Archaeological Survey in the Coastal Chontalpa de Oaxaca, México

RH07 El Guapote–Ancient Aztatlan?

This is the southernmost settlement site within the PARH area, only a few hundred meters from the Pacific shore. It has not been registered before, and therefore Brockington (1974) speculated whether either Hualampamo or Hualakgoce could represent the abandoned colonial village of Aztatlan. Now it seems that the small nucleated site of Hualakgoce was possibly an isolated elite residence, segregated from the larger, densely terraced population center of Late Postclassic and colonial El Guapote (RH07).

We only surveyed the northern slope of the El Guapote hill, a site fraction of 4.6 hectares, but recorded 26 individual architectural features, mostly components of a system of adjacent domestic terraces. Where the slopes are steep, terrace retention walls are up to two meters high. The concentration of residential features at El Guapote is denser than at any other site within the PARH study area. Its high population density was probably supported by the abundant good farming land along the adjacent Río Huamelula, and the Laguna Grande–an important zone for fishing and salt extraction immediately to the west. It is most likely to be identified as the historical Aztatlan–the village was abandoned around A.D. 1680 after repeated pirate attacks (see Gerhard 1972). When compared to the setting of Aztatlan in a colonial map from 1579 (Figure 15), El Guapote appears to be the best candidate for this historical Chontal village because of its location between the Laguna Grande and the mouth of Río Huamelula (compare location of RH07 in Figure 16, shown below).

The pottery assemblage recovered at El Guapote is very different from all other sites further north, since a frequently red slipped coarse ware dominates. Red slipped tripod vessels with conical supports indicate a Late Postclassic occupation and resemble a ware that Brockington (1982) observed along the entire Oaxacan coast. While this Postclassic ceramic ware dominates at El Guapote and may have continued into the early colonial period, a few gray incised sherds possibly come from a small, Classic period occupation.

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