my work is coming to a close here in oaxaca but i got to work with some really cool materials, the research from with will problably turn into my senior thesis. basically this is what i did:
back in the mid 1960`s archaeologists defined a ceramic chronology for both the valley of oaxaca and the mixteca that unfortunately has not been refined since. a ceramic chronology is basically a listing that defines certain pottery attributes to certain time periods. this is usually done when pottery is found in context with either inscribed texts that include dates (the peoples of ancient mexico where absolutely obsessed with time so this is suprisingly common) or with materials that can be carbon dated (essentially anything that has surviving organic matter or has been burned). once a chronology is defined for an area, archaeologists can then compare their findings to date the occupations of their sites. because many areas where occupied continually for hundreds or even thousands of years at many sites you can find a big chunk of the entire chronology present. now, like i said before, the chronology for the mixteca has not really been updated in a while so the catergories are extremely broad with some of them spanning hundreds of years. it would be like if we classiffied all the chairs ever made over the course of american history into one phase. you would have old time rocking chairs and modern desk chairs all in the same group and you could only say ¨well, this chair was made between 1492 and 2008¨. now obviously this accounts for a huge amount of variation and we need to narrow it down. one of the largest phases first defined was the cruz phase which occurs in the early formative period of mesoamerica about 600-300 BC. now the cruz has been split into smaller pieces, early cruz, middle cruz, and late cruz or cruz A, cruz B, and cruz C. but even these catergories are extremely broad and we are still trying to refine them. i´ve been working with materials that archaeologists are beggining to call cruz D which is essentially the second half of cruz C just before the transition into the yucuita phase in which massive urbanization occured in oaxaca around 300-250 BC.
within cruz D we find several types of pottery. the first, and problably most common, are tanwares, which are essentially exactly what they sound like. they are bowls and pots made from a very coarse tan colored clay which they formed into a brown paste refered to as cafe. they are often simply decorated with slip, thin bands of a different colored clay that are put on just before the pots are fired. the slips on tanwares are often a red or orange color and are called simply "red on tans." also common in cruz D, and of much higher quality are gray wares. gray wares are made from a gray clay paste which is generally much finer (less gritty) than cafe pastes used for tanwares. gray wares are also much better fired, tanwares often look "uncooked¨ in the middle, and are generally finished more carefully. in terms of finishing gray wares are almost always finely burnished (rubbed with a round stone until they have a shiny surface) and often decorated with incised lines either in stripes or forming geometric patterns.
graywares and tanwares occur in other phases though, so it is not just these types of pottery that define cruz D. much of what actually defines the phase are the pastes. tanware pastes for example are generally much grittier in cruz d than in later phases like the yucuita phase. vessel form is another tip off. in general tanwares in cruz d are actually thinner than in later occuring phases, whereas gray wares continue to get thinner over time. firing is also a factor with graywares becoming very well fired in cruz D as opposed to much earlier phases. certain designs are another telling sign. in cruz D there was a real fad for what we call differential burnishing which is when they burnished certain areas but not others to create patterns on the vessel surface. certain geometric patterns are also telling of the phase such as the banner design (a carved design that looks like little pendants), the butterfly design (hourglass shapes with cross hatched lines inside them), and the shark tooth design (a series of lines with downward facing triangles that look alot like sharks teeth. slip colors are another clue, with only certain colors appearing during certain phases.
it´s all alot to handle, but i´ve been working with some cruz D materials from etlatongo to help better understand how to define and describe this phase so that it can be incorporated into the work at other sites. the names for the butterfly and sharktooth designs are actually of my creation and they are going to be used in further analysis of these materials. overall though if you happen to be in mexico and you find a few pot sherds (which is pretty likely in many areas they are still all over the place, even on the surface) here´s how you know it is cruz D:
- it has a rough and gritty cafe paste
- it is a very nicely finished grayware that has differentially burnished patterns
- it has a banner, sharktooth, or butterfly design
- it is a red on tan with a well defined slipped rim and is thinner than yacuita phase red on tans
- it is not cruz C or yucuita phase but belongs to the late formative.
- it looks like it is a cruz D piece
those last two are really the most important, it just takes alot of time to get to know this stuff and eventually you can just sort of tell. i´m not quite there yet i don´t think, but if you poured a pile of stuff out on the table i could problably pick out most of the stuff that was cruz D. unfortunately cruz D is just one small phase among many that exist here and seasoned archaeologists can go through an entire table of stuff and only have uncertainty about a few pieces in regards to what phase they belong to. the real trouble is not putting stuff into the phases but making the phases more precise so that we can narrow down the broad range of the phases within the chronology.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
political upheaval and a history of disobedience young and old
oaxaca owns a unique place in mexican political history for a variety of reasons, but most seem to be linked to a certain revolutionary spirit. oaxaca was home of course to benito juarez, revolutionary and first president of mexico, sort of the mexican george washington, a true father of the nation. oaxaca was also the site of revolutionary and anti church activity, culminating in the capture and execution of guerilla leader vicente guerrero, who was kept at the convent in cuilapan, the very place i am analyzing sherds today, before he was shot in the backyard. more recently southern parts of oaxaca state were on the fringes of the zapatista activities, only furthering its revolutionary reputation. it has been more recent events that still play out today however. in the early summer months of 2006 the teachers union in oaxaca went on strike, as they usually do at the end of the semester, to protest for better wages and benefits. strikes are common in oaxaca, we had a taxi driver strike just last week, and most commonly they block a few key intersections in the city and then move when they are resolved. the 2006 teachers strike however was not quickly resolved and as it grew longer political agitators in the region latched on to it. earlier that year the current right wing governer of oaxaca had won an election under dubious circumstances and demonstrators against his administration flooded into the streets as well. simultaneously a communist group named APPO (associasion political de poblacions de oaxaca) who sought the overthrow of oaxaca´s entire regional government came into the city as well. for several months the center of the city was completely shut down and gangs of government thugs and revolutionaries clashed in the streets. eventually, the army was sent in, culminating in a clash in the center of the city in which more than a dozen people (some accounts have it close to 100) and an american journalist were killed.
as you can imagine these events significantly detered tourists, both domestic and foriegn, from coming into the city, and still tourism has not entirely recovered. the city now however feels very safe for tourists. people here are extrodinarily friendly and at night the streets are well lit and filled with people, especially now with the festival in town. more importantly though the governor is far away from oaxaca city, the governor´s palace in the center city remains conspiciously empty, and while he was in town for the galuegetza, he rarely shows his face here he is so unpopular. also since the disaster of the teachers strike in 2006, people here in oaxaca are much less tolerant to those kinds of activties. causing a major disturbance is recognized as a great bane to the city and anyone displaying any sort of disruptive attitude is quickly admonished and ostrisized. small strikes continue of course, but the participants are fast to reach preliminary agreements to avoid being labeled or associated with organizations like APPO which are blamed for the 2006 disasters. oaxacans still maintain their revolutionary spirit, but they are wary of the consequences of action spiraling out of control and today the city, sometimes still bearing the signs of past conflict, especially in grafitti, seems tranquil and open making walks along its open streets and large parks enjoyable, peaceful, and safe.
as you can imagine these events significantly detered tourists, both domestic and foriegn, from coming into the city, and still tourism has not entirely recovered. the city now however feels very safe for tourists. people here are extrodinarily friendly and at night the streets are well lit and filled with people, especially now with the festival in town. more importantly though the governor is far away from oaxaca city, the governor´s palace in the center city remains conspiciously empty, and while he was in town for the galuegetza, he rarely shows his face here he is so unpopular. also since the disaster of the teachers strike in 2006, people here in oaxaca are much less tolerant to those kinds of activties. causing a major disturbance is recognized as a great bane to the city and anyone displaying any sort of disruptive attitude is quickly admonished and ostrisized. small strikes continue of course, but the participants are fast to reach preliminary agreements to avoid being labeled or associated with organizations like APPO which are blamed for the 2006 disasters. oaxacans still maintain their revolutionary spirit, but they are wary of the consequences of action spiraling out of control and today the city, sometimes still bearing the signs of past conflict, especially in grafitti, seems tranquil and open making walks along its open streets and large parks enjoyable, peaceful, and safe.
the spanish conuest
we all know that columbus first ¨discovered¨ the new world in 1492 but the ways that the story continues from there are extremely diverse and i just want to take a second here to talk about the spanish conquest of oaxaca and what it still means today.
in 1492 columbus landed on islands in the caribbean thinking that he had reached india, the destination he had set out for. for this reason this area is still broadly known as the east indies and inhabitants in all of the new world as indians. the spanish did not arrive in mexico though until 1519 when soldier hernan cortez landed on the gulf coast near modern veracruz. there he came into contact with peoples subjugated by the aztec empire and quickly he moved with his small force of spanish soldiers, less than 500 men, and a growing force of indigenous allies towards the aztec capital at tenochtitlan. when the spanish first arrived in tenochtitlan (modern day mexico city) they were completely dumbstruck. the city was at the time the largest in the world and it absolutely dwarfed paris, the largest city in europe at the time, by two or three times. the city was also much cleaner than any large urban space in europe at the time and it´s grand causways, aqueducts, and public architecture stunned cortes´men. unfortunately however, cortes, a second son and therefore of no inheritance back in spain, was after personal riches and glory. after being received as a guest he took montechuzoma, emperor of the aztecs, hostage inside his own palace. for weeks the spanish remained inside the palace levying ransom for montechuzoma while outside a smallpox epidemic ravaged the city. eventually cortes and his men left, but only returned later with a huge army of the aztecs former subjects, eager to rebel against their former lords. from tenochtitlan, cortes and future spanish soldiers and missionaries spread throughout the former aztec empire, reaching oaxaca but the early 1530´s. while oaxaca was of little military value, missionaries flooded into the area using it´s remote hillsides to build huge convents and monestaries, still the largest buildings in many rural areas to this day. interestingly, many of these churches and monestaries are also built right on top of old prehispanic mounds or monuments, as the spanish friars tried to utilize an existing religious power endowed in certain places to promote the new faith. many of these old churches also incorporate stones from prehispanic monuments, some of which can still be clearly seen in the surviving walls of these colonial buildings. the construction of these buildings came at a cost though. although designed by european architects they were built essentially with native slave labor and tens of thousands of mexico´s indigenous population died from over work and disease, many more than died in the conflict of actual conquest. many areas of modern oaxaca today, especially in the mixteca and other rural areas are still less populated than they were in prehispanic times, as the many archaeological sites that dot the landscape can attest.
the city of oaxaca however is a somewhat different story. under colonial rule it became the third largest city in mexico and became an important center for the production and export of cacao beans to be refined into chocolate. when first exported to europe chocolate was a complete rage and the comercial boon from this trade can still be seen in rich colonial architecture of oaxaca city. indeed, chocolate is still considered as essential part of spanish cusine even theough it is a new world import to europe. chocolate is still available here of course and is very, very, good. mixed with cinnamin and chili powder, it is served not only in bar form but more commonly in frothed milk and served warm in a sort of hot cocoa drink. in the decades since colonial times oaxaca has lost some of its size and influence, but it has retained a certain place in mexican political history, which you can read about in the very next post.
in 1492 columbus landed on islands in the caribbean thinking that he had reached india, the destination he had set out for. for this reason this area is still broadly known as the east indies and inhabitants in all of the new world as indians. the spanish did not arrive in mexico though until 1519 when soldier hernan cortez landed on the gulf coast near modern veracruz. there he came into contact with peoples subjugated by the aztec empire and quickly he moved with his small force of spanish soldiers, less than 500 men, and a growing force of indigenous allies towards the aztec capital at tenochtitlan. when the spanish first arrived in tenochtitlan (modern day mexico city) they were completely dumbstruck. the city was at the time the largest in the world and it absolutely dwarfed paris, the largest city in europe at the time, by two or three times. the city was also much cleaner than any large urban space in europe at the time and it´s grand causways, aqueducts, and public architecture stunned cortes´men. unfortunately however, cortes, a second son and therefore of no inheritance back in spain, was after personal riches and glory. after being received as a guest he took montechuzoma, emperor of the aztecs, hostage inside his own palace. for weeks the spanish remained inside the palace levying ransom for montechuzoma while outside a smallpox epidemic ravaged the city. eventually cortes and his men left, but only returned later with a huge army of the aztecs former subjects, eager to rebel against their former lords. from tenochtitlan, cortes and future spanish soldiers and missionaries spread throughout the former aztec empire, reaching oaxaca but the early 1530´s. while oaxaca was of little military value, missionaries flooded into the area using it´s remote hillsides to build huge convents and monestaries, still the largest buildings in many rural areas to this day. interestingly, many of these churches and monestaries are also built right on top of old prehispanic mounds or monuments, as the spanish friars tried to utilize an existing religious power endowed in certain places to promote the new faith. many of these old churches also incorporate stones from prehispanic monuments, some of which can still be clearly seen in the surviving walls of these colonial buildings. the construction of these buildings came at a cost though. although designed by european architects they were built essentially with native slave labor and tens of thousands of mexico´s indigenous population died from over work and disease, many more than died in the conflict of actual conquest. many areas of modern oaxaca today, especially in the mixteca and other rural areas are still less populated than they were in prehispanic times, as the many archaeological sites that dot the landscape can attest.
