Excavations at El Palenque, San Martín Tilcajete:
A Late Formative Subregional Center in the Oaxaca Valley, México
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Research Year:  1999
Culture:  Zapotec
Chronology:  Late Pre-Classic
Location:  San Martín Tilcajete, Ocotlán district, Oaxaca Valley, México
Sites:  El Palenque and Loma de Los Mogotes

Table of Contents

Introduction
El Palenque
Loma de Los Mogotes
Sources Cited

Introduction

San Martín Tilcajete, in the Ocotlán district of the Oaxaca Valley, has been the focus of archaeological investigations since August 1993, when Charles Spencer and Elsa Redmond returned to the Formative period sites that had been located and designated OC-SMT-11-A, SMT-11-B, and SMT-23 (Figure 1) in 1978 by survey crews of the Oaxaca Settlement Pattern Project (Blanton et al., 1982; Kowalewski et al., 1989). During the 1993 and 1994 field seasons we carried out a program of intensive mapping and systematic surface collecting at these three sites. Based on an analysis of the surface collections we selected areas of the Rosario and Early Monte Albán I (700-300 B.C.) phase site SMT-11-A (Figure 2), known by townspeople as "El Mogote" to conduct a program of excavations during the 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 field seasons. Excavations at the Late Monte Albán I (300-100 B.C.) phase site SMT-11-B, known by townspeople as "El Palenque," began in 1997 and continued during the 1998 and 1999 field seasons. This report describes the excavations carried out during the 1999 field season at El Palenque and the Monte Albán II (100 B.C.-A.D. 200) phase site SMT-23, known as Loma de Los Mogotes, with the support of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI), and the permission of the Consejo de Arqueología of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in México City, the Centro INAH Oaxaca, and the authorities in the town of San Martín Tilcajete.

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A Late Formative Subregional Center in the Oaxaca Valley, México  (135 KB)

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Submitted 06/16/2000 by: