Plazuelas
Encyclopedia
| Chichimec Culture – Archaeological Site | ||
| Name: | Plazuelas Archaeological Site | |
| Type | Mesoamerican archaeology | |
| Location | San Juan el Alto, Municipality of Penjamo Pénjamo Penjamo Hidalgo Cradle, is the City head-board of the homonymous Municipality, one of 46 municipalities of Guanajuato's Mexican state. It is one of the cities with major commercial movement of the State, and is considered to be the major City of the Southwest of the entity and the city number 17... , Guanajuato Guanajuato Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato.... |
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| Region | 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... |
|
| Coordinates | 20°24′12"N 101°49′38"W | |
| Culture | Chichimec | |
| Language | ||
| Chronology | 600 – 900 CE | |
| Period | Mesoamerican Classical - Postclassical | |
| Apogee | ||
| INAH Web Page | Plazuelas Archaeological site | |
Plazuelas is a prehispanic
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...
archaeological site located just north of San Juan el Alto, some 2.7 kilometers (1.57 mi.) north of federal highway 90 (Penjamo-Guadalajara), and about 11 kilometers (6.8 mi.) west of the city of Penjamo
Pénjamo
Penjamo Hidalgo Cradle, is the City head-board of the homonymous Municipality, one of 46 municipalities of Guanajuato's Mexican state. It is one of the cities with major commercial movement of the State, and is considered to be the major City of the Southwest of the entity and the city number 17...
in the state of Guanajuato
Guanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....
, 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...
. The site is open to the public; it is dominated by a large, rectangular plaza with several pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
al structures and platforms, along with a massive ball court. To the north of the structures is a field of boulders with thousands of glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
s carved into them.
The original settlement was considerably larger, with a large, circular structure called El Cajete marking its eastern extent.
According to INAH, site remains and evidence confirms the influence of many cultures merging on this site, although it is not certainly known who constructed this city, INAH believes the hunter-gatherer Chichimecas inhabited the Bajio region at the end of the postclassical period, and that many other sedentary cultures lived here before, but these cultures are not mentioned nor identified.
Plazuelas (600-900 CE) is located in the same Municipality as the Barajas (archaeological site)
Barajas (archaeological site)
Barajas is an archaeological site located in the municipality of Pénjamo, which includes a large complex of approximately 15 archeological sites in good preservation state, built on a small volcanic Massif in the Bajío,-Background:...
(? – 1000 CE) and some 46 kilometers (28.6 mi.) west of Peralta
Peralta (Mesoamerican site)
Peralta is a prehispanic mesoamerican archaeological site located in the municipality of Abasolo, Guanajuato, just outside the village of San Jose de Peralta in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. The site is reached via Mexico highway 90 of from Irapuato. Approximately 15.5 km south of the...
(100 – 900 CE), and share similar settlement mesoamerican classical period, hence it is possible that these three cities shared constructors, inhabitants, religion, governments and traded as part of a common “Bajio Tradition”.
Very little is known about these societies inhabiting the Bajio Region, they are thought to have been members of hunter-gatherer, fishing Chichimec groups, it is now known that these places were trading confluence routes between central Mexico with northern and western Mesoamerica.
Over 1400 years ago, in addition to Plazuelas, there were other five known important cities in the region; San Bartolome (Tzchté), San Miguel Viejo, Tepozán, Loza Los Padres and Peralta (Mesoamerican site)
Peralta (Mesoamerican site)
Peralta is a prehispanic mesoamerican archaeological site located in the municipality of Abasolo, Guanajuato, just outside the village of San Jose de Peralta in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. The site is reached via Mexico highway 90 of from Irapuato. Approximately 15.5 km south of the...
. Circular structures confirm the Tradition constant ancient relations with other civilizations. Circular structures are common across prehispanic Mesoamerica.
