Dr. Arion T. Mayes

Associate Professor in Biological Anthropology, Director of Bioarchaeology at the Biological Anthropology Lab, San Diego State University

Frequency and type of trauma as well as degenerative bone changes is presented for two sites located on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. Occupied from the Middle Formative to the Early Post-classic, Río Viejo is a 250-hectare site on the west bank of the Río Verde. It was an urban center and the political seat of a regional polity. Cerro de la Cruz is a small Late Formative site covering 1.5 hectares that is located in the floodplain. Suggestions that Cerro de la Cruz is an example of territorial expansion of Monte Alban, as well as the evidence against this, have been discussed elsewhere. While distant influences are evident on the skeleton and dentition, it does not appear to be in the form of violent conquest, further supporting the archaeological evidence.