Oaxaca - San Jose

  General Description   The San José phase (1150-850 BCE), named for a settlement located in the Etla subregion of the Valley of Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, and the Guadalupe phase (850-700 BCE), are combined here because of the difficulty of differentiating between the material culture of the two phases. ^[1] Both phases were characterized by substantial growth at the settlement of San José Mogote, both in terms of population and the construction of non-residential public buildings. ^[1] Other sites remained relatively small during this period and were located on more productive land in the low piedmont and alluvial zones. ^[1]
Population and political organization
The degree of social stratification during the San José and Guadalupe phases is a matter of scholarly debate. Archaeologists Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery identify the emergence of a chiefdom, which would have directed the construction of ceremonial and public spaces. ^[2] However, Richard Blanton et al. ^[3] have argued for a more ’corporate form of governance’, in which ’members of prominent households’ collectively contributed to political decision-making and status distinctions were achieved rather than inherited. ^[4] While there is no evidence for distinct social classes, burial goods and a range of larger residences suggest that some individuals were more highly ranked within the community than others. ^{[5] [6]} Based on the cranial deformation of some individuals, it has also been argued that there may be evidence for hereditary social rank, although these individuals were not buried with rich goods and so cannot be directly linked with chiefly status within the community. It is possible that although status was mostly determined based on achievements during a person’s lifetime, higher status would be more likely for people with a certain parentage. ^[7] The remains of limestone and travertine building materials from a source 5 kilometres from San José Mogote suggest that the occupants of San José Mogote were beginning to extend their authority to surrounding settlements.
It has been estimated that there were over 1000 people living at San José Mogote during this period. ^[8] The entire valley had an estimated population of around 2000 people divided among 40 communities in the San José phase (1150-850 BCE) and 2000-2500 persons during the Guadalupe phase (850-700 BCE), but these were not integrated into a single polity at this time. ^[9]

[1]: (Feinman et al. 1985, 340) Gary M. Feinman, Stephen A. Kowalewski, Laura Finsten, Richard E. Blanton and Linda Nicholas. 1985. ’Long-term Demographic Change: A Perspective from the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico’. Journal of Field Archaeology 12 (3): 333-62.

[2]: (Marcus and Flannery 1996, 93-110) Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery. 1996. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson.

[3]: (Blanton et al. 1999, 36-42) Richard E. Blanton, Gary M. Feinman, Stephen A. Kowalewski and Linda M. Nicholas. 1999. Ancient Oaxaca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[4]: (Joyce 2009, 111) Arthur A. Joyce. 2009. Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos: Ancient Peoples of Southern Mexico. Malden, MA: Wiley‐Blackwell.

[5]: (Kowalewski, Fisch and Flannery 1983, 50-53) Stephen Kowalewski, Eva Fisch and Kent V. Flannery. 1983. ’San José and Guadalupe Settlement Patterns in the Valley of Oaxaca’, in The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, edited by Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, 50-53. New York: Academic Press.

[6]: (Flannery and Marcus 1983, 53-55) Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus. 1983. ’The Growth of Site Hierarchies in the Valley of Oaxaca: Part I’, in The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, edited by Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, 53-64. New York: Academic Press.

[7]: (Marcus and Flannery 1996, 106) Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery. 1996. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson.

[8]: (Flannery and Marcus 2005, 11) Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus. 2005. Excavations at San José Mogote 1: The Household Archaeology. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.

[9]: (Marcus and Flannery 1996, 106, 112) Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery. 1996. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson.