Greetings from Mexico!

well i´m here safe and sound and so far it has already been an eventful couple of days. the city of oaxaca (wha-ha-ka) is absolutely magnificent, a wonderful blend of colonial and modern architecture which is endlessly colorful in the way that most latin america cities tend to be. the surrounding area is just as spectacular with huge mountains rising up to meet the clouds above the valley floor. being here it is not hard to understand why the ancient zaptocs (early inhabitants of the valley, we´ll get to this later on) called themselves the "cloud people." it is also the rainy season in oaxaca which means thunderstorms around 4 in the afternoon but it can be very spotty, pouring in one place and only a few drops in the next town over. this has not dampened our keen sense for adventure however and on tuesday we headed out of oaxaca into the mixteca alta, a complicated system of hills and valleys north of the valley of oaxaca, to see the site of achuitla (ah-shoot-la).
we were led out to the site by Jamie, a california native and doctoral student at the university of colorodo who hopes to turn achuitla into his dissertation project. achuitla, a fairly large hill top site which overlooks a small valley, is relatively well known in the historical record, colonial and contact era (the period when the spanish first arrived in mexico) sources speak often about an oracle who was situated there in pre-hispanic times. apparently montechuzoma II the last king of the aztecs sent an emissary there shortly after the arrival of the spanish in 1519, not suprisingly the oracles prognosis was negative. for being so well known however the site itself is virtually untouched. it´s remote location could be one reason, it is about a 2 and half hour drive over dirt roads from the city of oaxaca, but its remoteness did not stop the spanish who built not one, but two churches on the site mostly directly on top of pre-hispanic indigenous momuments. the first smaller church, more of a chapel really, built in the early 16002s still stands in ruins (impressively its dome and original wood door lintels are still intact) but the real draw at achuitla is the tremendous convent which was build in the mid 1600´s and still functions as a church today. interestingly enough both churches are built over large platform mounds which originally served as the bases for indigenous temples and other monumental and public architecture. while the site beyond the convent is largely overgrown today we tramped out across the two hills of the site to encounter a number of still standing terrace retainer walls and a number of building foundations which could have been a palace complex. jamie however is less impressed with the temples and palaces and is instead looking for commoner residences from the contact period, to study how the conquest affected local indigenous culture. the remaining monuments of both the spanish and the mixtecs before them at achuitla make this a perfect site for this kind of study.

i´ve got to run now, dinner is on the way, but i´ll have more soon, both about the work i'm doing and also a little more about the region, its people, and the archaeological record. see you next time!