El Grillo

Abstract

Far western highland Mexico may provide the earliest evidence for the disruptions that emerged further to the east, during the Epiclassic. The distinctive Teuchitlán culture of the Late Formative and Early-Middle Classic was replaced with strikingly different architectural traditions, burial patterns, and ceramics (the El Grillo complex) with apparent origins to the east. I reconsider this material in light of proposals as to how community and identity are reestablished or reorganized after migration. The area remained politically fragmented at the time of the Conquest, and no language ever came to be associated with greater prestige as Nahuatl did in Central Mexico.