Zapotec peoples

The Zapotec (Valley Zapotec: Bën za) are an Indigenous people of Mexico. Their population is primarily concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, but Zapotec communities also exist in neighboring states. The present-day population is estimated at 400,000 to 650,000, many of whom are monolingual in one of the Native Zapotec languages and dialects.

In pre-Columbian times, the Zapotec civilization was one of the highly developed cultures of Mesoamerica that had a Zapotec writing system.

Many people of Zapotec ancestry have emigrated to the United States over several decades. They maintain their own social organizations in the Los Angeles and Central Valley areas of California.

There are four basic groups of Zapotec: the istmeños, who live in the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the serranos, who live in the northern mountains of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca; the southern Zapotec, who live in the southern mountains of the Sierra Sur; and the Central Valley Zapotec, who live in and around the Valley of Oaxaca.

The Zapotecs call themselves Bën Za, which means "People of the clouds" (Bën: People and Za: Cloud).

For decades it was believed that the exonym Zapotec came from the Nahuatl tzapotēcah (singular tzapotēcatl), which means "inhabitants of the place of sapote". Recent studies carried out by UNAM argue that it may be a hybrid word and should be written Zapochteca or Zaapochteca and comes from "za / zaa" (cloud) and "pochteca" (merchant).

Although several theories of the origin of the Zapotec peoples exist, including some possibly influenced in the post-conquest period, scholars largely agree the Zapotecs inhabited the Central Valley of Oaxaca as early as 500 to 300 BCE, during what is considered the Monte Alban I period. During this period, the Zapotecs established a significant system of governance over the population of the region. The Monte Alban periods, of which five have been categorized, lasted from 500 BCE to the time of conquest in 1521 CE. Yet archaeological evidence from the site of Monte Alban, "the first city in ancient Mesoamerica" has revealed settlement of the region as far back as 1150 BCE. Scholars have been able to correlate with the Formative, Classic, and post-Classic periods of civilization in the region within the greater Mesoamerican history through these discoveries.

The Formative stage, from about 500 BCE to 200 CE of which the periods of Monte Alban I and II are attributed to, is characterized by a shift to sedentary settlements and the practice of agriculture for subsistence. From 200 to 900 CE in the Monte Alban III period, the Classic stage witnessed the rise of social and political structures in the Zapotec civilization. This period also saw a surge in religious activity within the state leadership of the society. Later, during the "Militaristic stage" of Monte Alban IV–V from around 900 to 1521 CE, a rise in military influence common among Mesoamerican societies led states to become mired in warfare and "cults of war".