Background
The area north of the Lerma River, is presumed to have been originally occupied by hunter-gathererHunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
nomadic groups, the surrounding area city construction was probably made by late occupants. Characteristics indicate that these constructions were sedentary establishments. Lifestyles and social characteristics follow the Mesoamerican model. It is estimated that the site was abandoned around year 1000 CE.
In prehispanic times, the Bajio region saw the most human development due to the fertility of the soil and the presence of surface water for agriculture. The oldest group to inhabit the area are called the Chupícuarios, who dominated the center of the Bajío area and were active in between 800 BCE and 300 CE. Their largest city is now the site called Chupícuaro, and their influence was widespread being found in the modern states of Zacatecas, Querétaro, Colima
Colima
Colima is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It shares its name with its capital and main city, Colima....
, Nayarit
Nayarit
Nayarit officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Nayarit is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 20 municipalities and its capital city is Tepic.It is located in Western Mexico...
, Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Michoacán and Guerrero
Guerrero
Guerrero officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guerrero is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo....
. Chupícuaro cities were associated with the Toltec
Toltec
The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...
city of Tula
Tula, Hidalgo
Tula, formally, Tula de Allende, is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 305.8 km² , and as of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 93,296, with 28,432 in the town...
and when this city fell, these agricultural cities of Guanajuato also went in to decline. This and a prolonged drought cause these cities to be abandoned between the 10th and 11th centuries with only the Guamare
Guamare
The Guamares were an indigenous group that were concentrated in the region of the present state of Guanajuato. They were part of the Chichimecas.The Guamares were centered in the Guanajuato Sierras, but some bands ranged as far east as Querétaro...
s left ethnically.
Then Chichimeca and other nomadic groups entered the area. These nomadic indigenous groups are generically referred to as Chichimeca, but in reality they were a variety of ethnicities such as the Guachichiles, Pames and Zacateco
Zacateco
The Zacatecos were an indigenous people inhabiting part of northern Mexico, one of the peoples called Chichimecas by the Aztecs. They lived in most of what is now the state of Zacatecas and the northeastern part of Durango. They have many direct descendants, but most of their culture and...
s. These groups were warriors, semi nomadic and did not practice significant agriculture, nor did they construct cities. Part of the state was also inhabited by the Otomi but they were mostly displaced or dominated by the P’urhépecha in the southwest and the Chichimeca in other parts. By the 16th century, most of 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...
was dominated by either the Aztec or P'urhépecha
Tarascan state
The Tarascan state was a state in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, roughly covering the geographic area of the present-day Mexican state of Michoacán. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico it was the second-largest state in Mexico. The state was founded in the early 14th century and lost its...
empires, but Guanajuato was under the control of neither. It was on the northern border of the P’urhépecha empire with southern Guanajuato showing significant cultural influence in the southern valleys, and Aztecs had ventured into the area looking for minerals. However, most of the state was dominated by various Chichimeca tribes as part of what the Spanish would call the “Gran Chichimeca.” These Chichimeca were mostly nomadic with some scattered agricultural communities, mostly in the north.
Northern Mexico has been studied by Pedro Armillas (1964, 1969), Braniff (1989, 1994). More recent archaeological has been made by France, with research periods in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
Bajio Tradition
Not too long ago, the Bajio Region and a good part of the Mexican central plateau were considered of little archaeological interest. Little was known of native regional societies, beyond the historical data describing an almost uninhabited area two centuries before the conquest.Data from historical documents indicated that the prehispanic Bajio inhabitants were only Chichimeca, nomadic groups with appropriation economies and belligerents. By 1972, Beatriz Braniff began to explain the Bajio cultures and proposed the contours of a "marginal" region of Mesoamerica, located on the edges of the high cultured regions The apparent influence of large Mesoamerican cities, mainly Teotihuacan in regional development, also departed from the academic debate the possibility of identifying and explaining the specific role played by local societies in the Mesoamerican development.
During the last ten years, archaeological studies have had a major boost in Guanajuato, and several myths of the Bajio past became truth, have provided better founded explanations based on the prehispanic life in this geographic area.
