page_title: Teuchitlán culture
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Teuchitlán culture / History
context_page_description: The Teuchitlán culture was one of several related cultures in West Mexico during the Late Formative to Classic period. Situated in the Tequila Valleys of Jalisco, the Teuchitlán culture shared in the tradition of burying some of their dead in shaft and chamber tombs. Archaeological work from the past few decades have demonstrated that West Mexico was not occupied by one homogeneous culture, historically referred to as the shaft tomb tradition, that stretched from Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima. Instead, West Mexico was composed of multiple cultures with several distinct commonalities.
  The Teuchitlán culture is an archaeologically defined culture named after the town of Teuchitlán where the largest Teuchitlán culture site, Los Guachimontones, is located. Los Guachimontones is one of several dozen sites in the region, but is most notable for the number and size of its ceremonial buildings. Like many other Mesoamerican cultures, the Teuchitlán culture lacked a writing system. Archaeologists do not know what they may have called themselves or what language they may have spoken.
context_section_description: Archaeologists still poorly understand the origins and development of the Teuchitlán culture. No Early or Middle Formative sites in the Tequila Valleys have been excavated yet. However, the nearby Early Formative site of El Opeño, Michoacan and somewhat more distantly located Middle Formative site of Mascota, Jalisco suggest a long continuity of shaft and chamber use in West Mexico. Phil Weigand documented several Middle Formative mounds in the Tequila Valleys in the 1970s and 1980s. These large, low mounds supposedly contained burials that looters had robbed in the past. However, Weigand never published more than some plan maps and descriptions of these mounds.
  During the Late Formative period, the Tequila Valleys experienced a surge in population density resulting in the proliferation of surface and subsurface architecture. The sub-surface architecture, in the form of shaft and chamber tombs, is more familiar to archaeologists and the public. This is a result of the rampant looting of tombs starting in the 19th century and continuing until the 1970s, though some looting continues to a lesser extent. Looters focused on shaft and chamber tombs to retrieve the hollow and solid ceramic figures sometimes placed within as mortuary offerings to the deceased. These ceramic figures were sold on the art market to collectors and museums in Mexico and abroad. Painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were frequent collectors of ceramic figures from West Mexico, often incorporating them into their works such as Diego Rivera’s “La Civilización Tarasca” (1950). Other notable collectors include Vincent Price whose collection Kahlúa used for advertisements in the 1960s. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Gilcrease Museum also have extensive West Mexican collections.
  One of the defining features of the Teuchitlán culture is the construction and use of circular temples called guachimontones. These buildings consist of several architectural features: a basal circular platform that acts as a patio, a ring platform called a banquette constructed on top of the patio platform, an even number of quadrangular platforms constructed on top of the banquette, and a stepped altar located in the center of the patio. Guachimontones are most heavily concentrated in the Tequila Valleys, but examples are found outside of the cultural boundaries of the Teuchitlán culture. Guachimontones can be found near Comala, Colima, La Gloria, Guanajuato, and Bolaños, Jalisco.
  Weigand had proposed that the construction of guachimontones followed on the construction of shaft and chamber tombs. The shift from sub-surface to surface architecture was a shift in how power transferred from the association with the dead to power held by the living. However, this hypothesis no longer holds up to scrutiny. Excavations at the site of Los Guachimontones place the construction date of the largest guachimonton in the Tequila Valleys, Circle 1, between 160 to 60 BCE. The construction of Circle 1 predates the monumental tomb at El Arenal and the elaborate tomb at Huitzilapa.
  Recently, Beekman proposed a different explanation for the relationship between guachimontones and shaft and chamber tombs. Beekman argues that around Los Guachimontones, cultural rules and norms were most heavily enforced among the population with power being shared relatively equally between ruling elite lineages. As one moves away from Los Guachimontones, ruling elites that managed a smaller population and site, were able to exert a greater degree of control. This allowed elites to invest more heavily in the construction of tombs that promoted their lineage than in public architecture used by other elites and the community.
caption: A reconstruction of 'Circle 2' (in foreground) and 'Circle 1' at Guachimontones
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