The Ancient Americas

Featured Cultures

Zapotec Society
For over a thousand years, the Zapotec dominated the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico from their capital city, which was located on a hilltop high above the valley floor. This city is called Monte Albán.

Larger than any other settlement, Monte Albán was the center of a hierarchy of smaller settlements spread throughout the valley. Its size and position, typical of societies controlled by rulers and governments, suggests to archaeologists that Monte Albán had a degree of political control over much of the valley.

Settlement Patterns and Status
Near to the hilltop city's highest point stood visible evidence of Monte Albán's grandeur—a large plaza bordered by buildings of monumental size around which the elite lived. Below the plaza, households of ordinary citizens dotted terraces along the sides of the hill.

Imposing edifices on the plaza were visible proof of the ruling families' ability to command the large number of laborers needed to build such grand structures. No other contemporaneous site in the Valley of Oaxaca had architecture on such a monumental scale.

To learn more about Monte Albán and view the ruins of Zapotec hill towns that dot present-day Oaxaca, view the Zapotec Expedition Video. Your tour guide is Dr. Gary Feinman, a Field Museum archaeologist and curator of Mesoamerican Anthropology.

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In addition to its political power over these hilltowns, the location of Monte Albán also tells archaeologists about its military control over surrounding territories.

Other People and Places

Monte Albán was a dominant center in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico from AD 200 to 800, during the same time...

	Hopewell society was at its peak in eastern North America.
	Hunting and gathering societies abounded throughout the Americas.
	Hohokam farming villages thrived in what is now Arizona.
	The western Roman Empire fell and the Dark Ages began.
	The Sui dynasty rose and fell in China.
	Bantu peoples migrated from central Africa to southern Africa, probably bringing iron working skills with them.

Continue to Zapotec Military. >>