Our book title, Ancient Oaxaca, is well known to students of pre-Hispanic Oaxaca. The original book with this title, edited by John Paddock (1966), stood for many years as the definitive overview of Oaxacan archaeology, and was a book that gave us, and many others, our first taste of this archaeologically exciting region. We dedicate the present volume to John, to keep alive the memory of one of the pioneers of modern archaeology in Oaxaca.

The state that developed at Monte Albán, in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, was the earliest and one of the most influential in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Because of its significance and the richness of its archaeological and epigraphic remains, Monte Albán and the surrounding valley have received much archaeological attention for over a century. Research in the Valley of Oaxaca has included long-term projects that have been among the preeminent investigative efforts in the history of Mesoamerican archaeology. These projects include those of Alfonso Caso and his students and colleagues, and studies by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus and their students and colleagues. Our own archaeological settlement pattern surveys of the entire Valley of Oaxaca also have contributed useful data, and we are now extending our survey coverage beyond the boundaries of the valley itself. Although there is still much to do, the amount of information on past social change in Oaxaca is substantial. For the most part, the results of these research efforts are not readily available except in technical and academic publications (Marcus and Flannery 1996 is an important exception).