LOS GUACHIMONTONES
LOS GUACHIMONTONES WAS A CEREMONIAL CENTRE ATTRIBUTED TO THE TEUCHITLÁN CULTURE, LOCATED NEAR THE PRESENT-DAY TOWN OF TEUCHITLÁN IN THE STATE OF JALISCO, MEXICO.
The Teuchitlán Culture emerged during the Late Formative Period around 300 BC in the Tequila Valleys, developing a distinctive monumental style of architecture with the construction of concentric circular plazas, and pyramidal platforms called guachimontones.
There is some evidence of activity at Los Guachimontones as far back as the Middle Formative Period (or Tequila I phase from 1000 to 300 BC), where ceramic sherds in situ, and the levelling of the surrounding landscape indicate a centralised community structure.
By the Late Formative Period (or Tequila II phase from 300 to 100 BC), ceramic evidence suggests a growing population that began to construct large, monumental buildings such as the guachimontones, the largest guachimontones being Circle 1 that dates from between 160 and 40 BC.
Los Guachimontones reached its apex during the Early Classic Period (or Tequila III phase from 100 BC to AD 200), where the population reached over 9,000 inhabitants (although some sources propose a population of around 3,500 people).
More:
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/09/los-guachimontones/141315
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The Guachimontones of Teuchitlán, Western Mexico’s circular pyramids
John Pint
February 1, 2019
View of the restored pyramids from “bleachers” atop a nearby hillside.
Two thousand years ago, a unique society thrived in western Mexico. It appears they were the only people in history to base their public monuments on the geometry of concentric circles, and to this day their hundreds of circular pyramids still mark the territory of an empire bigger than Guatemala.
The capital of this ancient nation was Teuchitlán, “The Place of the First God,” located within the shadow of the Tequila Volcano, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city.
Inhabitants of the modern-day Teuchitlán knew there was something special about a group of large mounds just over a kilometer north of town, but had no idea how important they once were. They called these mounds Los Guachimontones.
I paid my first visit to this site in 1985 before any sort of development had taken place. Upon reaching the edge of the little town of Teuchitlán, I stared in disbelief at the “road” leading to the Guachimontones. I was driving a Jeep, but that so-called road was such a mass of ruts and churned up rocks that I simply parked and went on foot.
All I could see were tall weeds and cornfields but, by good luck, I found a farmer out there who pointed to a hill covered with heavy brush. “That is a Guachimontón,” he said.
A mural by Jorge Monroy shows the bird man in flight.
More:
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/mexicolife/western-mexicos-circular-pyramids/
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