the city of oaxaca however is a somewhat different story. under colonial rule it became the third largest city in mexico and became an important center for the production and export of cacao beans to be refined into chocolate. when first exported to europe chocolate was a complete rage and the comercial boon from this trade can still be seen in rich colonial architecture of oaxaca city. indeed, chocolate is still considered as essential part of spanish cusine even theough it is a new world import to europe. chocolate is still available here of course and is very, very, good. mixed with cinnamin and chili powder, it is served not only in bar form but more commonly in frothed milk and served warm in a sort of hot cocoa drink. in the decades since colonial times oaxaca has lost some of its size and influence, but it has retained a certain place in mexican political history, which you can read about in the very next post.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
festival time
it´s festival time here in the city of oaxaca and the steets are busy and lively. every year on the first two mondays after the 16 of july oaxaca city hosts a festival called the galugetza, a celebreation of the different regions within oaxaca state with the presentation of traditional folk dances. normally this is a time in which tourists flood into the city, and i must admit that it looks pretty busy but apparently not as busy as in years past. it seems that the riots of 2006 (more on this later) have continued to hurt the tourist industry and while people here in oaxaca are optomistic that tourism has begun to recover the region is still feeling a significant lack of one of it´s cheif incomes. meanwhile though the galuegetza has been spectacular. fireworks are set off from the street every night lighting up the entire city, street venders stay out until all hours and all over people are parading the streets in traditional costumes and selling traditional wares, everything from exotic fruits to handmade rugs and jewelry. it´s a splendid time to be in oaxaca, the city only wishes that more people were here to share in it.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
mexican food
oaxaca is known for its food, the people here take real pride in it, and rightly so because it is excellent. corn and beans are the main staples (in fact oaxaca is where corn was first domesticated by man roughly 20,000 years ago) and they are served in a variety of different ways. most typical and commonly sold by street venders are tlayudas, tortillas spread with a thin layer of refried beans and then fried, and memelitas, essentially the same thing but with the edition of salsa and an excellent oaxacan string cheese called quesillo. also common are tamales, soft corn cakes stuffed with beans and steamed wrapped in corn husks, and my favorite sincronizadas, tortillas filled with ham and cheese then grilled. oaxaca is also known for it´s mole, a rich sauce which is often made with over 30 ingredients the most prevalent of which is chocolate. it´s a little strange to eat chicken smothered in a sauce made with chili peppers and chocolate, but the results are excellent. another personal favorite is milenasa, a very thin cut of chicken or pork, lightly breaded and fried. oaxaca is also home to a variety of fruits, some familiar and some foreign. best of the foriegn is tuna (prickly pear or cactus fruit) which is good both raw and made into ice cream which some tourists hysterically confuse it with the fish and beleive that tuna fish ice cream is being served. pineapples and plantains are also prevelant here as is habiscus flower which is made into an excellent juice. the other truly wonderful fruit here are the limes. they are small and sweet and served with absolutely everthing. a personal favorite of mine is freshly roasted peanuts and chiles then covered in lime. the avacodoes here are also excellent, served either in a thin guacamole or in whole slices, even in soups.
the other wonderful part of mexican cuisine is the alcohol. imported alcohol here is amazingly expensive, but the types made in mexico are very cheap with even very nice mixed drinks only costing half of what they do in the states. the best local drink is mezcal, a tequila like beverage made from the sap of the maguey plant, a large spiny desert plant similar to the yucca in the american southwest. it is consumed straight and is very powerful but can be very smooth if you get a better variety. mezcal is also made into a variety of flavoured creams, think a tequila version of baileys, and comes in flavors like mint, coffee (excellent), passion fruit, and coconut. mezcal is also sometimes mixed with powder from chili peppers, something i find very enjoyable but others here find completely unbearble. i´ll bring a little back so you can see for yourself.
