Ancient Mexican city endured for centuries without extremes in wealth and power

Location, location, location -- it's the first rule of real estate. For a long time, it's been widely assumed that being close to resources drives settlement patterns, with cities generally founded near water and fertile land for growing crops. But a new paper by a husband-and-wife archaeological team questions that idea, using the example of an ancient city in what's now southern Mexico. The researchers argue that Monte Alban, the largest city in its region for more than a thousand years,...