San Jose Mogote
Encyclopedia
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
archaeological site
Archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...
of the Zapotec
Zapotec civilization
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
, a Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n culture that flourished in the region of what is now the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state
States of Mexico
The United Mexican States is a federal republic formed by 32 federal entities .According to the Constitution of 1917, the states of the federation are free and sovereign. Each state has their own congress and constitution, while the Federal District has only limited autonomy with a local Congress...
of Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...
. A forerunner to the better-known Zapotec site of Monte Albán
Monte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca...
, San José Mogote was the largest and most important settlement in the Valley of Oaxaca
Valley of Oaxaca
The Valley of Oaxaca is a geographic region located within the modern day State of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. The valley, which is located within the Sierra Madre Mountains, is shaped like a distorted and almost upside-down “Y,” with each of its arms bearing specific names: the northwestern Etla...
during the Early and Middle Formative
Mesoamerican chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...
periods (ca. 1500-500 BCE) of Mesoamerican cultural development.
Situated in the fertile bottomlands of the Etla arm of the Valley of Oaxaca, the site is located two blocks from the community museum in the present-day village of San José Mogote, which is about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) northwest of the city of Oaxaca (Evans 2004:122).
San José Mogote is considered to be the oldest permanent agricultural village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
s in the Oaxaca Valley and probably the first settlement in the area to use pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
. It has also "...produced Mexico’s oldest known defensive palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
s and ceremonial buildings (1300 B.C.), early use of adobe
Adobe
Adobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
(850 B.C.), the first evidence of Zapotec hieroglyphic writing (600 B.C.), and early examples of architectural terracing, craft specialization, and irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
(1150-850 B.C.)."
Archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
investigations conducted over the previous two decades (e.g., Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus
Joyce Marcus
Joyce Marcus is a well-known American archaeologist, who has published extensively in the field of Latin American archaeological research. Her particular focus has been on the pre-Columbian cultures and civilizations of Mesoamerica, where much of her fieldwork has been concentrated on the Maya...
) have built an emerging picture of San José Mogote as an early center of Zapotec culture, which was later supplanted or overtaken by Monte Albán. From its beginnings as a cluster of family dwellings San José Mogote grew to incorporate monumental public structures indicative of a larger and complex political center that ruled over a number of subsidiary settlements in the Valley of Oaxaca, receiving tribute
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
and services from the region. For as-yet unclear reasons, its status diminished and it became a tributary to the new Zapotec political center and capital, Monte Albán.
Regional layout
San Pablo HuitzoSan Pablo Huitzo
San Pablo Huitzo is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 63.80 km²....
, Santa Marta Etla, Hacienda Blanca, Tomaltepec, Zaachila
Zaachila
Zaachila was a powerful Mesoamerican city in what is now Oaxaca, Mexico, 6 km from the city of Oaxaca. The city is named after Zaachila Yoo, the Zapotec ruler, in the late 14th and early 15th century. It is now an archaeological site...
, Abasolo, Mitla
Mitla
Mitla is the second most important archeological site in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and the most important of the Zapotec culture. The site is located 44 km from the city of Oaxaca. in the upper end of the Tlacolula Valley, one of the three that form the Central Valleys Region of the...
, Tilcajete, Zegache, and Santa Ana Tlapacoyan
Santa Ana Tlapacoyan
Santa Ana Tlapacoyan is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of km².It is part of the Zimatlán District in the west of the Valles Centrales Region...
were just a few of the small settlements that supported San José Mogote, which was located in the most developed, north central area of the Valley of Oaxaca.
Development of civilization in the Oaxaca Valley
Between 1500 and 1150 BCE San José Mogote grew from a few house structures to a villageVillage
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
occupying a land area of about 2000 m2 (five acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s), the largest of some 25 villages in the Valley of the Oaxaca and the only community in the area with public buildings (Price and Feinman 2005:320-321). The introduction of two methods of irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
may have been responsible for improving agricultural productivity. These included running irrigation ditch
Ditch
A ditch is usually defined as a small to moderate depression created to channel water.In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced 'deek' in northern England and 'deetch' in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank...
es from streams and "pot irrigation", which consisted of dipping water out of a number of shallow wells to pour onto the crops (Evans 2004, p. 145).
