Chalchihuites

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Alta Vista, or Chalchihuites, in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. A Teotihuacán ceremonial center right on the Tropic of Cancer, it was occupied from A.D. 315 to about 1050. It has a number of astronomically important features, including petroglyphs, a processional walkway, and the dramatic "Hall of Columns." At noon on the summer solstice the sun stands directly overhead.

It is one of the best cases for astronomical alignments at an archaeological site, but unfortunately people don't visit it very often. It's in northwest Mexico, which is very hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. It's an impressive place, sitting lonely on the badlands about four miles east of the town of Chalchihuites. It's also not far from the colonial town of Zacatecas, which has a beautiful cathedral.

Alta Vista is a small site, not like the massive Teotihuacán, some of the tourist have called it a cool place to visit.

The archaeological site of Alta Vista, at Chalchihuites, is located 137 miles to the northwest of the City of Zacatecas and 102 miles southeast of the City of Durango. Located to the west of Sombrerete in the northwestern corner of the state, it is believed that the site was a cultural oasis that was occupied more or less continuously from 100 A.D. to 1400 A.D.

The archaeologist Manuel Gamio referred to Chalchihuites as a “culture of transition” between the Mesoamerican civilizations and the so-called Chichimeca hunters/gatherers who lived in the arid plateau of central Mexico. Chalchihuites and Le Quemada were both outposts of Mesoamerican settlement in an ecological and cultural frontier area. However, in this transition zone, climatic changes caused continual shifts in the available resource base, discouraging most attempts at creating permanent settlements.