Final Research Paper

For the final research paper I teamed up with my partner, Steven Kieffer, in order to help take some of the load off.  It was a great experience and I felt I came away with better understanding of the material as well as the process of working with someone on a project. 

Our hypothesis explored the idea that sites that were built in areas of non-prime agricultural land, like the grids found in N1E3, N2E3, and N3E3 (see map above), were able to support their site density by receiving resources from more fertile areas under control of the centralized governance. These poor production land regions would only be able to prosper if there was a government-wide maize agriculture system in place. This transition would effectively show a density increase in these areas around the time of Monte Alban IIIA period (A.D. 200-500) 

After anlaysizing the data we produced we were able to conclude that the final unification of Tlacolula and Ocotlan/Zimatlan helped changed the area into the Central/Etla region Zapotec State. The data supports the given hypothesis that a change in site density from Monte Alban II to Monte Alban IIIA increased and was maintained by centralized governance. This allowed the distribution and maintenance of a statewide maize agriculture.