Archaeology of an Early Colonial Building on the Northern Frontier of Mesoamerica

Abstract During the colonization of the Americas, the Europeans have experienced multiple socioenvironmental contexts that lead them to develop different settlement strategies. The Spanish conquistadors’ spread toward the vast territories located north of the agrarian lands of Mesoamerica had to adapt to a new context. The resistance of seminomadic hunter-gatherer populations to the European advance challenged the establishment of permanent settlements and set up an agropastoral territory. Based on the analysis of archaeological (field archaeology, ceramics, zooarchaeology) and geohistorical data, this article presents the study of PA1-Cerrito de Tres Mezquites, a fortified and isolated building associated with the Spanish world and identified as a venta (inn) dated to the late sixteenth century. The construction system of this building can be linked to the warlike context that accompanied the process of advancement and colonization of the Chichimeca region. Our study indicates that this building was part of the larger mining socioeconomic system. It played a fundamental role as a commercial node that contributed to spread the Hispanic culture to rural areas far from the major urban centers, to include them in an intercontinental network of long-distance exchanges. But the shift of the frontier to more northerly latitudes in the early seventeenth century, and the limitations imposed by the marshy environment in which the site was established, likely led to a change in its function. In conclusion, this study shows the Spanish rapid adaptive behavior and reuse of the building inherent in getting to know a new space and taking possession of it.