The mysterias Vestiges of the Trincheras Culture in Sonora
C?sar A. Quijada and Luis Romo Cedano
Archeological studies in Sonora have begun to understand the profile of the Trincheras culture, a group of humans that lived in an area as large as
Switzerland in the northern part of the state between AD 200 and 1450, which left many surprising vestiges.
According to studies, the people of the Trincheras culture were mostly farmers, but they never totally left hunting and gathering. It is very likely that their descendants are the Tohono o?odham, in other words, the mistakenly called P?pagos, who live today in Sonora and Arizona.
Here we will present three of their most impressive archeological sites. Recent work has shown that apparently the three sites were inhabited by Trincheras people towards the end of their culture around AD 1300 and 1450.
CERRO DE TRINCHERAS
The first site is Trincheras Hill, which is where these people?s name comes from. The hill rises about 150 meters above the desert plains in north central Sonora, and from a distance it has a strange ?striped? look. As you get close to it you see the surprising mystery that speaks of very hard work. What looks like stripes are really 900 stone walls, most of which are 15-30 meters long; some, however, are over 100 meters long. The first Spaniards to arrive in this area called them ?trincheras? (trenches), although they are really walls to contain terraces.
After excavations done by Sonora?s INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History) and the State University of New York at Binghamton between 1995 and 1996, it has been concluded that most of these terraces were used as bases for the houses of about a thousand settlers. Archeologists have also discovered remains of about 300 more structures, including ?
El Carocol?, an interesting building on top of the hill with semicircular walls and an entrance hallway shaped like a spiral.
THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCLES OF LA CANTERA
The second site is La Cantera about 90 km from Trincheras Hill. The name (quarry) is due to the fact that there are several large blocks of volcanic rock about ten meters tall. There are no houses or trenches on the flat top of the blocks, but instead something very strange: furrows and holes about 10 cm deep that form hundreds of circles and squares about a meter in diameter.
What could have been their use? It is hard to tell. They probably could not have been bases for houses, since they are too narrow. None of them seem to form recognizable forms, and furthermore, the circles and squares are spread out randomly, and do not seem to be logical ? at least to us.
The site was first visited in 1974 and it has been studied more recently, but there is still not enough information. Some archeologists claim that the carvings could have had astronomical or religious purposes. What is known for sure, is that the figures of La Cantera are unique in Sonora, and apparently, in the whole world.
THE WONDERFUL GALLERY OF LA PROVEEDORA
The third site is Proveedora Hill and nearby hills in the western region of the Trincheras. We could speculate that if La Cantera was the capital of the shamans, then Proveedora was the capital of the artists.
La Proveedora probably has more plastic art than many museums in the world. When you reach the foothills, the treasure can be seen: rocks of all types and sizes covered by countless carvings. This group must be one of the largest galleries of rock paintings in Mexico, and surely, one of the most beautiful ones in terms of petroglyphs. We could consider many of the drawing as figurative art: representations of men, animals, and stars. However, there are also many geometric traces, grecas that are just as sophisticated as the ones in Mitla, spirals that easily beat the boldest psychedelic art of the 60?s, and other very strange lines that surpass our artistic standards. There are some more ?normal? representations, including figures of pregnant women of the ?realist? school that are stylized in such a way that legs and backs are almost straight, the heads are reduced to two or three stripes, and the full womb is a perfect triangle. Cubism has triumphed! One finishes the tour of Proveedora just like leaving the Louvre Museum: exhausted, yet amazed by the quantity and quality of the works of art.
The legacy of Trincheras is like no other. We think that the time has come for these sites, just like in other parts in Mesoamerica, to cease being the monopoly of a few specialists, and that they start to be rigorously studied by academics. Its unique richness deserves it.
IF YOU GO TO THE SITES OF THE TRINCHERAS CULTURE
Cerro de Trincheras. From Santa Ana to
Caborca take federal highway 2. Turn left in Pueblo Nuevo (km 44) and take a dirt road. After driving 22 km and crossing the Magdalena River, you will arrive in this town.
La Cantera is located near Magdalena de Kino along highway 15 that goes to Nogales.
La Proveedora is about 15 km west of Caborca along state highway 37 that goes to El Desemboque.
http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/english/historia/prehispanica/detalle.cfm?idsec=1&idsub=12&idpag=2100
