Examining Rural Responses to Political Collapse: The Early Postclassic at Monte El Santo, Oaxaca, Mexico

Summary

Recent archaeological research at the site of Monte El Santo, Oaxaca, Mexico examines how the rural community of Monte El Santo responded to the political collapse of the Río Viejo polity during the Early Postclassic Period (800-1100 CE). The collapse ushered in important changes for the coastal inhabitants of the Lower Río Verde Valley- the site of Río Viejo experienced a sharp decline in population, and a newly formed population center at San Marquitos grew to rival Río Viejo in size. While previous research at Río Viejo has demonstrated that after the political collapse site residents were able to produce and manage surplus cotton and gain greater access to long-distance goods, research at Monte El Santo explores the degree to which people in rural communities responded to these changes. This presentation will discuss research of domestic contexts at Monte El Santo. This research, which is ongoing, will help determine how rural actors engaged with the changing political, economic, and social climate of the Early Postclassic. These data will be compared to those from Río Viejo in order to discuss whether the post-collapse economic opportunities available to inhabitants at Río Viejo also existed for those at Monte El Santo.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In the Land of the Sky: Recent Interdisciplinary Archaeological Research in the Lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14451