Reframing the Foundation of Monte Albán (Gary M. Feinman, Richard E. Blanton, Linda M. Nicholas, and Stephen A. Kowalewski, 2022) (original) (raw)
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The History of Monte Alban, Oaxaca, Mexico A Summary for the Inquisitive Visitor
2023
Monte Alban is considered: • The first organized State or Imperial power in Mesoamerica. • The longest occupied urban center in Mesoamerica; 1,600 years. Why did this happen in Monte Alban? How did this first organized State become established? How did it flourish? How did it endure so long? Why did it wither away? How did Monte Alban relate to other sites in archaeological Oaxaca, and other sites in Mesoamerica? This study will seek to provide clear and relatively simple answers to these questions for the inquisitive visitor to Monte Alban. This study seeks to explain how humans began to organize into villages in Mexico and settled into Oaxaca, why the stones and buildings of Monte Alban got there, what happened there, and summarizes how the history of Monte Alban relates to other archaeological sites that can be visited in Oaxaca, and elsewhere in Mexico.
POLITICAL STRATEGIES AND THE URBAN SPACES THAT REFLECT THEM IN FORMATIVE-PERIOD CERRO JAZMÍN, OAXACA
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2019
Based on stratigraphic excavation data and associated radiocarbon dates we argue that the pre-Hispanic city of Cerro Jazmín, in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, underwent a period of political change between the Late Formative (300 b.c.-a.d. 50) and the Terminal Formative periods (a.d. 50-300). This shift is reflected in the city's layout and in the timing of construction and use of two different monumental sectors. During the city's Late Formative occupation, we found evidence of more exclusionary feasting activity taking place in a secluded monumental sector called the Sunken Courtyards near the hilltop. In the Terminal Formative, however, monumental construction expanded in the more accessible Tres Cerritos sector where larger and accessible public areas were the focus of activity. We argue that changes in the city's layout, along with the differing patterns of feasting, suggest that the city's leaders went from a more exclusionary form of government to a more collective political strategy during the Terminal Formative period. Despite of these efforts monumental construction largely stopped and the city's population declined by the start of the Classic period (a.d. 300).
The purpose of this thesis is to study the building sequence of the north central part of the acropolis of Río Viejo, a site on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. In particular, I focus on two construction phases of a public building dated to the late Terminal Formative labeled Structure 8-sub 1 and Structure 8. Contextualizing these edifices within the construction program that erected Río Viejo’s acropolis affords the opportunity to assess how they were entangled in the social context of the first regional polity in the area. To this end, I discuss three themes: 1) how the construction of Structure 8-sub 1 and Structure 8 was the result of collective works that actively created and redefined the community; 2) The formation of restricted areas as an elite strategy to try to appropriate formerly communal space; 3) the diversity of termination rituals that “closed” the acropolis. I conclude by arguing that public architecture at Río Viejo reflected the social innovations and tensions during the late Terminal Formative between traditional local communities and an emerging exclusionary regional authority.