Origins of the Ñuu: Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico

9. The Classic

305 After the time of regional abandonment, consolidation, and organizational development , Las Flores was the time of the “break out,” the re-population of the abandoned areas, expansion into new places, and demographic growth (Figure 9.1, Table 9.1). The expansion took place with the organizational framework developed in Late Ramos. Compared to Late Cruz and Early Ramos, Las Flores society was more urban, more complex and differentiated, and more integrated. And it was not as compact and centralized as Huamelulpan had been in Late Ramos. We mapped 341 Las Flores sites, a total occupied area of 3,468 ha. By comparison , the Valley of Oaxaca surveys found 1,077 Monte Albán IIIA sites with a total occupied area of 3,994 ha (Kowalewski et al. 1989:755, 757). The site area totals are more similar than the numbers of sites because the average site size was larger in the Mixteca Alta. The two areas had about the same number of large sites but the Valley of Oaxaca had many more small sites (90 percent of its IIIA sites were less than 6 ha). The Classic Ñuu Chapter nine 306 w The Classic Ñuu As in Ramos, people in Las Flores were not distributed ideally on the best agricultural land. A little less than half the sites were on the sedimentary formations that have the best soils, down from almost 80 percent in Late Cruz (Table 7.2). Many people lived in defensible towns at high elevations—in some cases even higher than in Ramos. Their adjustment in part was to use lama-bordos. We found 9.1 Las Flores sites in the Central Mixteca Alta. The Classic Ñuu w 307 sixty-one lama-bordos directly adjacent to Las Flores sites (Table 7.4). Exchange with people in settlements at lower elevations was probably another response. The estimated population for our whole study area was a low of 88,800 and a high of 167,200, the midpoint being 128,000. This was more than double the Early Ramos population and five times the Late Ramos. This growth started in Transición and culminated at the end of the Early Classic, a duration of perhaps three centuries. A comparison of population figures with the Valley of Oaxaca provides perspective . The average estimate for the whole Valley of Oaxaca was 115,000. In the Central Mixteca Alta there were proportionally fewer sites and somewhat less occupied area. But the Central Mixteca Alta had a higher population because it had fewer small sites with low or moderate densities and more large ones with high densities . The Valley of Oaxaca had more rancherías and the two areas had about the same numbers (but different proportions) of hilltop terraced sites. In our study area the Early Classic population was more evenly dispersed over the land than it had been at any prior time. Every subregion had substantial occupation. The subregions that were the least settled, the southeastern Tlaxiaco periphery and San Juan Achiutla, still had over 400 people each. Places west of the Huamelulpan/Llano Grande divide that had never before been densely settled had large Las Flores populations. For example, Tlaxiaco, which had never had more than 400 people, had over 11,000. Population was more evenly distributed than before on the regional scale, but within subregions there was uneven clustering. This part of the Mixteca Alta had a lower Early Classic site density than the Valley of Oaxaca. On average in the Valley of Oaxaca there was a site every 2.0 km2 ; in our study area there was one site every 4.8 km2 . In the Mixteca Alta, sites tended to clump, creating dense clusters of settlement but leaving uninhabited areas between clumps. The Valley of Oaxaca distribution, somewhat agglutinated as one would expect in an urban system, still had a more even distribution of sites than the Mixteca Alta. The difference is due to two factors: the valley and mountain range topography of the Mixteca and the clustering within Mixteca Alta subregions. The subregions with the most settlement were Jazmín (almost all at one site, Cerro Jazmín), Teposcolula, Tilantongo, and Tlaxiaco. No one of these dominated in size. Dzinicahua and Huamelulpan, important in Late Ramos, retained large populations too. Several small subregions were densely settled, including Nejapilla on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nochixtlán and Nuñu and Yolomécatl, dependencies...