Guachimontones

Los Guachimontones is the largest Late Formative to Classic period (300 BCE to 450/500 CE) pre-Columbian archaeological site in the state of Jalisco. Situated in the hills above the town of Teuchitlán that provides the namesake for the culture that built the site, Los Guachimontones is part of the Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila UNESCO world heritage site and a major tourist attraction within the Tequila Valleys. Los Guachimontones is one of several dozen Teuchitlán Culture sites within the Tequila Valleys, though it is by far the largest site in terms of both the number and size of its ceremonial buildings. These buildings, called guachimontones (singular, guachimontón) after the site name, are bulls-eye shaped buildings consisting of several distinct architectural elements that constitute a whole structure. These unique buildings are found primarily in the Tequila Valleys with other examples found in northern Jalisco near Bolaños, Guanajuato to the east, and Colima to the south. The Teuchitlán culture that built the site was one of several cultures in West Mexico during the Late Formative to Classic periods that participated in the shaft tomb tradition in which some, but not all, people were interred underground. Sometimes mortuary goods accompanied the deceased with objects such as ceramic vessels, hollow and solid figurines, shell ornaments, conch shell trumpets, jadeite, and ground stone objects.While Los Guachimontones was founded in the Late Formative period, there is some evidence of a Middle Formative occupation suggesting some temporal continuity at the site. Major construction began in the Late Formative and continued into the Early Classic. Monumental construction appears to have tapered off in the Late Classic with a decline in population followed by a drastic decline in the Epiclassic. Population levels rebounded to their Early Classic levels in the Postclassic, but with no monumental construction at or near the site.