mexican beer is also excellent and comes in a large variety. corona and tecate are available in the states and considered pretty cheap and of low quality. of better quality are negro modelo, also available in the states and definately worth a try, and the mexico only indio and leon. possibly my favorite thing about beer is mexico are the ¨family size¨beers you can buy in local corner stores. they are liter or liter and a half bottles of beer, corona usually, that literally say ¨family size¨across the top of them. we´ll get one and all split it at dinner sometimes. i find them very funny and i´ll problably bring one back if i can, or at least a picture of me holding one.
the other wonderful part of mexican cuisine is the alcohol. imported alcohol here is amazingly expensive, but the types made in mexico are very cheap with even very nice mixed drinks only costing half of what they do in the states. the best local drink is mezcal, a tequila like beverage made from the sap of the maguey plant, a large spiny desert plant similar to the yucca in the american southwest. it is consumed straight and is very powerful but can be very smooth if you get a better variety. mezcal is also made into a variety of flavoured creams, think a tequila version of baileys, and comes in flavors like mint, coffee (excellent), passion fruit, and coconut. mezcal is also sometimes mixed with powder from chili peppers, something i find very enjoyable but others here find completely unbearble. i´ll bring a little back so you can see for yourself.
mexican beer is also excellent and comes in a large variety. corona and tecate are available in the states and considered pretty cheap and of low quality. of better quality are negro modelo, also available in the states and definately worth a try, and the mexico only indio and leon. possibly my favorite thing about beer is mexico are the ¨family size¨beers you can buy in local corner stores. they are liter or liter and a half bottles of beer, corona usually, that literally say ¨family size¨across the top of them. we´ll get one and all split it at dinner sometimes. i find them very funny and i´ll problably bring one back if i can, or at least a picture of me holding one.
work continues
work has been continuing steadily but we are making some very good progress. essentially what we are doing are going back through some of the first test units dug at the site and recording what we find through drawing and through notes. occassionally we also find a context with a good integrity which we get to analyze, and here´s what that means. most of the time when you dig a site you find what is called a mixed context, in essense it is a group of artifacts that span different time periods and are all mixed up. basically it is like finding a bag of coins with dates ranging from 2008 to 1937 while trying to study coins from the 1960s. it´s not totally useless, but you don´t want to spend too much time on it either. what you really want is a bag of coins all from the 1960´s and you want to find them in a good location, like say a cash register or a piggy bank. getting back from what may be a bad metaphor, as archaeologists with our project in mind we want to find pottery all from a single phase in a place like a trash dump, a house floor, or a storage pit. once we have one of those we can begin to analyze it. the analysis we are doing involves taking each piece from a good context, no matter how small, and recording things like the clay it is composed of, the form the vessel took, any decoration used, and any marks that indicate a production or finishing technique all using a numerical code, basically it´s like the matrix without laurence fishbourne. using this data in a spread sheet we can then observe larger trends across time periods. for example we can see how decoration decreases from one phase to another, but vessel uniformity increases. this tells us that people were putting greater emphasis on standardized manufacture and less on aesthetic values, and interesting shift in society to be sure, like the shift from hand made fabrics to mass produced ones in the united states, it represented a time of industrialization, decrease of individuality, and great societal change. pretty neat stuff to tell from a tiny little pottery fragment.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
monte alban
we went out to monte alban on sunday, a site i´ve been waiting to visit now for quite some time and it did not dissapoint. situated on top of a massive hill right in the center of the valley of oaxaca the massive main plaza offers stunning views of the entire valley and it quickly became apparent why the zapotecs stationed thier capital there. i´ve talked a little about zapotec imperialism and civilization before and while monte alban is certainly a stunning tribute to both it was another attribute entirely that struck me about the ruins of this ancient city. the main plaza, the center of the site and the location of the most tourist activity, was largely designed as a place for the performance of public religious rites and rituals. as monte alban grew nobles there had to find increasingly more complex and spectacular ways to legitimize their power and the architecture at monte alban is largely a tribute to this continuing struggle for political supremacy. generally the buildings become larger and grander over time as one would expect, but they also came complete with a series of architectural developments which would have only added to the drama and spectacle of public rituals and the legitimization of power. hidden tunnels were built connecting many of the buildings which would have allowed priests to miraculously appear at a completely seperate part of the site, surely an amazing sight to spiritually charged spectators in the crowd below. hidden chambers were built to emit smoke holes built in the pyramid walls, and carved figures depicting captives and ancestors were erected on the walls of the buildings to remind the people of monte alban of their history, heritage, and debt owed to the gods and ancestors for thier current success. however, the real development came not in grand pyramids or underground tunnels but instead from a complicated limiting of space. by limiting access to religious sites within the larger city, elites were able to display their own power and prestige to anyone watching, a sort of private club which everyone could see but only a few could take part in.
