfered with commerce elsewhere in Oaxaca. In maintaining its political independence and resilience as a center for long-distance exchange during this troubled period, Laguna Zope may have capitalized on its relative distance from the Valley of Oaxaca and on a geographic location that afforded it strategic access to other markets.

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