These are two volumes in the long-running Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca Series of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology. These volumes present detailed descriptions of the excavations at the archaeological site of San José Mogote (SJM), located in the northwestern subvalley of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. The excavations in question were completed over the course of 15 years, between 1966 and 1980. Volume 1 focuses on the residences that the team excavated at the site, while the second volume in the series explores “all of the structures and features related to cosmology, ritual, religion, and ideology.” Although the Formative period occupation of the site was the primary focus of the research from the outset of excavation, the volumes present descriptions of all the architecture and artifacts recovered, including remains of architecture that were constructed and deposited during later phases of occupation. The SJM excavations uncovered 35–40 residences and a similar number of public buildings within the 60–70 hectare site.

The authors emphasize that these monographs should not be considered “the site report on San José Mogote” (Vol. 1, p. 24). Rather, they will present the relevant data in multiple volumes organized thematically. Some of these are already published, among them the chipped stone tools (Parry, Chipped Stone Tools in Formative Oaxaca, Memoir 20, 1987), figurines (Marcus, Women's Ritual in Formative Oaxaca: Figurine-making, Divination, Death and the Ancestors, Memoir 33, 1998), and Early Formative pottery (Flannery and Marcus, Early Formative Pottery of the Valley of Oaxaca, Memoir 27, 1994). Middle Formative pottery and burials will be the subjects of future volumes.

Chapters in Excavations at SJM 1 are not organized by artifact type as one might expect; instead, buildings and their associated features and artifacts are presented in aggregates based on activities represented and the contexts in which they were found. Readers familiar with early “household archaeology” literature and Flannery and Marcus's published corpus will already be familiar with much of the data, illustrations, and interpretations presented in Excavations at SJM 1, some going all the way back to The Early Mesoamerican Village (1976) edited by Flannery. The current volume is a compendium of data published in other venues. What makes this contribution different is that it includes more explanation, detail, and context, and is presented conveniently in a single place. At various points the authors respond to critiques that have been leveled by other researchers in the intervening decades. For example, they address the critique that piece-plotting artifacts on floor surfaces and analyzing patterned distributions does not adequately take into account postdepositional site formation processes such as sweeping. Here, they argue that they never expected or intended the floors to represent in situ records of past activities or men's and women's work areas but that they had hoped to find “last used” artifacts and artifacts trampled into earthen floors. According to the description of their excavation methods, they piece-plotted “important artifacts” and otherwise screened floor deposits in 2 × 2 m units, hoping that a large enough sample would reveal regular patterns in artifact use and discard and possible “tool kits.” Indeed, they argue that many unique patterns emerged from all of that effort. Some notable findings are (1) feasting sometimes included the consumption of dogs, and dogs may have been raised for this purpose; (2) sewing required more light and was thus often undertaken outside; (3) hearths, grinding stones, cooking pots, and figurines were often found together within houses that might represent women's work spaces; and (4) shells and chert perforators were often found discarded together, thus representing a shell-working tool kit. They even employed an early version of flotation for collecting carbonized seeds from ash deposits. One wonders, however, what might have been found had at least some of the house floors been sampled using contemporary methods to look for microartifacts, chemical residues, and microstratigraphy with stricter 1 × 1 m horizontal control. Likewise, a 15–20 cm thick deposit beneath a house floor is interpreted as occupation debris related to an earlier phase of use rather than what most would argue is more likely to be fill from another area of the site being deposited to level the surface prior to new construction (p. 328).

Excavations at SJM 1 includes chapters that describe the evidence for subsistence-related household activities, craft production, ritual activities, and raiding, which may be useful for researchers who want to know more about specific kinds of materials and activities and their signatures or tool kits. The authors engage in detail with the evidence for violence at SJM, including postholes that Flannery and Marcus interpret as evidence of a possible palisade wall and burned or even vitrified daub, which indicates that some houses were deliberately burned. They draw a comparison to Maori defensive works of New Zealand to bolster their interpretation about the periodic Early and Middle Formative violence at SJM. Problematic analogies can plague even the best excavated materials, however. For example, I have always questioned their conclusions about gendered work areas and their analogy to highland New Guinea men's houses for identifying men's houses at SJM—an interpretation that does not have any corollary in later Mesoamerican archaeological contexts or Zapotec (or for that matter, Mesoamerican) ethnography and ethnohistory. Excavations at SJM 1 includes a regression analysis by Robert Reynolds (chapter 25) that shows that most of the houses in each ward specialized in a particular shared craft activity and exchanged goods independently from other wards, while at least one household in each ward demonstrated a unique craft specialization. This, they argue, demonstrates that SJM's social, economic, and political organization was divided into equivalent segments, which set the stage for the emergence of ancestor-based descent groups, hereditary ranking, and rapid increases in social complexity (p. 468). Researchers who work in other parts of Formative/Preclassic Mesoamerica frustrated with the use of uncalibrated radiocarbon dates in Oaxacan reports are advised to consult chapter 26, wherein the authors present all of their radiocarbon dates and their calibrated equivalents.

