Las Labradas

Las Labradas is one of the most unusual archaeological sites in Mexico: a lonely beach in San Ignacio municipality where hundreds of petroglyphs are carved into the dark volcanic boulders along the shoreline, many of them washed by the waves. INAH counts around 600 carvings spread along the coast, the largest group in southern Sinaloa and northern Nayarit, and there are more along a stream inland.

The designs include spirals, concentric circles, and other geometric shapes, as well as animals, plants, and human figures, some of them in what look like poses of ecstasy. Archaeologists read many of the motifs as symbols of the sun, and the site is about 20 kilometers north of the Tropic of Cancer; it is thought to have been a place of solstice rituals. Every year INAH and local groups hold a rock art festival around the winter solstice.

The area was declared a Zone of Archaeological Monuments in 2012 and is on Mexico's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage. It lies inside the Meseta de Cacaxtla protected area, and a small site museum explains the carvings.