Early Monte Alban I

  General Description   The Monte Albán Early I phase runs from 500 to 300 BCE. The settlement at Monte Albán was founded at the beginning of this period and located in what was previously a ’buffer zone’ between the three competing chiefdoms in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Rosario phase. It was built on a hill 400 metres above the valley floor, ^[1] with limited access to farmland and water, ^[2] which suggests other reasons for the founding of the settlement. One suggestion is that the location was intentionally chosen in the ’neutral’ zone between the three competing chiefdoms as a political manoeuvre. ^[3]
Population and political organization
The establishment of a confederation (although not yet a state) at the beginning of this period is suggested by the simultaneous abandonment of settlements and founding of Monte Albán, which itself was internally divided into different groupings of people (as shown by distinct pottery assemblages). ^[3]
Although there is evidence for the presence of inherited social status and mortuary and residential elaboration during this period, the method of political organization is still unclear. ^[4] Archaeologist Arthur Joyce outlines possible power dynamics: ’The authority of the nobility may have been simultaneously couched in, but in dynamic tension with, traditional forms of authority that were more communal, egalitarian, and locally based.’ ^[4]
There is a large range of population estimates for the valley during this period, from roughly 8000 to 15,000. ^{[5] [6]} Monte Albán was the largest settlement in the Valley of Oaxaca during this period, although it was founded in a previously unoccupied location. The settlement began with around 2,000 people ^[5] and increased to over 5,000 towards the end of this period. ^[7] Much of the population of the valley moved to the newly founded settlement, which left sites such as San José Mogote abandoned. ^[8] Monte Albán became the largest settlement by far (324 ha in size towards the end of this period), but there were two other main settlements in the other arms of the valley (Yegüih and San Martin Tilcajete, the latter covering 52.8 ha by the end of the period). ^[8]

[1]: (Flannery and Marcus 1976, 375) Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus. 1976. ’Formative Oaxaca and the Zapotec Cosmos’. American Scientist 64 (4): 374-83.

[2]: (Marcus and Flannery 1983, 81) Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery. 1983. ’The Origins of the State in Oaxaca: Editors’ Introduction’, in The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, edited by Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery, 79-83. New York: Academic Press.

[3]: (Blanton 1983, 84) Richard E. Blanton. 1983. ’The Founding of Monte Albán’, in The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, edited by Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery, 83-87. New York: Academic Press.

[4]: (Joyce 2009, 141-42) Arthur A. Joyce. 2009. Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos: Ancient Peoples of Southern Mexico. Malden, MA: Wiley‐Blackwell.

[5]: (Flannery and Marcus 2003, 11804) Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus. 2003. ’The Origin of War: New C-14 Dates from Ancient Mexico’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100 (20): 11801-05.

[6]: (Feinman et al. 1985, 346) 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.

[7]: (Marcus and Flannery 1996, 139) Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery. 1996. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson.

[8]: (Spencer and Redmond 2004, 176) Charles S. Spencer and Elsa M. Redmond. 2004. ’Primary State Formation in Mesoamerica’. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 173-99.