Which large pre-Columbian archaeological site is the major Zapotec regional center?
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El Palmillo El Palmillo is a Mesoamerican Classic Period archaeological site located in the Valley of Oaxaca, associated with the pre-Columbian Zapotec civilization which was centered in the valley and the surrounding highlands of the present-day state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Located on a hilltop in the eastern Tlacolula arm of the valley, El Palmillo is just to the south of the pre-Columbian site of Mitla and to the east of the major Zapotec regional center, Monte Albán.
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Monte Albán Monte Albán, likely originally called Danipaguache (Zapotec for sacred mountain of life), is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (17.043° N, 96.767°W). The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the central section of the Valley of Oaxaca where the latter's northern Etla, eastern Tlacolula, and southern Zimatlán & Ocotlán (or Valle Grande) branches meet. The present-day state capital Oaxaca City is located approximately 9 km east of Monte Albán.
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Central Acropolis The Central Acropolis of the ancient Maya city of Tikal is an architectural complex located immediately to the south of the Great Plaza. Tikal is one of the most important archaeological sites of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization and is located in the Petén Department of northern Guatemala. The complex served dual administrative and residential purposes. The Central Acropolis was first established in the Late Preclassic period (c. 350 BC – 250 AD) of Mesoamerican chronology, and it remained in use until approximately 950 AD.
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San José Mogote San José Mogote is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Zapotec, a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in the region of what is now the Mexican state of Oaxaca. A forerunner to the better-known Zapotec site of Monte Albán, San José Mogote was the largest and most important settlement in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Early and Middle Formative periods (ca. 1500-500 BCE) of Mesoamerican cultural development.
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Arroyo de Piedra Arroyo de Piedra is a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site in Guatemala located approximately 2-3 km east/northeast of Dos Pilas and 3 km west of Tamarindito. The site dates to the middle half of the Classic period. While initially a center of some regional importance, with the rise of Dos Pilas, Arroyo de Piedra was subsumed as a secondary center within the Petexbatun region.
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Mixtec Group The Mixtec Group is the designation given by scholars to a number of mostly pre-Columbian documents from the Mixtec people of the state of Oaxaca in the southern part of the Republic of Mexico. They are distinguished by their principally historical and geographical content.
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Cerro Quiac Cerro Quiac (] ) (K'iaq [kˀiˈaq] and K'iaqb'al [kˀiaqˈɓal] in the K'iche language) is a small Maya archaeological site located at an altitude of 2635 m , overlooking the Plains of Urbina in the Guatemalan Highlands. When investigated in 1970 it had five stone sculptures, by 1977 only four were left. The sculptures included figures and geometric decoration. The site is still used for contemporary Maya rituals. Cerro Quiac is located in the northeast of the municipality of Cantel, within the boundaries of the hamlet of Chirijquiac.
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Toniná Tonina (or Toniná in Spanish orthography) is a pre-Columbian archaeological site and ruined city of the Maya civilization located in what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas, some 13 km (8.1 mi) east of the town of Ocosingo.
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Zazacatla Zazacatla is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of Mesoamerica's central Mexican plateau region, dating to the mid-Formative period of Mesoamerican chronology. The site was first excavated in 2006 underneath a modern commercial and housing development site, some 13 km (8.1mi) south of Cuernavaca, capital of the Mexican state of Morelos, and 40 km (25mi) south of Mexico City. Initial investigations by archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reported finding evidence of Olmec cultural influences at the site, the first such known for the western Morelos region.
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San Andrés (Mesoamerican site) San Andrés is an Olmec archaeological site in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Located 5 km (3 miles) northeast of the Olmec ceremonial center of La Venta in the Grijalva river delta section of the Tabasco Coastal Plain, San Andrés is considered one of its elite satellite communities, with evidence of elite residences and other elite activities. Several important archaeological finds have been made at San Andrés, including the oldest evidence of the domesticated sunflower, insight into Olmec feasting rituals, didactic miniatures, and possible evidence of an Olmec writing system.
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Moche culture The Moche civilization (alternatively, the Mochica culture or the Early, Pre- or Proto-Chimú) flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Trujillo, Peru from about 100 to 700 AD during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state. Rather, they were likely a group of autonomous polities that shared a common elite culture, as seen in the rich iconography and monumental architecture that survives today.