Settlement at the site consists of a number of distinct household
Household
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
s that form the basic social units at San José Mogote. A typical household unit at San José Mogote contained brazier
Brazier
A brazier is a container for fire, generally taking the form of an upright standing or hanging metal bowl or box. Used for holding burning coal as well as fires, a brazier allows for a source of light, heat, or cooking...
s, earth ovens and/or hearth
Hearth
In common historic and modern usage, a hearth is a brick- or stone-lined fireplace or oven often used for cooking and/or heating. For centuries, the hearth was considered an integral part of a home, often its central or most important feature...
s for cooking, stone manos and metate
Metate
A metate is a mortar, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican culture, metates were typically used by women who would grind calcified maize and other organic materials during food preparation...
s for grinding, and blackened pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
. Food, including maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, was stored in underground pits that were bell-shaped and located outside the house walls. Later, trash was dumped into these pits, forming midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
deposits. Burials and other activity areas were also located in areas adjacent to the house structures. Evidence of ritual includes human and animal figurines associated with burials. Basic indicators of long-distance trade include obsidian
Obsidian
Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock.It is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimum crystal growth...
chipped stone artifacts. Obsidian is a material not locally available in the Valley of Oaxaca.
After 1150 BCE other settlements in the area remained small, but the village of San José Mogote increased in population and in the elaboration of its public structures, an indication of its role as the controlling capital over the other villages. Between 900 and 600 BCE, the population in the valley increased threefold to 2000 people living in 40 communities, with half of that number residing in San José Mogote, which grew to 50 acres (202,343 m²) in size (Evans 2004, p. 145). A community building, which has been called a "men's home", is believed to have served as a place where the men of the village could gather for civic and ceremonial purposes. The building's ceremonial importance is signified by its orientation of eight degrees west of north. La Venta
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco....
, an important Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
site, has the same orientation, which indicates an understanding of astronomy and a calendar system (Evans 2004, pp. 122-123). Exclusively at San José Mogote mirrors of polished magnetite
Magnetite
Magnetite is a ferrimagnetic mineral with chemical formula Fe3O4, one of several iron oxides and a member of the spinel group. The chemical IUPAC name is iron oxide and the common chemical name is ferrous-ferric oxide. The formula for magnetite may also be written as FeO·Fe2O3, which is one part...
were made and traded to the Olmec Gulf Coast, some 250 miles (402.3 km) distant. Trade with other areas is also suggested by the greater quantities of obsidian and ceremonial objects, such as drums made from turtle shells, conch-shell trumpets, and stingray spines, as well as pottery designs associated with the Olmec groups, especially at the site of San José de Mogote (Price and Feinman 2005, p. 321).
By 700 BC the population of San José Mogote continued to increase. Between 700 and 500 BC, 3500 people occupied the Valley of Oaxaca, with about 1000 living at San José Mogote, which covered approximately 60 Hectares (150 acres) (Evans 2004, p. 187). Major public buildings constructed with adobe bricks and large blocks of stone were built on top of dirt mounds. The largest complex of the area prior to 500 BCE was Mound 1 at San José Mogote, which was constructed atop a hill that was augmented to a height of 15 m (50 feet).
Political organization
In this relatively short period of time the region's emergent ZapotecZapotec civilization
The Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca of southern Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows their culture goes back at least 2500 years...
civilization experienced a shift in social ranking – the transformation from an autonomous, egalitarian tribal community, to that of a socially stratified society – a "defining moment" in history that would be mirrored throughout the Mesoamerican world at sites like Paso de la Amada
Paso de la Amada
Paso de la Amada is an archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas on the Gulf of Tehuantepec, in the Soconusco region of Mesoamerica. This site was occupied during the Early Formative era, from about 1800 BCE to 1000 BCE, and covered approximately 50 hectares of land.Paso de la Amada is...
and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán is the collective name for three related archaeological sites -- San Lorenzo, Tenochtitlán, and Potrero Nuevo -- located in the southeast portion of the Mexican state of Veracruz. From 1200 BCE to 900 BCE, it was the major center of Olmec culture...
, among many others.
According to John E. Clark
John E. Clark
John Edward Clark is an American archaeologist and academic researcher of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. he holds a position as professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University , and is also the director of the New World Archaeology Foundation.Clark pursued undergraduate and...
, "by the end of the San Jose Phase, San Jose Mogote was clearly...a chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...
". It is not known precisely when or how hereditary inequalities emerged at San Jose Mogote (or anywhere else in Mesoamerica, for that matter) but there are some excellent indicators that give clues as to how this transformation took place and how it was exploited at San Jose Mogote.
One widely accepted theory about the transformation of autonomous communities to chiefdoms is that an individual, or group of individuals must have used some degree of coercion
Coercion
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
to begin controlling others in their community. Stronger factions may have used coercion to force weaker factions to submit to their desires, and in order to do this they may have obtained their strength through a number of different ways. First, canny choices of farming plots allowed an individual or group of individuals to systematically gain an upper hand in crop production. Second, good alliance-building tactics may have been performed to stave off attacks by competing factions. And, lastly, healthy offspring would have ensured that an individual's lineage was secure for long after they were gone, allowing strong hereditary associations to control the fate of the dynasty.
