Archaeology Southwest, Vol. 16, No. 1

The massive scale of La Quemada's terraced compound dwarfs two visitors. Recent research is providing new insights into regional systems on the Northern Frontier of Mesoamerica that also have implications for the American Southwest.

The massive scale of La Quemada's terraced compound dwarfs two visitors. Recent research is providing new insights into regional systems on the Northern Frontier of Mesoamerica that also have implications for the American Southwest.

Winter 2002

La Quemada, a Monument on the Mesoamerican Frontier
Ben A. Nelson, Arizona State University

The first Spaniards to visit Zacatecas in the mid-sixteenth century encoun­tered peoples whom they called Zacatecos and Guachichiles. These hunter-gatherers apparently lived quite differently from those who had occupied the region before them. They moved among hundreds of villages, abandoned centuries earlier, that lay in ruins around the ancient Malpaso Valley ceremonial center of La Quemada (A.D. 500-900). The population of the valley in the 10-km by 12-km segment where settlements were clustered may have included 2,000 to 8,000 people (reaching a peak, especially in the ceremonial center, at feast times). Some scholars view La Quemada as the capital of a state, whereas most in this issue of Archaeology Southwest are more comfortable conceiving of it as chiefdom-like. Contrasting patterns in architecture and mortuary treatment suggest that social power was deliberately masked. Ongoing research will allow archaeologists to understand the nature of the place in its own terms. Other settlement clusters around major ceremonial centers, such as Alta Vista, probably had comparable populations, but none seems dramatically larger than that in the Malpaso Valley.

We do not know what the frontier people called themselves or their massive monument a rocky hilltop covered with temples, altars, pyramids, ballcourts, and staircases. How do we account for the presence of this imposing creation in a desert inhabited in historic times by hunter-gatherers?

Many distinguished archaeologists have studied La Quemada and its possible links to other regions. Quite reasonably, several have assumed that it was contemporaneous with one of the major capitals of central Mexico, such as Teotihuacan (AD. 150-600) or the Toltec center of Tula (A.D. 900-1150), and that agents of those empires must have had a hand in its development. Colonists may have come to trade for turquoise from the American Southwest, collect astronomical information, or settle new lands made usable by temporarily improved agricultural conditions, possibly returning later to become the Toltecs and ul­timately the Aztecs. These scenarios contain marauders, overlords, vision-seeking priests, trading caravans, itinerant merchants, and pilgrims. All scholars agree that the monument marks some kind of temporary increase in human organizational capacity.

Issue Editors: Ben A. Nelson and E. Christian Wells

Articles Include:

  • Human Impacts on the Ancient Environment - Michelle Y. Elliot
  • Patios and La Quemada’s Hinterland Settlements – Charles D. Trombold
  • Pottery and the Social Microcosm – E. Christian Wells
  • La Quemada’s Pseudo-Cloisonne Tradition – Nicola M. Strazicich
  • The Chalchihuites Mines – Vincent W. Schiavitti
  • Chipped Stone Artifacts – Loni M. Kantor
  • Malpaso Valley Obsidian Exchange – John K. Millhauser
  • Food and Status in the Malpaso Valley – Paula D. Turkon
  • Warfare and Ritual in Northwest Mexico – Matthew Chamberlin
  • La Quemada Tool-Induced Bone Alterations: Cut Mark Differences between Human and Animal Bones – Ventura R. Perez
  • Intercultural Interaction and Exchange at La Quemada - J. Andrew Darling