Capacha

Archaeologists recognize the origin of Mesoamerica in a "mother culture" represented by the Olmec style and culture. But in the western region no evidence has been found to date nothing that can be identified as such.[8] Indeed, there is no evidence even of Teotihuacan (central Mesoamerican influence from the Classic period.)

It is clear that Colima and other western regions' cultures had their own personality. The Colima artistic expressions in ceramic offerings in “shaft tombs" reflect a society more "comfortable", free, equal, with family and household traits, totally different from artistic expressions of other societies. The detail and artistic quality of women, men, dogs, parrots, bats, snakes, etc., sculptures, evidence that artists carefully observed those everyday items.[8]

Who were these special ancestors? Recent excavations in Colima and Michoacán enable us to recognize at least two roots, as old as the Olmec. These are Capacha and El Opeño. Capacha, before 1500 BCE had burials that include beautiful ceramic "bules" and vases with "Stirrup” handle, certain type figurines and metates.[8]

It was discovered and studied by Isabel Truesdell Kelly, American archaeologist who made excavations in the Colima area in 1939. Similarities between pieces of this culture and contemporary ceramics in the region of Ecuador suggest that there were some very links between the early western Mesoamerican cultures and those of the Andes.[9]

The cultural development of this area has been divided into seven phases, named for the sites where findings were made;[10]

• Capacha Phase
• Ortices Phase
• Comala Phase
• Colima Phase
• Armería Phase
• Chanal Phase and
• Periquillos Phase.

The Capacha Culture[11] includes nine sites identified in the eastern half of the Colima State. Archaeological elements of this tradition have been discovered in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Guerrero, the Morelos, Michoacán and Mexico.[12]

Among this sites are the following:

El Opeño is an archaeological site located in the municipality of Jacona, in the Michoacán state, México. It is home to a prehispanic site, mainly known from the ceramic material found in the funerary complexes of the site, which have been dated to the late preclassical mesoamerican period. The importance of this site in mesoamerican archaeology is due to its antiquity and the ample diffusion of its style, contemporary to other native culture developments such as the Capacha culture and earlier of the Chupícuaro. El Opeño tombs are the oldest in Mesoamerica. Have been dated to around 1600 BCE, hence they predate de Olmec culture development, with main centers in the Gulf of Mexico coast and flourished some centuries later.

La Campana is an archaeological site located a few kilometers from Capacha, it is included in the Mexican archaeological heritage list since 1917. Located in the vicinity of the city of Colima. This site was the largest prehispanic population center in western Mexico. Site studies indicate that some of its features are related to the classical period Teotihuacan culture.[7]

Archaeologists assign a period between 300 BCE and 300 CE; located southwest of Colima, in the vicinity of the Los Ortices village. This native settlement was more evolved than the Capacha site, they produced finer pottery, also made stone sculpture and buried their dead in "shaft tombs", very characteristic of the region.[7]

Chronologically placed between 600-1100 CE, in an area east of the Colima city, in the El Moralete neighborhood. This native group developed crafts with features somewhat more primitive than the others. Developed a smaller ceramics variety and built rougher shaft tombs.[7]

El Chanal site developed the most representative style of the region, settled in the El Chanal community. In the mid-20th century a step pyramid was found; at the beginning of the 1990s, discovered esplanades, temples, squares and a ballgame court: architectural evidence of a culture that had reached a high degree of evolution. By 1520, this complex had already disappeared and only remained in the area some native peoples, apparently subjected to another more powerful city, Tecomán.[7]

Capacha Culture Vessel.

Sample testing of ceramic specimens found in various sites of the Colima State, San Blas, Ixtapa and Tomatlán (Jalisco) by Thermo-luminescence and carbon 14 have provided dates between 1320 and 220 BCE[13]

Ceramic features

Capacha ceramic originality is based on two specific types:[14]

• Large ceramic vessels, shaped as two globular stacked vases, one over the other. Named Bule.[15]
• Ceramics that consists of two superimposed globular vessels, interconnected by two or three tubes. This ceramic shape resembles the South American “stirrup” handle ceramic tradition.

Ceramic from Colima cultures, was primarily deposited as offering in shaft tombs.[10]

Shaft Tombs and its offerings:

One of the most representative characteristics of the culture are the shaft tombs, funeral chambers with access through a shaft, hence its name.[10]

Construction was normally made by digging on tepetate, with a depth varying depending on the soil hardness; sometimes with steps or a vertical circular duct, with a diameter of 1.20 to 1.40 m, used to reach one, two or three small chambers, resembling a baker's oven, where the offerings were placed next to the deceased.[10]

Offerings could include ceramics with different motifs; men or women in some activity, and testimony of their kind of life (e.g. hunters, musicians, farmers with their belongings and clothing). Could also include parts of everyday use or ornament and their nahual,[16] trip mate to the underworld, disguised as the death God, that leads or guide the soul of the dead through the nine torrents that separate the deceased from heaven.[10]

At the end of the funeral ceremony, the tombs were sealed with stone slabs or metates and the shaft filled with dirt. This type of burial chambers appeared during the Mid-Preclassical and the early classical; In addition to western Mexico, these are also found in Colombia.[10]

The disappearance of this funerary tradition, established a change in deity worship, this probably led to the construction of ceremonial centers and plazas, as a result of the arrival of migrants from highlands groups. This is considered, because from the Armeria Phase (500-1000 CE) ceramics features changed and defensive constructions and representations of highland Gods, like Tláloc and Huehueteotl appeared. During the Chanal phase (600-1500 CE) cities such as El Chanal and La Campana were built, with plazas, platforms, and pyramids built with stones, a characteristic aspect of the area architecture.[10]

There are similarities between western Mexico and South America, including the building of shaft tombs in regions of both places. Recent studies have found common elements with countries as far away as Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, it is inferred that there was some type of contact perhaps by ocean navigation. Evidence was found in Treasure Beach (200-700 CE), on the Colima coast.[10]

The nahual included in tombs, various animal shapes are very similar to those of the Mochica culture in Peru.[10]

Others made links with the Machalilla culture in Ecuador.[17]

According to Isabel Kelly,[18] virtually all of Capacha's defining characteristics are also found in northern South American pottery assemblages.[19]