Xochitepec is a municipio (municipality

Municipalities of Mexico

Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in Mexico . There are 2,438 municipalities in Mexico, making the average municipality population 45,616...

) of the state of Morelos

Morelos

Morelos officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Morelos is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 33 municipalities and its capital city is Cuernavaca....

, in central Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. Xochitepec is also the name of its principal township and seat of the municipal government. It is located approximately 13 km (8.1 mi) to the south of the capital of Morelos, Cuernavaca

Cuernavaca

Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. It was established at the archeological site of Gualupita I by the Olmec, "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, approximately 3200 years ago...

, on the southern outskirts of that city's greater metropolitan area

Metropolitan area

The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...

.

The municipality reported 45,643 inhabitants in the year 2000 census.

The toponym Xochitepec comes from the Nahuatl language, meaning "on the hill of flowers".

In June 2006 a research team from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History

National Institute of Anthropology and History

The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia is a Mexican federal government bureau established in 1939 to guarantee the research, preservation, protection, and promotion of the prehistoric, archaeological, anthropological, historical, and paleontological heritage of Mexico...

 (INAH) began excavations at Zazacatla

Zazacatla

Zazacatla is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of Mesoamerica's central Mexican plateau region, dating to the mid-Formative period of Mesoamerican chronology. The site was first excavated in 2006 underneath a modern commercial and housing development site, some 13 km south of Cuernavaca,...

, a pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

n archaeological site

Archaeological site

An archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...

 located within the municipal boundaries. The INAH team led by Giselle Canto reported finding evidence of Olmec

Olmec

The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....

 cultural influences at the site. Prior to the find Olmec-influenced statuary

Olmec figurine

This article on the Olmec figurine describes a number of archetypical figurines produced by the Formative Period inhabitants of Mesoamerica. While many of these figurines may or may not have been produced directly by the people of the Olmec heartland, they bear the hallmarks and motifs of Olmec...

 and architecture had been almost completely unknown for other sites in the western Morelos region, and Zazacatla's excavation represents the strongest evidence yet for some form of trade or contact between the area and the "Olmec heartland

Olmec heartland

The Olmec heartland is the southern portion of Mexico's Gulf Coast region between the Tuxtla mountains and the Olmec archaeological site of La Venta, extending roughly 80 km inland from the Gulf of Mexico coastline at its deepest...

" in the Gulf Coast

Gulf Coast of Mexico

The Gulf Coast of Mexico stretches along the Gulf of Mexico from the border with the United states at Matamoros, Tamaulipas all the way to the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula at Cancún. It includes the coastal regions along the Bay of Campeche. Major cities include Veracruz, Tampico, and...

 region, some 400 km (249 mi) to the east.

In January 2007 the governor of Morelos

Governor of Morelos

List of governors of Morelos since it became a state of Mexico in 1869.-See also:* List of Mexican state governors...

, Marco Adame Castillo, announced an offer for the state to underwrite the preservation of Zazacatla and to incorporate it into the tourism and cultural heritage plans for Morelos. He foreshadowed that a tourism project would be initiated at the site's location in Xochitepec once the archaeological investigations had further developed.

External links

• http://www.e-morelos.gob.mx/e-gobierno/DirMunicipios/xochitepec.htm
• http://e-municipios.e-morelos.gob.mx/xochitepec.htm