La Quemada - History

History

Given the distance between La Quemada and the centre of Mesoamerica, this archeological zone has been subject of different interpretations on the part of historians and archeologists, who have attempted to associate it with different cultures.

It is supposed that this place could be the legendary Chicomostoc, a Caxcan site, a Teotihuacán fortress, a Tarascan centre, a fort against Chichimeca intruders, a Toltec trading post, or simply consequence of independent development and a city of all the native groups established north of the Río Grande de Santiago.

In 1615, Fray Juan de Torquemada identified La Quemada as one of the places visited by the Aztecs during their migration from the north to the Mexico central plateau, and where older people and children were left behind. Francisco Javier Clavijero, in 1780, associated this site with Chicomoztoc, where the Aztecs remained for nine years during their voyage to Anahuac. This speculation originated the belief La Quemada is the mythical place called "The Seven Caves". Archeological investigations since the 1980s determined that La Quemada developed between 300 and 1200 AD (Classical and early Postclassical periods) and that it was contemporaneous of the Chalchihuites culture, characterized from the first century of our era, by intense mining activity. La Quemada, Las Ventanas El Ixtepete, major settlements in the “Altos de Jalisco”, and northern Guanajuato, formed a trade network linked to Teotihuacán (350-700 AD), that extended from northern Zacatecas to the Valley of Mexico. It is possible that links established by Teotihuacán were with local rulers of ceremonial centers, of the mentioned network, or through alliances with regional intermediaries, or by small Teotihuacán merchants groups, living in these centers, that ensured the various products flow, such as minerals, salt, shells, quills, obsidian, and peyote, among others.

Between 700 and 1100 AD, La Quemada did not participate as a network member, but as the dominant trade location at the regional level, it began to compete with other neighbouring sites. It was during this time that the site acquired a defensive character, evidence of which is the construction, on the north flank of the site, of a wall approximately four metres high by four metres wide, as well as the elimination of two stairways in the complex with the intention of restricting internal circulation.

From the evidence of fire in several parts of the site, a violent decline of the settlement is inferred. It is this apparent destruction by fire which gives the site its name of la (ciudad) quemada, "the burnt city".