Regional Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico

The Valley of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, is one area in which anthropologists are beginning to achieve a picture of the evolution of a whole society on the regional scale. This has been possible because of a two-pronged research strategy involving excavation of living floors by Kent Flannery and his associates, and, concurrently, a field-by-field surface survey directed by Richard E. Blanton. Here the results of the settlement pattern work completed thus far are presented and related to data from excavations and ethnohistory.