Three aspects seem fundamental: a) the Bajio as an important part of the Mesoamerican universe was a trade communication region and a link between three the cultural areas proposed by Paul Kirchhoff (1967): Central, North and West Mexico; b) theories based on influences determination from major population centers, has now been replaced by understanding the interactions and bi-directional relationships, where the implications of local societies such as Peralta have barely been addressed but no doubt will continue to investigate; c) during the mesoamerican classical period, between 300 and 700 CE, the Bajio developed a notable agricultural population, with a social and political organization structure, in addition to its deep regional cultural roots, that has been identified as the Bajio tradition.
Chichimeca
Chichimeca was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadNomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic peoples who inhabited the north of modern-day 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...
and southwestern United States
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
, and carried the same sense as the European term "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
". The name was adopted with a pejorative tone by the Spaniards when referring especially to the semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
peoples of northern Mexico. In modern times only one ethnic group is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz
Chichimeca Jonaz
The Chichimeca Jonaz are a group of indigenous people living in Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí. In Guanajuato State the Chichimeca Jonaz people live in a community of San Luis de la Paz municipality. The settlement is 2,070 m above sea level...
, although lately this usage is being changed for simply "Jonáz" or their own name for themselves "Úza".
The Chichimeca peoples were in fact many different groups with varying ethnic and linguistic affiliations. As the Spaniards worked towards consolidating the rule of New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
over the Mexican indigenous peoples during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the "Chichimecan tribes" maintained a resistance. A number of ethnic groups of the region allied against the Spanish, and the following military colonization of northern Mexico has become known as the "Chichimeca War
Chichimeca War
The Chichimeca War was a military conflict waged between Spanish colonizers and their Indian allies against a confederation of Chichimeca Indians. It was the longest and most expensive conflict between Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of New Spain in the history of the colony.The Chichimeca...
s".
Many of the peoples called Chichimeca are virtually unknown today; few descriptions mention them and they seem to have been absorbed into mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
culture or into other indigenous ethnic groups. For example, virtually nothing is known about the peoples referred to as Guachichil
Guachichil
Of all the Chichimeca natives, the Guachichiles occupied the most extensive territory, stretching north to Saltillo in Coahuila and to the northern corners of Michoacán in the south...
es, Caxcan
Caxcan
The Caxcan were a partly nomadic indigenous people of Mexico. Under their leader, Francisco Tenamaztle, the Caxcan were allied with the Zacatecos against the Spaniards during the Mixtón Rebellion. During the rebellion, they were described as "the heart and the center of the Indian Rebellion". They...
es, Zacateco
Zacateco
The Zacatecos were an indigenous people inhabiting part of northern Mexico, one of the peoples called Chichimecas by the Aztecs. They lived in most of what is now the state of Zacatecas and the northeastern part of Durango. They have many direct descendants, but most of their culture and...
s, Tecuexe
Tecuexe
The Tecuexe were an indigenous group found in the eastern part of present day Guadalajara, Mexico-History:It is believed that the Tecuexe derived from the dispersion of Zacateco groups from La Quemada. Like the Zacatecos, the Tecuexe were a tribe belonging to the generic "Chichimeca" peoples...
s, or Guamare
Guamare
The Guamares were an indigenous group that were concentrated in the region of the present state of Guanajuato. They were part of the Chichimecas.The Guamares were centered in the Guanajuato Sierras, but some bands ranged as far east as Querétaro...
s. Others like the Opata
Opata
Opata is the collective name for three indigenous peoples native to the northern Mexican border state of Sonora. The whole of Opata territory encompasses the northeasterly and central part of the state...
or "Eudeve" are well described but extinct as a people.
