An urbanized people, the probable ancestors of…

An urbanized people, the probable ancestors of the Zapotec, establish the hilltop city of Monte Albán toward the end of the Middle Formative period in about 500 BCE.

The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the central section of the Valley of Oaxaca where the latter's northern Etla, eastern Tlacolula, and southern Zimatlán & Ocotlán (or Valle Grande) branches meet.

The present-day state capital Oaxaca City is located approximately nine kilometers (six miles) east of Monte Albán.

San José Mogote is the major population center in the valley at this time, and is the head of a chiefdom that likely controls much of the northern Etla branch (Marcus and Flannery 1996).

Perhaps as many as three or four other smaller chiefly centers control other sub-regions of the valley, including Tilcajete in the southern Valle Grande branch and Yegüih in the Tlacolula arm to the east.

Competition and warfare seem to have characterized the Rosario phase, and the regional survey data suggests the existence of an unoccupied buffer zone between the San José Mogote chiefdom and those to the south and east (Marcus and Flannery 1996).

Monte Albán is founded within this no-man's land at the end of the Rosario period.