In the early 1970s, Robert D. Drennan excavated the Middle Formative archaeological site Fábrica San José in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. In this volume he presents the results of the excavations and provides a chronology of Middle Formative ceramics. Appendix on carbonized plant remains by Richard I. Ford.
This volume, part of a series on the prehistory and human ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, focuses on Cerro Tilcajete, a secondary administrative center below Monte Albán, the capital of the prehispanic Zapotec state.
Balkansky’s full-coverage survey of the Sola Valley, 65 km southwest of Oaxaca City, documents 120 sites. By combining his data with that of 13 other regions of Oaxaca, he produces a model for Zapotec state expansion that integrates colonization, diplomacy, and military conquest.
This book, the first of a projected three, reports on excavations at Formative-period sites in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. The transition to the Formative in the relatively high-altitude study region is later than in choice regions for early agriculture elsewhere in Mesoamerica. From 900 BC, however, population growth and sociopolitical development were rapid. A central claim in the research presented here is that a macroregional perspective is essential for understanding the local Formative sequence. In this volume, excavations at three village sites (Amomoloc, Tetel, and Las Mesitas) and one modest regional center (La Laguna) are reported. Ceramics are described in detail. An innovative approach to the classification of figurines is presented, and a Formative chronology for the region is proposed based on seriation of refuse contexts and radiocarbon dates. The work concludes with a macroregional framework to be used in the analysis of subsistence, social relations, and political economy in forthcoming volumes 2 and 3.
This volume reports on the excavation of Guilá Naquitz cave in Oaxaca, a site that provides important evidence for the earliest plant domestication in the New World. Stratigraphic studies, examinations of artifactual and botanical remains, simulations, and an imaginative reconstruction make this a model project of processual archaeology.
This reference is devoted to the pre-Columbian archaeology of the Mesoamerican culture area, one of the six cradles of early civilization. It features in-depth articles on the major cultural areas of ancient Mexico and Central America; coverage of important sites, including the world-renowned discoveries as well as many lesser-known locations; articles on day-to-day life of ancient peoples in these regions; and several bandw regional and site maps and photographs. Entries are arranged alphabetically and cover introductory archaeological facts (flora, fauna, human growth and development, nonorganic resources), chronologies of various periods (Paleoindian, Archaic, Formative, Classic and Postclassic, and Colonial), cultural features, Maya, regional summaries, research methods and resources, ethnohistorical methods and sources, and scholars and research history. Edited by archaeologists Evans and Webster, both of whom are associated with Pennsylvania State University. c. Book News Inc.
San José Mogote, an early village and chiefly center in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, was excavated over a fifteen-year period. This volume reports in detail on every Early and Middle Formative house recovered, including a complete inventory of artifacts, features, plants, animal bones, and craft raw materials by house, with extensive piece-plotting of items on house floors and dooryards.
A case study in the divergent evolution of Mexico's Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations, this collection has become a basic resource in the literature of Mesoamerican prehistory and has been widely cited by scholars working on divergent evolution in other parts of the world. Originally published by Academic Press in 1983, a new introduction by the editors updates the volume in terms of discoveries made during the subsequent two decades.
In Part I of this volume, C. Earle Smith draws on years of survey in the Oaxaca Valley and archaeological discoveries of plant remains in the region to create a portrait of the valley’s original wild vegetation, previous to human settlement. In Part 2, Ellen Messer provides the results of her ethnobotanical study of the Zapotec residents of Mitla, a town in the southern highlands of the Valley of Oaxaca. Over the course of four years, she studied with local residents to learn the names and uses for wild plants and agricultural plants in the area.
In 1974, Michael E. Whalen excavated the Formative site of Tomaltepec, a village with houses, public buildings, and a large cemetery. Here he reports on the results of the excavation and provides a regional perspective on Formative period development in the Valley of Oaxaca.
