Tlalancaleca (zona arqueológica)

Long before Teotihuacan dominated central Mexico, one of the region's largest settlements stood here, in the hills of western Puebla between San Matías Tlalancaleca and Tlahuapan. That is the view of archaeologist Tatsuya Murakami of Tulane University, who sees Tlalancaleca as a likely seedbed of the highland's urban traditions. The paper he published in Antiquity in 2017, with Shigeru Kabata, Julieta López and José Juan Chávez, presents it as the first detailed study of a large Formative-period urban centre. Beside the area lies the hamlet of Tepalca, with 8 residents in 2020, at about 2,500 metres.

Around 50 AD Popocatépetl had a Plinian eruption that struck this whole strip of the valley. According to Murakami, Tlalancaleca survived the disaster and kept growing until it was abandoned around 250 AD. Kabata, a professor at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla, adds a related idea: some of its people fled toward the Teotihuacan valley carrying their technology and customs, which may have helped that city become a state. In his view the site works as a Teotihuacan prototype for its planned layout and the way it expresses the worldview of its time; stucco, talud-tablero and the cult of Tláloc already existed in the Puebla-Tlaxcala region.

Kabata's project began in 2012 with support from the Japanese government and since 2014 has involved UDLAP archaeology students. Using total stations and 3D models, the team has located low rises that betray pyramids and housing compounds, plus a possible artificial cave opened for ceremonies; test pits yielded obsidian, animal bone, pottery and architectural pieces from a pyramid. Murakami has described a Terminal Formative ritual complex (100 BC-250 AD) of crosses carved into rock, channels and small pits, tied to water and fertility, which early Teotihuacan may have shared.