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Bonampak Bonampak (known anciently as "Ak'e" or, in its immediate area as "Usiij Witz", 'Vulture Hill') is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The site is approximately 30 km south of the larger site of Yaxchilan, under which Bonampak was a dependency, and the border with Guatemala. While the site is not overly impressive in terms of spatial or architectural size (American archaeologist, epigrapher, and Mayanist scholar Sylvanus Morley once stated that Bonampak was fourth-rate in terms of size and political importance), it is well known for the murals located within the three roomed Structure 1 ("The Temple of the Murals)". The construction of the site’s structures dates to the Late Classic period (c. AD 580 to 800). In addition to being amongst the most well-preserved Maya murals, the Bonampak murals are noteworthy for debunking early assumptions that the Maya were a peaceful culture of mystics (a position long-held and argued for by the well-known early Mesoamerican archaeologist, ethnohistorian and epigrapher from the Carnegie Institute of Washington, Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson), as the murals clearly depict war and human sacrifice.
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Xochitecatl Xochitecatl ] is a pre-Columbian archaeological site located in the Mexican State of Tlaxcala, 18 km southwest of Tlaxcala city. The major architecture dates to the Middle Preclassic Period (1000–400 BC) but occupation continued, with one major interruption, until the Late Classic, when the site was abandoned, although there is evidence of ritual activity dating to the Postclassic and Colonial Periods. The ruins cover an area of 12 hectares on top of a volcanic dome.
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Calakmul Calakmul ( ; also Kalakmul and other less frequent variants) is a Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Campeche, deep in the jungles of the greater Petén Basin region. It is 35 km from the Guatemalan border. Calakmul was one of the largest and most powerful ancient cities ever uncovered in the Maya lowlands.
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Chacmultun Chacmultun is an ancient Maya site in Mexico's Yucatan Province that dates to the late Preclassic period. "Chacmultun" means "mounds of red stone" in the Maya language, the site got this name from the distinct red color of the buildings there. It is located 126 km from Mérida.
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Coxcatlan Cave Coxcatlan Cave is a Mesoamerican archaeological site in the Tehuacán Valley of Puebla, Mexico. It was discovered by Richard MacNeish in the 1960s during a survey of the Tehuacán Valley. It was the initial appearance of three domesticated plants in the Tehuacan Valley (Puebla, Mexico) and allowed an evaluation to be done again of the overall temporal context of the plant domestication in Mexico. In addition to plants, Coxcatlan Cave also provided nearly 75 percent of the classified stone tools from excavation.
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Huehueteotl Huehueteotl ; ] is an aged Mesoamerican deity figuring in the pantheons of pre-Columbian cultures, particularly in Aztec mythology and others of the Central Mexico region. The spellings Huehuetéotl and Ueueteotl are also used. Although known mostly in the cultures of that region, images and iconography depicting Huehueteotl have been found at other archaeological sites across Mesoamerica, such as in the Gulf region, western Mexico, Protoclassic-era sites in the Guatemalan highlands such as Kaminaljuyú and Late-Postclassic sites on the northern Yucatán Peninsula (Miller and Taube, 1993:189). The name Huehueteotl stems from Nahuatl "huēhueh" ] ("old") and "teōtl" ] ("god"). It seems to connect the Old God to certain Mayan deities called "Mam" ("Grandfather").
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Toltec The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology (ca. 900–1168 CE). The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from "Tōllān" ] (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization; in the Nahuatl language the word "Tōltēcatl" ] (singular) or "Tōltēcah" ] (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of the Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers and their exploits.
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Monte Negro, Oaxaca Monte Negro is a mountain top site that at existed around 200 BC and at one time consisted of an average of 2,900 people. Its use was short lived due to a lack of rural sites (only terracing throughout the mountain). Some of the architecture of Monte Negro is very distinct using columns and structures no higher than six meters. The site is rich with ceramics and designs imported from the nearby Monte Alban.
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Zapotec languages The Zapotec ( ) languages are a group of closely related indigenous Mesoamerican languages that constitute a main branch of the Oto-Manguean language family and which is spoken by the Zapotec people from the southwestern-central highlands of Mexico. The 2010 Mexican census reports 425,000 speakers, with the majority inhabiting the state of Oaxaca. Zapotec-speaking communities are also found in the neighboring states of Puebla, Veracruz, and Guerrero. Labor migration has also brought a number of native Zapotec-speakers to the United States, particularly in California and Bridgeton, New Jersey. Most Zapotec speaking communities are highly bilingual in Spanish.
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Lachiguiri Zapotec Lachiguiri Zapotec (Northwestern Tehuantepec Zapotec, "Zapoteco de Santiago Lachiguiri") is a Zapotecan language of the isthmus of Mexico.
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Metallurgy in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica The emergence of metallurgy in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica occurred relatively late in the region's history, with distinctive works of metal apparent in West Mexico by roughly AD 800, and perhaps as early as AD 600. Metallurgical techniques likely diffused northward from regions in Central or South America via maritime trade routes; recipients of these metallurgical technologies apparently exploited a wide range of material, including alloys of copper-silver, copper-arsenic, copper-tin and copper-arsenic-tin.