Mixtec Culture

Definition: Mixtec Culture refers, in general terms, to the people who lived in the mountainous Mixteca Alta region of what is now Oaxaca state in Mexico during the Classic (AD 300-800) and Post-Classic (AD 800 to the Spanish conquest) periods.

The Mixtec were agriculturalists with extensive irrigation canals; they also left a number of written documents called codices. The best known Mixteca sites are in the Oaxaca Valley, where the Zapotec capital MMonte Albán is found.

Researchers associated with Mixtec include Michael E. Smith, Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus, John Monaghan, and M. Romero Frizzi.

Sources

McCafferty, Sherisse D. and Geoffrey G. McCafferty 1994 Engendering Tomb 7 at Monte Alban. Current Anthropology 35(2):143-166.

Monaghan, John. 2001. Mixtec history, culture and religion. In Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America. Susan Toby Evans and David L. Webster, eds. Garland, NYC.

Nicholson, H. B. and Eloise Q. Keber 1994 Mixteca-Puebla: Discoveries and Research in Mesoamerican Art and Archaeology. Labyrinthos, Lancaster, CA.

Sousa, Lisa and Kevin Terraciano 2003 The 'original conquest' of Oaxaca: Nahua and Mextec accounts of the Spanish conquest. Ethnohistory 50(2):349-400.

van Doesburg, Bas 2001 The Codex Porfirio Diaz and the map of Tutepetongo: The curious relationship between pictography and glosses in Oaxacan screenfolds. Ethnohistory 48(3):403-432.

This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Sources for the term include the references listed on the front page of the Dictionary, and the websites listed in the sidebar. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.

Examples: Classic period Mixtec sites include Cerro Jazmin and Etlatongo, both in the Nochixtlan valley. Both Mitla and Monte Albán, in the Oaxaca valley, have post-classic Mixtec occupations.