From Cooperation to Competition: An Architectural Energetics Analysis of Labor Organization for the Construction of Circle 2 at Los Guachimontones, Jalisco, Mexico

Summary

The Teuchitlán culture is one of many cultures in West Mexico during the Late Formative to Classic periods (300 B.C. – 450/500 AD) that share in the tradition of burying some of their dead in shaft and chamber tombs. The Teuchitlán culture is noteworthy among their contemporaries for the large number of circular ceremonial buildings concentrated around the Tequila volcano and surrounding valleys. Los Guachimontones, located on the southern side of the volcano, is the largest site in the region with the largest number of public architecture and highest concentration of people. One such building, Circle 2, is among the largest documented guachimontones in the region. Using an architectural energetics analysis of Circle 2, I modeled how lineage based elites within a corporate system at Los Guachimontones may have organized labor for construction. The variable construction represented within Circle 2 suggests multiple labor recruitment strategies were employed. A labor collective was used to construct the foundational patio of Circle 2 followed by elites employing corvée labor to finish the remaining architectural features. The switch from cooperation to competition suggests alliances were temporary and geared towards aiding the community through the construction of public architecture.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22414