Oaxaca Valley

A highland region in southern Mexico formed by several fertile valleys around present-day Oaxaca City. It became a major center of early agriculture, urban life, and Zapotec civilization.

Monte Albán: A major Zapotec city founded on a mountain ridge overlooking the Oaxaca Valley. Its monumental center dominated the valley’s political landscape for centuries.
Oaxaca Valley sequence: An archaeological chronology tracing settlement and political change in the Oaxaca Valley from early villages to states. It organizes the region’s long transition from farming villages to urban centers.
Guilá Naquitz cave: An archaeological cave in Oaxaca containing evidence of early plant use and domestication. Its remains illuminate the deep agricultural history of the wider Oaxaca region.
Zapotecs: An Indigenous people of Oaxaca with a long history and a living language and cultural tradition. Zapotec communities built the valley’s largest ancient cities and remain central to its identity.
San José Mogote: An early village and political center in the Oaxaca Valley, occupied from the Middle Formative period. Its growth documents early settlement hierarchy before Monte Albán rose.
Mesoamerican chronology: The periodization of ancient Mesoamerican history from early settlement through the Spanish conquest. Its periods place the valley’s archaeological sequence in a wider regional timeline.
Domestication of maize: The process by which people transformed wild teosinte into cultivated maize in Mesoamerica. Maize domestication underpinned the valley’s later agricultural communities.
Mixtecs: An Indigenous people of Oaxaca and neighboring regions with a rich pre-Hispanic and continuing cultural history. Mixtec communities influenced valley politics and occupied sites including Mitla.
Yagul: A pre-Hispanic city in the eastern Oaxaca Valley, known for its palace, ballcourt, and fortified hilltop. Its later prominence reveals how valley power shifted after Monte Albán declined.
Irrigation: The deliberate supply of water to land for growing crops. Water management helped make valley agriculture productive in a seasonally dry region.

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