The theory of reciprocity
Norm of reciprocity
The norm of reciprocity is the social expectation that people will respond to each other in kind—returning benefits for benefits, and responding with either indifference or hostility to harms. The social norm of reciprocity often takes different forms in different areas of social life, or in...
may have been utilized by one member of the community to gain control over others. For instance, if an individual farmer might have had an overly abundant crop one season, that farmer might have been able to use the excess food to hold a community feast, in which he may have been able to persuade others subconsciously, using the theory of reciprocity, to obtain from them labor or goods that the farmer than may have been able to use to slowly gain an economic advantage over his peers.
It is also thought that a member of one of these early Mesoamerican communities may have also claimed to possess spiritual and/or supernatural powers. This would enable an individual to gain a foothold up in social ranking, as that individual alone would become the only link for ordinary members of a society to communicate with the spirit world. Since spirituality played such an important role in ancient Mesoamerica, claims, whether truly valid or not, to possessing supernatural powers would be a crucial determinant of higher social ranking within a society.
Some or all of these factors are believed to have directly contributed to the social stratification at San José Mogote. It is not known exactly when these events may have occurred, although it is believed to be a gradual development instead of an overnight procedure.
Once San José Mogote became a chiefdom, it began to use its authority to gain control over local communities. Supported by smaller villages, like the tiny farming community of Tierras Largas
Tierras Largas
Tierras Largas is a formative-period archaeological site located in the Etla arm in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mexico. It is considered to be one of the first villages where sedentism originated in the Oaxaca area. The name is Spanish for “Long Lands”....
, located about ten miles (16 km) to the southeast, San Jose Mogote became known as a sort of "capital", or central area of trade and command, for dozens of surrounding dwellings.
In order for San José Mogote to attain this regional, economic and political dominance, in all likely events, for San José Mogote itself to become a regional leader, the people of San José Mogote must have first elected an individual powerful enough to influence and persuade people living in local villages to cooperate with them. The scale of buildings and the materials imported to erect them clearly indicate that San José Mogote’s leaders were able to control people in the surrounding countryside.
Structures, size, and population
San José Mogote had many small dwellings dotting its 20 hectare (c. 50 acres) landscape that were used to house around 1,000 people, or roughly half the population of the entire Valley of Oaxaca during the San José Phase.The construction of a special men’s meeting hall was found inside the boundaries of San José Mogote and was evidently rebuilt many times over the years.
Structures 1 and 2 at San José Mogote together form an impressive, multi-level public-scale building that is identified as a place where an ethnically diverse community may have been able to come together to discuss important issues of the time.
Innovations and art
Iron ores were a local product of the Valley of Oaxaca. Because San José Mogote was the central area of trade in this region, it utilized its rich resource of iron ore to manufacture polished stone mirrors, many of which have been found as far as the Olmec Gulf Coast Heartland.Two primary motifs are found on pottery vessels from the Valley of Oaxaca: the forces of earth and sky, symbolically represented by earthquakes or lightning, respectively. Small villages tended to have pottery vessels with lightning, or sky, motifs. Tierras Largas had pottery that favored earthquake, or earth, motifs. And San José Mogote had a mixture of both.
Crop productivity may have seen an increase at San José Mogote due to the initiation of two simple irrigation techniques: Pot irrigation and Irrigation ditches. Pot irrigation involved digging many shallow wells in order to accumulate water, and then scooping up that water to use on surrounding plants. Irrigation ditches were small-scale systems used to tap into streams in order to allow water to flow over the plants.
Monument 3
Mesoamerican calendars
Mesoamerican calendars are the calendrical systems devised and used by the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica. In addition to the basic function of a calendar—defining and organizing periods of time in a way that allows events to be fixed, ordered and noted relative to each other and some...
day-name "1 Earthquake." These are the earliest Zapotec glyphs known to exist. While personal bloodletting was suggested by the stingray spines and similar objects made of obsidian or jade, the figure depicted on Monument 3 shows sacrifice of a victim, probably a captive, on a societal level. In a later time period, monuments carved with similar figures, called danzantes (dancers), were present at Monte Albán.
Later the public structures on Mound 1 were rebuilt as a residence for a high-ranking family.
By 500 BCE, with the emergence of Monte Albán as the area's main city, San José Mogote's 1000 years of dominance ended, and it was relegated to the status of a lesser community that fell under Monte Albán's control.
Some of the artifacts from the San José Mogote archaeological site may be viewed in the town of San José Mogote’s Community Museum, which is located in the El Cacique Hacienda.
External links
- San Jose Mogote pictures, George and Audrey DeLange