The Built Environment and the Development of Intermediate Socio-Spatial Units at Los Guachimontones, Jalisco, Mexico

Abstract

Intermediate socio-spatial units (ISUs), materialized as neighborhoods and districts, were important elements in the ordering of the built environment in large ancient settlements. They are indicative of an increasing vertical and horizontal complexity because they lie between households and the governing authority. Collective action theory holds that ISUs can take many forms and can be created through bottom-up, top-down, or top-down/bottom-up processes. The distribution of ISUs in the context of other architectural elements illuminates the degree to which collective policies shaped urban landscapes. This article identifies districts and neighborhoods, two types of ISUs, at the site of Los Guachimontones (Jalisco, Mexico) through a study of its internal spatial organization. Intensive survey and mapping have identified thousands of architectural elements, including the circular complexes known as guachimontones. Thiessen polygon analysis reveals that guachimontones are an important feature of the site's spatial organization, as well as to the materialization of ISUs and other socio-spatial units. Broadly speaking, the organization of these built spaces reveals that their growth can be attributed to collectively oriented political strategies.

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

“…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. It was the location for opining and participating, one where authorities displayed their commitment to collective endeavors while simultaneously fostering trust and unity among the people (Heredia Espinoza, 2021).…”

“…In an area surveyed systematically north and west of the Tequila volcano, 90 guachimontones were identified in 63 settlements (Figure 4), while south of the volcano there are at least 38 more settlements that contain this type of architecture (Weigand, 1985, p. 83;Ohnersorgen and Varien, 1996). There is a hierarchy of guachimontones by size (i.e., area) and by number per site (see Heredia Espinoza, 2021). Clusters of settlements, each containing a hierarchy of as many as 17 guachimontones, have also been observed.…”

“…The leading scholar of Teuchitlán studies, Phil Weigand, argued that the settlements with circular architecture clustered near each other in ways that resembled neighborhoods (2010). The settlement at Los Guachimontones was subdivided into intermediate sociospatial units (neighborhoods and districts), each focused on a circular complex (Figure 5, Heredia Espinoza, 2021). These units may have functioned as nodes between government authorities and the people.…”

“…These units may have functioned as nodes between government authorities and the people. Groups of households (neighborhoods, see Arnauld et al, 2012) that shared public spaces were embedded within larger districts that contained the full range of services (ritual, economic, political) (Heredia Espinoza, 2021). The residential clusters that surround public architecture indicate that services (religious and political) were widely available and easily accessible to the population.…”

“…In Mesoamerica (Figure 1), Teotihuacan and Tlaxacallan in central Mexico (Fargher et al, 2011b;Manzanilla, 2015;Carballo, 2020), Monte Albán in Oaxaca (Joyce et al, 2001;Fargher, 2016;Feinman et al, 2021), the Gulf region (Stark, 2016), and the western reaches of this area (Heredia Espinoza, 2016Espinoza, , 2020Espinoza, , 2021Beekman, 2020), all offer cases that defy deeply-held notions of past sociopolitical structure. This article describes Teuchitlán in the Tequila region of Jalisco, Mexico (350 B.C.E.−450 C.E.…”