Architectural Discourse and Sociocultural Structure at Los Guachimontones, Jalisco

Abstract

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.

The Collapse of a Collective Society: Teuchitlán in the Tequila Region of Jalisco, Mexico

“…The guachimontón complexes were not exclusive to one group of individuals (e.g., leaders) but were meeting places for a broader set of people. Spatial analyses of several circles indicate that they had fairly open access and, hence, were accessible to the average person (Sumano Ortega and Englehardt, 2020). The guachimontón embodies the basis of a political life in which cooperation among diverse groups and individual and group effort all converged, while serving as a meeting place where people and authorities assembled.…”