It can be windy at times with prevailing winds blowing north to south or vice versa. The vegetation is mostly deciduous with Guanacaste, oak, guirisiña, granadillo (Rhamnus alaternus), mango, chicozapote, hierba de cancer (Cuphea procumbens) and others dominating. Wildlife includes deer, armadillos, rabbits, eagles, quail and mimus. History The full name of the city and municipality is Santo Domingo Tehuantepec. "Tehuantepec" comes from Nahuatl and has been generally regarded to mean "wild animal (tecuani) hill (tepec)". The name was given to the area by the Aztecs, purportedly because of the ferocity of the native Zapotec warriors they encountered there. The Zapotec name for the area is Guie-Ngola, or Large Hill/Rock, with the city name being Guisi’si Gui. Santo Domingo was added by Bartolomé de las Casas as he passed by in honor of the Dominican church was had already been established here. From pre Hispanic times, the settlement has been represented by an Aztec glyph, the earliest example of which comes from the Guevea Codex, also known as the Zapotec Codex. This glyph represents a hill with a jaguar, an ancient totem animal throughout MesoAmerica. Thus, the "wild animal" component of the hill's name may actually be related to a recognition of an ancient religious meeting site associated with the symbol of the jaguar. The Nahuatl word "tehuan" actually means "among the people" or "a gathering", i.e. a meeting place. The hill is divided into sixty six parts and each part has a circle. The archeology of the area around the city is little studied, in part because the main archeological sites are difficult to access and the climate of the southern Isthmus makes excavation work difficult. Much of the area's early cultural interactions are only speculated about but it is known there was contact with Teotihuacan, Tula, Monte Albán and later, Tenochtitlan. The Tehuantepec area in the very early Pre Classic period was on the periphery of the zone where the Olmecs had influence as is noted by artifacts. The area's initial importance was not as a center of a dominion but rather as part of a trade route which connected Central America with what is now central Mexico. Through its trade routes passed manta rays, jade, other precious stones, shells, sponges, gold, amber, salt, feathers, furs, cotton, spices, honey and cocoa. The main control point for this trade route in this area was mostly likely Lass Gui’e’e, according