Other "Chichimec" peoples maintain a separate identity into the present day, for example the Otomi
Otomi people
The Otomi people . Smaller Otomi populations exist in the states of Puebla, Mexico, Tlaxcala, Michoacán and Guanajuato. The Otomi language belonging to the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean language family is spoken in many different varieties some of which are not mutually intelligible.One of...
es, Chichimeca Jonaz
Chichimeca Jonaz
The Chichimeca Jonaz are a group of indigenous people living in Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí. In Guanajuato State the Chichimeca Jonaz people live in a community of San Luis de la Paz municipality. The settlement is 2,070 m above sea level...
, Cora
Cora people
The Cora are an indigenous ethnic group of Western Central Mexico that live in the Sierra de Nayarit and in La Mesa de Nayar in the Mexican states of Jalisco and Nayarit. They call themselves náayarite , whence the name of the present day Mexican state of Nayarit...
s, Huicholes, Pame
Pame
The Pame are an indigenous people of central Mexico living in the state of San Luis Potosí. They call themselves Xi'úi. They speak the Pame language, which belongs to the Oto-Pamean group of the Oto-Manguean language family....
s, Yaquis, Mayos
Mayo people
The Mayo are a Mexican indigenous people living in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, originally living near the Mayo River in Sonora. In their own language they call themselves Yoreme....
, O'odham
O'odham
The O'odham peoples, including the Tohono O'odham or Papago, the Pima or Akimel O'odham, and the Hia C-ed O'odham, are an indigenous Uto-Aztecan peoples of the Sonoran desert in southern and central Arizona and northern Sonora, united by a common heritage language, the O'odham language...
and the Tepehuánes
Tepehuán
The Tepehuán are a Native American ethnic group in northwest Mexico, whose villages at the time of Spanish conquest spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chihuahua and Durango in the north to Jalisco in the south...
.
The first description of a modern objective ethnography of the peoples inhabiting La Gran Chichimeca was done by Norwegian naturalist and explorer Carl Sofus Lumholtz
Carl Sofus Lumholtz
Carl Sofus Lumholtz was a Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, best known for his meticulous field research and ethnographic publications on indigenous cultures of Australia and Mesoamerican central Mexico.-Biography:...
in 1890 when he traveled on mule through northwestern Mexico, meeting the indigenous peoples on friendly terms. With his descriptions of the rich and different cultures of the various "uncivilized" tribes, the picture of the uniform Chichimec barbarians was changed, although in Mexican Spanish the word "Chichimeca" remains connected to an image of "savagery".
The historian Paul Kirchhoff, in his work "The Hunting-Gathering People of North Mexico," described the Chichimecas as sharing a hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
culture, based on the gathering of mesquite
Mesquite
Mesquite is a leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in northern Mexico through the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Deserts, and up into the Southwestern United States as far north as southern Kansas, west to the Colorado Desert in California,and east to the eastern fifth of Texas, where...
, agave
Agave
Agave is a genus of monocots. The plants are perennial, but each rosette flowers once and then dies ; they are commonly known as the century plant....
, and tunas (the fruit of the nopal). While others also lived off of acorns, root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s and seeds
SEEDS
SEEDS is a voluntary organisation registered under the Societies Act of India....
. In some areas, the Chichimecas cultivated maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
and calabash
Calabash
Lagenaria siceraria , bottle gourd, opo squash or long melon is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, the calabash is widely known as the bottle gourd...
. From the mesquite, the Chichimecas made white bread
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
and wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
. Many Chichimec tribes utilized the juice of the agave as a substitute for water when it was in short supply.
The Site
The site was built over an artificial plateau, comprising a civic-religious complex and a ballgame court on the southern side. The structure complex known as Casas Tapadas comprises 4 buildings, a palace and a small altar bordered by a thick wall with a seating bench on the inside. There are several accesses, with a main access on the west side. A Large road leads to this entrance.The place is believed to have worshiped gods representing water, earth, fire and wind. This worship is depicted in the architectonic manifestations, sculptures and ornamental articles found. Rays, clouds, serpents, snails and spirals are symbols represented in stone glyphs, and structures.