Excavations at SJM 2 presents the results of excavations in public buildings at SJM, which includes another 35–40 buildings. The authors use the covering label “Cognitive Archaeology” to refer to “those aspects of ancient cultures and societies that are the product of the human mind,” which includes cosmology, religion, and ideology. As such, the volume starts with an overview of ancient Zapotec religion as evidenced in art and iconography, architectural features, material artifacts, and plant and animal remains, which they compare to information gleaned from Zapotec ethnohistoric accounts (not unlike what they did in their 1976 American Scientist article “Formative Oaxaca and the Zapotec Cosmos” and later publications). Many of the interpretations about Early Formative religion at SJM, including the division of ritual activities along gender lines, have been presented in other publications (notably Marcus and Flannery, Zapotec Civilization, 2006). In this monograph they include some additional drawings and photographs of the features associated with the purported men's houses, of which they argue there were at least nine (not all used simultaneously). Whereas women's rituals were relegated to the house or residence, men's rituals were undertaken in specialized recessed architecture, with mat-lined benches. Men's rituals involved smoking hallucinogenic plants (mixed with lime) and the use of masks. Women's rituals involved the use of figurines and may have included water divination. The spatial separation of men's and women's ritual continued from the Early Formative well into the Middle Formative period (San José phase). It was not until the end of the San José phase that platformed temple architecture emerged as a new form of public building. Specialists in Oaxaca archaeology might find interesting the use of bun-shaped (“planoconvex”) adobe blocks in SJM's Middle Formative public buildings, which the authors suggest were made using the bottom of broken ollas. They present a detailed description of the construction sequence of the main ceremonial platform at SJM, which includes the Structure 19 platform and Structure 28 temple on Mound 1. They later describe the stratigraphic details surrounding the placement of the famous Monument 3, which has long been hailed as the earliest evidence of hieroglyphic writing in Mesoamerica (still a contentious claim among some Mesoamerican specialists). Readers will have to review the details presented in chapter 9 to decide if they are convinced of the pre-Monte Albán Rosario phase date. Following the burning of Temple 28 in the Rosario phase, SJM was abandoned, only to be revisited for rituals atop the highest mound a few centuries later. It was not until Monte Albán II (the Classic period) that SJM was reoccupied, this time serving as a second-tier administrative center subordinate to Monte Albán. Many of the later chapters describe in detail the Monte Albán II phase reoccupation of SJM.

The authors tack back and forth between SJM and excavation findings from other sites in the Oaxaca Valley throughout the volume, including San Pablo Huitzo, Tierras Largas, Fábrica San José, San Martín Tilcajete, and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec, describing innovations in ceremonial architecture that relate to emerging social complexity and the material evidence for shifts in regional political organization. Thus, for example, it is through a detailed recounting of more recent excavation results at San Martín Tilcajete (by Charles Spencer, Elsa Redmond, and Christina Elson) that the authors trace the evolution of Zapotec temple architecture from single-room to two rooms. Sometimes such diversions from SJM seem to distract, suggesting that by themselves, the SJM excavation results might be more difficult to interpret.

In sum, Excavations at SJM 1 and 2 are important volumes that describe in detail the results from the 1966–1980 excavations. While the major conclusions and many of the findings have been published in summary form in other venues, I think that archaeologists—especially Oaxacan specialists—will appreciate finally having access to detailed contextual information about these important excavations.

On a side note, I had the opportunity to visit San José Mogote once again in 2016. I must admit that I was extremely dismayed to see the poor state of conservation and upkeep of many of the reconstructed buildings. Consolidated and reconstructed walls have been defaced with modern graffiti, and other platform walls are cracked or have experienced devastating erosion and major collapse. Sadly, though perhaps fittingly, local residents have once again filled the ball court playing field with a vast array of modern trash, apparently just as had been the case prior to Chris Moser's excavation as part of the SJM project (Excavations at SJM 1, chapter 19).