The inhabitants of Punta Mita were groups of concheros that had commercial exchange from Ecuador to New Mexico, from where they brought the turquoise.
The inhabitants of Punta Mita were groups of concheros that had commercial exchange from Ecuador to New Mexico, from where they brought the turquoise.
We are in a corner of Nayarit, which until a few years ago was an almost exclusive paradise for foreign and Mexican tourists whose sports hobby is surfing. The long beaches of the open sea, with great seasonal waves that break in the distance, invite the surfers to spend a few days, and even weeks, in a region of our Mexico that not long ago was practically virgin, away from progress.
Things have changed, Punta Mita is already a town that tends to grow and develop touristically. The massive growth of Puerto Vallarta led to the search for new places that were calmer and less crowded for the visitor, and there they found them, just 50 km north of the popular port. A highway has been built, a housing unit has been divided, hotels are beginning to be planned, new restaurants and shops have been opened, more people have come looking for work and the development of high-level recreational ranches has even been planned.
Gone are the years when a dirt road took us at a slow pace to Punta Mita, where there was a couple of rustic fresh seafood at low prices, the beaches were semi-deserted and you could only see the boats of the fishermen and occasional surfers fighting the waves in their tables, years when you had to camp by the sea; in the absence of another option to spend the night. They are almost lost memories of what many of us had to live.
Despite the changes, today there are better living conditions for the inhabitants, electricity, telephone, transportation and drinking water services, schools, etc., in addition to a group of archaeologists who arrived with the mission of exploring and rescuing the history of a place that in the past was important given its geographical location.
With the endorsement of the regional center of INAHen Nayarit, a construction company hired five archaeologists and 16 laborers who took charge of all the rescue, reconstruction and registration work. The archaeologist José Beltrán was in charge of the project, who before formally beginning the work made several surface tours to delimit the contexts and areas to be explored. Due to rumors of looting and destruction on a hill that must have been a ceremonial site, it was decided to open the first front there.
The site known as the Loma de la Mina was reticulated and divided into several units and each archaeologist took charge of one or more of them. For example, we found that the South 1-West 1 unit, supervised by the archaeologist Lourdes González, appeared in a temple or small platform with marked signs of looting, both in its four corners and in the center of the structure.
In the South complex, by the archaeologist Óscar Basante, a complete platform appeared forming a nucleus. Only a part of the brazier and ceramic pieces were found there, and it is the most destroyed section, because the machines removed a large part of the materials when they scooped up dirt to flatten the road layout and that of a future golf course. This place was considered a priority because it was tried to rebuild the platform as soon as possible, since the golf course seemed to move faster.
The North 6-East 1 unit shows the achievements obtained in a short time. The temple, partially rebuilt, shows three floors that correspond to three different stages, the last one covered with stones. The archaeologists Martha Michelman, in drawing, and Eugenia Barrios in excavation worked on it, who rescued an offering that appeared in paintings 57-58. This offering consists of fragmented and stacked shells facing east, probably representing a water deity. The offering, belonging to the second construction stage, was under a semi-flat rock already fragmented. Next to a third rock, a few centimeters to the north, two other shell fragments appeared that at first it was thought would lead to a continuity of the offering itself, but after removing that rock, no such continuity was found.
While these works were carried out at a rapid pace, Beltrán dedicated himself to traveling 25 km of beaches to detect new contexts, register them and give them priority and thus calculate the excavation time. For example, that of Punta Pontoque, which was opened as a second front, in ranch 16 -private property that was soon to be divided.- On hill 3 (walking north from the sea), when making the surface tour, they were detected two contexts: one with shells and the other with a settlement pattern. In the first context, a 5 km2 line was made with a northern location and the reticulation began.
Like Beltrán, Basante dedicated part of his time to visiting other sites that the locals insistently mentioned, such as the surroundings of the Guano cave or the Careyeros hill, where spherical, conical, and frustoconical bowls were found on the south front. and even cylindrical, which possibly served to capture the water of the first rain that, later, would have a ceremonial use.
Several places where it is necessary to explore were detected, as well as certain areas that revealed some type of human presence, such as Playa Negra (near the Guano cave), where we were able to photograph a large rock with eight bowls carved in circumference. One of them points north and the rest appear at the center of the rock, which seems to indicate an astronomical representation of some constellation.
Sites with pyramidal structures were also found in Higuera Blanca, a town less than 10 km to the east, which was contemporary with Punta Mita in its heyday and, in addition, signs of occupation in the Marietas Islands, a few kilometers from Punta .
The evidence discovered so far in Punta Mita indicates that it belonged to the Epiclassic, or early Postclassic, between the years 900 and 1200, continuing the occupation until the Conquest. The pottery shows a lot of resemblance to the Toltec of Aztatlán, a western culture whose capital was located north of the state of Nayarit.
The inhabitants of Punta Mita were groups of concheros that had commercial exchange from Ecuador to New Mexico, from where they brought the turquoise; This exchange can be seen in the artistic influence that appears in the shell works found so far. They were great navigators, which made them travel the coasts of the Pacific to the north and south, until they made contact with the places already mentioned. Its agriculture was temporary, having corn as a basic crop product, apart from some fruits that, together with the product of the sea, completed its diet. But the commercial exchange was not limited to these routes, they also had early contacts with the Altiplano, being surely tributaries of the Mexica empire, which therefore implied ideological influences. In the case of the turquoise brought from New Mexico, it is not yet clear whether it arrived by sea or from the Altiplano.
Upon their arrival, the Spaniards found that Punta Mita had been the starting point for a very abundant commercial traffic, but that it was experiencing its decline. By those years there were already other sites, which were beginning to stand out in the commercial field. Perhaps the decline of Punta Mita occurred when the trade routes with the Altiplano moved south, towards the coasts of Colima and Michoacán, losing its strategic category.
Despite the decline and gradual abandonment, Punta Mita continued to be a fishermen's place that remained as such, until a couple of years ago the plans to exploit it for tourism began, thus opening a new page in the interesting history of this corner of Nayarit, a small place in our unknown Mexico where little by little the forgotten facts that a group of archaeologists with their effort and work have reconstructed have been discovered.
IF YOU GO TO PUNTA MITA
Coming from Puerto Vallarta, take highway no. 200 to the north. After about 35 km you will find on your left the junction and sign that takes you to Punta Mita.
If you are coming from Guadalajara or Tepic, take the same highway no. 200 south and turn right at the aforementioned junction.
There are no hotels in Punta Mita yet, but you can camp anywhere on the beach.
Drinks and food can be found easily; not so gasoline, although there is a fuel outlet.
It is not advisable to lift or move rocks on the hills, as there is a very poisonous species of scorpion and in Punta Mita there are no clinics that have the antidote. Any medical service can be found in Higuera Blanca or Puerto Vallarta.
Source: Unknown Mexico No. 231 / May 1996