Plazuelas was built over three hill sides, divided by two ravines, overlooking a large valley to the south.
The eastern ravine has a water spring, considered the main water source, while western ravine, known as “Los Cuijes” only has seasonal rain water.
It can be said that the plateau where the site was constructed is surrounded by natural ravines in three sides (east, north and west), some deeper than others, the southern side, where the access to the site is located, is composed by a smooth slope towards the valley.
The esplanade to the west has remains of a second ballgame court, and possibly other remains, yet to be explored.
The central esplanade contains five buildings; it is believed to have represented the larger construction effort, in leveling the terrain. The buildings are the Casas Tapadas Complex, a ballgame court to the south, two structures just west of the court, a Temazcal and a large concentration of petroglyphs at the northern and western edges of the esplanade.
An interesting consideration is that the main three structures at Casas Tapadas, resemble three hills on the background and would seem to have been purposely aligned. See photograph.
The eastern esplanade has an unexplored circular basement.
The site structures seem to be aligned north south with a few degree deviation to the east.
Structures
Casas Tapadas and the ballgame court to the south are connected by a 220 meter (720 ft.) long roadThe building decoration depicts the stylized motif of “atadura de años” (bundle of years), the design was modified in several occasions to commemorate the end of a life cycle. It is also depicted in ray shaped sculptures ornamenting the eastern pyramid.
Casas Tapadas
The complex was built over a large rectangular platform oriented east-west, measuring approximately 132 by 89 meters (433 by 291 ft.) over which several structures were built, three main structures are aligned east - west.
The complex has a perimeter wall with a large walkway built into the interior facade, interrupted by seven entrances: three to the north, three to the south and one to the west.
The site contains a traditional Bajio element, known as a sunken patio, as it is located at a lower level within the complex.
The complex had several expansions, to the north by a square patio at the west side and to the south by a rectangular patio at the eastern end, communicated by a hall way parallel to the basement. This expansion communicates with the exterior by four stairways. To the south, because of the terrain level contour, the expansion forms a large terrace similar to the northern expansion, and on the center of the south side has a stairway that leads onto the road that connects with the ballgame court.
The north and south basements were modified three times, when originally built they had certain symmetry, with an overhang decoration over the wall sides, it became more complex on the second stage of the north basement, while on the south basement it was simpler; in both cases, a stone slab holds most of the ornament weight.
During the third constructive stage the building design changes completely, to the south, the building design is very basic, the walls has no ornaments, while the northern side the structure is conformed by large engraved self-supported stones, supporting the stone slabs weight.
The structure has rather rare elements in Guanajuato. The architectonic layout is T shaped and unfortunately was found in bad conditions; apparently was destroyed towards its decline (900 CE). The profile of its perimeter wall also has the northern structure monolithic stones and among the remains are large engraved stones depicting cut spirals that most have been part of the structure. Inside are traces of a wall that possibly divided the space, covered with a clay floor, probably remains of two small patios.
The main Access to Casas Tapadas is by a road limited by low walls on the western side. On the northern side there are several steps that indicate a straight line smooth route down towards the water spring.
Caracoles
This structure is actually part of the Casas Tapadas complex, it is called “Caracoles”, because of spiral figures found as part of the structure ornament.The building on the back contained carved stones with lightning representations and the year symbol, over a cane bundle. Possibly in memory of an important event or the beginning of a new 52 year cycle.
In addition to its political function, it was probably dedicated to the earth, by the inverted T shape related to the underworld. Its walls contain carved stones with a cut spiral.
Circular Basement
Un unexplored circular basement with a 48 meter (157 ft.) diameter is located some 624 meters (2047 ft.) east of the Casas Tapadas complex, over the eastern ravine, it is believed to be somehow part of the Circular Building Tradition of Teuchitlán, Jalisco /> on the GuachimontonesGuachimontones
Los Guachimontones is a prehispanic archaeological site near the Mexican town of Teuchitlán in the state of Jalisco about an hour west of Guadalajara...
three pyramidal basements conforming an open plaza and subtle terraces.
