Despite the importance of Los Guachimontones within the larger Teuchitlán tradition of ancient west Mexico, little is known of its socio-political organization and underlying sociocultural structure. Departing from a dual–processual framework and utilizing spatial analysis, this chapter analyzes variability in the spatial syntax, formal characteristics, and distribution of architectural groups in the nuclear core and Loma Alta sectors of the site. Variability, in terms of differing degrees of openness and/or connectivity, suggests distinct functions of discrete areas within the site, and demonstrates how the socio–structural organization of the groups that occupied Los Guachimontones was negotiated, reflected, and reified in the built environment. Results of a comparison of architecture in these site sectors suggests that discrete physical spaces were utilized in diverse manners as architectural discourse to communicate distinct messages to different social groups, even when the built environment of these sectors presents a high degree of formal homogeneity and contains the same architectonic elements. This chapter thus adds a new analytic axis and alternate framework that provides insight on both architectural variability at Los Guachimontones and the social structures that gave rise to these architectonic configurations.

Supõe-se que a chegada do mundo ocidental à Mesoamérica significou uma mudança cultural, refletida na transformação dos inventários de artefatos nas comunidades. No entanto, a persistência no uso de materiais como o lítico e o cerâmico, apesar de possuírem outras opções tecnológicas, permitem intuir processos de longo prazo na apropriação do meio ambiente e condições socioeconômicas. O presente trabalho mostra o uso combinado de materiais pré-hispânicos e coloniais em um pequeno assentamento pós-clássico na Bacia do México, onde parece que a presença de uma mudança tecnológica nos materiais arqueológicos não significou uma mudança cultural, apesar de estar localizada na transição do período pré-hispânico para a colônia.

This chapter presents a critical review of the settlement patterns recognized to date in relation to the occupation of Pre-Hispanic groups in the central–west region of the modern state of Durango in northwestern Mexico. It also proposes visualizing settlement patterns in the region through the perspective of landscape archaeology, in which distribution over a given landscape may be viewed as part of a society’s power strategies. To that end, it employs spatial analysis to critically examine a series of settlements that pertain to the Chalchihuites culture between AD 550–1250 in the Santiago Bayacora River Basin. Results suggest that Chalchihuites groups may have shared a system of knowledge–power with the rest of Mesoamerica, but that their physical landscape was distinct, and therefore the ways in which these groups appropriated the landscape differed. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the logic that dominates our interpretations of Mesoamerican settlements needs rethinking in northwestern Mexico.