San José Mogote in the context of "Oaxaca City"

The Central Valleys (Spanish: Valles Centrales) of Oaxaca, also simply known as the Oaxaca Valley, is a geographic region located within the modern-day state of Oaxaca in southeastern Mexico. In an administrative context, it has been defined as comprising the districts of Etla, Centro, Zaachila, Zimatlán, Ocotlán, Tlacolula and Ejutla. The valley, which is located within the Sierra Madre Mountains, is shaped like a distorted and almost upside-down “Y,” with each of its arms bearing specific names: the northwestern Etla arm, the central southern Valle Grande, and the Tlacolula arm to the east. The Oaxaca Valley was home to the Zapotec civilization, one of the earliest complex societies in Mesoamerica, and the later Mixtec culture. A number of important and well-known archaeological sites are found in the Oaxaca Valley, including Monte Albán, Mitla, San José Mogote and Yagul. Today, the capital of the state, the city of Oaxaca, is located in the central portion of the valley.

The Mixtec culture (also called the Mixtec civilization) was a pre-Columbian archaeological culture, corresponding to the ancestors of the Mixtec people; they called themselves Ñuu savi (a name that their descendants still preserve), which means "people or nation of the rain". It had its first manifestations in the Mesoamerican Middle Preclassic period (12th century BC – 10th century BC) and ended with the Spanish conquest in the first decades of the 16th century. The historical territory of this people is the area known as La Mixteca (Ñuu Dzahui, in ancient Mixtec), a mountainous region located between the current Mexican states of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero.

The chronology of the Mixtec culture is one of the longest in Mesoamerica, due to its continuity and antiquity. It began as a result of the cultural diversification of the Otomanguean language speaking people in the area of Oaxaca. The Mixtecs shared numerous cultural traits with their Zapotec neighbors. In fact, both populations call themselves "people of the rain or of the cloud". The divergent evolution of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, favored by the ecological environment, encouraged urban concentration in the cities of San José Mogote and Monte Albán, while in the valleys of the Sierra Mixteca the urbanization followed a pattern of smaller human concentrations in numerous towns. Relations between Mixtecs and Zapotecs were constant during the Preclassic, when the Mixtecs were also definitively incorporated into the network of Pan-Mesoamerican relations. Some Mixtec products are among the luxury objects found in the Olmec heartland.