GUACHIMONTONES

The Guachimontones archaeological site spreads more than 100 acres over the rocky hillside about three miles north of the small town of Teuchtitlán (tay-oosh-teet-LAHN). I was especially lucky to meet, by chance, one of the principal archaeological investigators, Professor Phil Weigand of the Colegio de Michoacán, when I first visited the site in the spring of 2003. He summarized what he and his colleagues, notably Professor Efrain Cárdenas, also of the Colegio de Michoacán, had uncovered since they initiated excavations in 1998. By comparing Guachimontones pottery finds with pottery found at other west Mexico sites, Professor Weigand and his colleagues believe that the earliest constructions at Guachimontones date from around the beginning of the Christian era.

Subsequently, Guachimontones’s early builders added as many as four layers of new construction over the old, until the site was abandoned, most likely after around a.d. 400. By that time, the total complex encompassed at least 10 conical pyramids, the largest around 100 feet (30 meters) in height and double or triple that in diameter. Other identified structures include at least two ball courts (one very long, at 260 feet, 80 meters) and numerous courtyards, stone walls, staircases, and avenues—in aggregate, amounting to at least two dozen separate ceremonial complexes.

Although excavations at many such sites in Mexico have often uncovered regal tombs, the Guachimontones pyramids excavated so far have yielded few, if any human remains. Nevertheless, one of the most intriguing finds at Guachimontones was of a four-pound (1.4-kilogram) meteorite, which had been apparently enshrined as an object of veneration, atop one of the ceremonial platforms. Moreover, investigators have uncovered evidence of two fires that razed the site. The first occurred early in its history; the second, later, probably around the time the site was abandoned (since the remains of the fire were not cleared).

Exploring the Site

The most recognizable of Guachimontones’s monumental but mostly unreconstructed architecture is the largest pyramid, which has been partially restored to its original conical form. Dozens of circular steps ring the pyramid and culminate at the summit. Viewed from there, a spreading valley panorama reveals the spring-fed ponds of Balneario El Rincón, Teuchtitlán town in the midforeground, beyond that the shimmering surface of reservoir Laguna de la Vega, and, on the far misty purple horizon, the cloud-capped ramparts of the Sierra Madre.

Several other lesser but similarly conical pyramid complexes, some reconstructed, most not, are scattered in the immediate foreground, both up- and downhill. You may be able to make out the general layout of each, ringed by a patio, which in turn is surrounded by another ring of smaller conical platforms. 

In 1998, Professors Wiegand and Cárdenas found that the principal pyramid had been extensively looted. Robbers had dug into the heart of the structure via a trench that amounted to about a quarter of the volume of the entire original pyramid, and which required several workers months to fill in about 13,000 cubic yards of earth for the restoration. (For more details and updates on the continuing Guachimontones investigations, visit www.carbon.cudenver.edu/~cbeekman/research/guachimonton.html. Also, for a portfolio of lovely photos and many more details on Guachimontones and other regional archaeological finds, check out Richard Townsend’s Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past.)