Resumo

GRANADOS VAZQUEZ, Geraldine Guadalupe  e  MARQUEZ MORFIN, Lourdes. Representativeness and selectivity in Monte Albán. A problem to reflect on. An. antropol. [online]. 2020, vol.54, n.1, pp.11-21.  Epub 15-Jan-2021. ISSN 2448-6221.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iia.24486221e.2020.1.68714.

Monte Albán is a Zapotec settlement dating to 500 BC - 850 AD, located in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca. In this site, as in other Mesoamerican settlements, deposits are very diverse. This diversity has been affected by the excavation strategies by differential mortuary treatment and taphonomic processes. It is useful to consider what parts of the population Monte Albán’s skeletal collection (n=410) represents, in a statistical and sociodemographic sense. Furthermore, what and what selectivity criteria have been employed for this collection? The objective of our paper is to discuss and reflect on aspects of representativeness and selectivity, together with the archaeological context of the human remains recovered. We use cluster analysis to show the differences in the composition of the buildings excavated at Monte Albán according to variables such as the number of excavated rooms, the number of individuals, sex, age, and especially the spatial context and chronology. Our results show a problem shared throughout Mesoamerica, where large biases are observed in the composition of the sample according to time period and space, which leads us to discuss the selectivity of the sample and the role of isolated bone elements.

Palavras-chave : Mixteca; bioarcheology; paleodemography; domestic units; Oaxaca, Mexico; sample bias.

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