this dramatic limiting of space is most apparent in the north platform of the site, the last major architectural feature to be built there. it is a continuing series of pyramids that grows higher and higher as you go up though remarkably you can´t see this from the main plaza. you go up one level and think you are as high as you can go only to find another higher temple complex, and then another, and another still. anyone standing on the main plaza would not have been aware that this much architecture existed and admittance to the north platform would have suddenly afronted the viewer with a mass of tremendous religious architecture that would have appeared to have come from nowhere, each pyramid blocking the view of the higher one behind it. even to the modern viewer this illusion is true. as i climbed up the north platform i would continually believe that i had reached the highest point of the site, turn and take panoramic photos of the plaza below and the valley of oaxaca. upon turning back however i would only find another group of temple pyramids to climb. this sort of hidden architecture with highly controlled access (sort of the vip lounge of the ancient world) gave elites who routinely frequented the north platform an extreme amount of prestige in zapotec society. to maintain this power and prestige some elites were even able to build their palaces and tombs right next to the north platform to form an elite neighborhood closest to the best architecture in the city (professor blomster jokingly calls it the zapotec dupont circle).
perhaps the most stunning thing about monte alban however is its sheer size. at its height around 500 AD over 30,000 people lived there, spread out on terraces built over the contours of three huge hills. at the time few european cites rivaled monte alban´s size, architecture, and population. we, as westerners and particularly as americans, are often led to think of the new world as a vast span of open land only moderately populated by roving bands of indigenous peoples, but in reality, as monte alban attests, cities in the new world prior to european contact were often just as populated and developed as those of the old world, if not more so in some cases. i´ll talk more about this when i talk about the spanish conquest in another couple of days, but as i was climbing the ruins of monte alban i was struck by how incredible this city was and still is, and how little its place is in the story of our prehistory. surely such a massive and important place deserves greater attention and part of the aims of this summer are to draw more attention to the wonderful and fascinating civilizations that inhabited the new world long before the arrival of europeans.
this dramatic limiting of space is most apparent in the north platform of the site, the last major architectural feature to be built there. it is a continuing series of pyramids that grows higher and higher as you go up though remarkably you can´t see this from the main plaza. you go up one level and think you are as high as you can go only to find another higher temple complex, and then another, and another still. anyone standing on the main plaza would not have been aware that this much architecture existed and admittance to the north platform would have suddenly afronted the viewer with a mass of tremendous religious architecture that would have appeared to have come from nowhere, each pyramid blocking the view of the higher one behind it. even to the modern viewer this illusion is true. as i climbed up the north platform i would continually believe that i had reached the highest point of the site, turn and take panoramic photos of the plaza below and the valley of oaxaca. upon turning back however i would only find another group of temple pyramids to climb. this sort of hidden architecture with highly controlled access (sort of the vip lounge of the ancient world) gave elites who routinely frequented the north platform an extreme amount of prestige in zapotec society. to maintain this power and prestige some elites were even able to build their palaces and tombs right next to the north platform to form an elite neighborhood closest to the best architecture in the city (professor blomster jokingly calls it the zapotec dupont circle).
perhaps the most stunning thing about monte alban however is its sheer size. at its height around 500 AD over 30,000 people lived there, spread out on terraces built over the contours of three huge hills. at the time few european cites rivaled monte alban´s size, architecture, and population. we, as westerners and particularly as americans, are often led to think of the new world as a vast span of open land only moderately populated by roving bands of indigenous peoples, but in reality, as monte alban attests, cities in the new world prior to european contact were often just as populated and developed as those of the old world, if not more so in some cases. i´ll talk more about this when i talk about the spanish conquest in another couple of days, but as i was climbing the ruins of monte alban i was struck by how incredible this city was and still is, and how little its place is in the story of our prehistory. surely such a massive and important place deserves greater attention and part of the aims of this summer are to draw more attention to the wonderful and fascinating civilizations that inhabited the new world long before the arrival of europeans.
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