San José Mogote
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.
"[3][4] Archaeological investigations conducted during the late 20th century over two decades (e.g., by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus) have built an emerging picture of San José Mogote as an early center of Zapotec culture; it was later supplanted or overtaken by Monte Albán.
From its beginnings as a cluster of family dwellings, San José Mogote developed to incorporate monumental public structures indicative of a larger and complex political center; it ruled over a number of subsidiary settlements in the Valley of Oaxaca, receiving tribute and services from the region.
A typical household unit at San José Mogote contained braziers, earth ovens and/or hearths for cooking, stone manos and metates for grinding, and blackened pottery.
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 (200,000 m2) in size (Evans 2004, p. 145).
Exclusively at San José Mogote mirrors of polished magnetite were made and traded to the Olmec Gulf Coast, some 250 miles (400 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).
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 (49 ft).
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.
Supported by smaller villages, like the tiny farming community of Tierras Largas, 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.
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.
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.
The carving is of a naked man with "a puffy, slitted eye, lips drawn back in a grimace, overall posture of vulnerability ... rounded elements on the chest and abdomen suggesting the guts after disembowelment.
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.