Ballgame Court
The structure is the first architectural element seen upon entering the site, with Casas Tapadas in the background to the north.The structure has bigger constructions on the western side, while walls on the eastern side are lower, both sides possibly had stands for spectators attending the game.
The ballgame court is I shaped, measuring some 65 by 31 meters (213 by 101 ft.)
It presumably had a religious sense, it is believed that the game purpose was to assure the victorious rising of the sun every morning, with renewed energy to provide life on earth.
In the four corners of the court were found sculptures representing a serpents and at the center, as marker a serpent –lizard.
These mythological serpent presentations were offerings at the ballgame courts and also share features of the rain god and lightning. The claws below and the headdress displayed towards the back, symbolizes the power of nature elements.
The marker found at the eastern side of the court, depicts attributes of the ancient rain gods, reiterating their association with fertility. This is expressed by the feather headdress, eye circles, the spiral depicting a mouth, the coiled nose, gums with teeth and the lower jaw.
Ballgame ceremonial structures
These two square structures sit just west of the ballgame court, hence it is assume they were related to the game, probably with ceremonial purposes, following the ritual bath at the Temazcal structure, further to the west.
Notice the opposing steps into the structures; the structure on the south (left on the photograph) has protruding steps, while the structure to the right has recessed steps.
Temazcal
To the west of the ballgame court (and ceremonial structures) is a TemazcalTemazcal
A temazcal is a type of sweat lodge which originated with pre-Hispanic Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica. The word temazcal comes from the Nahuatl word temazcalli , or possibly from the Aztec teme and calli . Temazcal in English is also written as temezcal, temascal, or temescal...
or ceremonial bath house, were players probably took purifying baths, before the ceremonial game.
Petroglyphs
There are apparently two main zones with many petroglyphs, one to the east of the ball game, near the TemazcalTemazcal
A temazcal is a type of sweat lodge which originated with pre-Hispanic Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica. The word temazcal comes from the Nahuatl word temazcalli , or possibly from the Aztec teme and calli . Temazcal in English is also written as temezcal, temascal, or temescal...
and another more important section to the north.
The petroglyphs were engraved on the surface of igneous rock outgrowths, by natives , in high and low relief, holes, circles, dotted lines, continuous lines, spiral, concentric circles, zoomorphic figures, planes and isolated building models and complex sites.
The model outline Bajio architectonic elements, such as sunken patios and other features from gar away regions, such as Teuchitlán (Guachimontones
Guachimontones
Los Guachimontones is a prehispanic archaeological site near the Mexican town of Teuchitlán in the state of Jalisco about an hour west of Guadalajara...
), that confirms the multi-ethnicity hypothesis of these lands.
An important sample is the model, depicting details of the Casas Tapadas complex, the details of elements engraved such as accesses, stairways, walkways and structures architectonic lay out is remarkable.
Sculptures
Among the relevant findings at the site, are several fragments of anthropomorphic stone sculptures that presumably were destroyed along with the site structures. These include a male figure, mutilated of hands, legs and head, seems to be a captive representation, its slim body, the back curvature and the arms are stiff up against its body, would indicate a person tied and captive, similar to others observed in other regions.Phallus
Was found at the main entrance of casas tapadas, it was broken in for pieces. It is believed that it was vertically set originally. This is a male attribute marker to the site, representing fertility. It has many carvings, similar to others found in the site.Turquoise
It was a high valued stone for jewels manufacturing, it was associated with water and the morning sky. Many pieces were found with various designs, among them are miniature figures (measuring about 3 mm or 1/8 of an inch), shaped as water droplets, lightening and dogs, animals associated with water.Site Museum
Upon entering the site, the Museum is on the right hand side, it contains a large number of pieces found in the site.Site facilities are well kept, including parking space, toilets, souvenirs and a well-marked site visit route. The museum offers guided tours, by trained junior high schools children.