New Evidence Ancient City of Tetelihtic in Mexico Was Founded by the Totonac People

A team of archaeologists affiliated with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have unearthed evidence that reveals important information about the ancient Mesoamerican city of Tetelihtic, found in the municipality of Teteles de Avila Castillo in the Mexican state of Puebla in the southeastern part of the country.

Based on what the INAH team has found, they now believe that Tetelihtic was actually founded by the Totonacs, a once-powerful Mesoamerican people who built a thriving confederation of cities in the lands of east central Mexico during the Classical Period (200 to 00 AD). Some archaeologists and scholars of ancient history believe that the Totonac people were the real founders of the legendary Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan as well, and the Totonacs themselves have preserved legends that suggest this is the case.

One of the pyramid mounds of Teteles de Ávila Castillo, an early site in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, under excavation. (Teteles de Ávila Archaeological Project/INAH)

The True Origin of a Mysterious Ceremonial Center is Discovered

Tetelihtic reached the height of its prominence between the years 200 and 100 BC, before the development of the Totonac urban confederation, and was inhabited after that for another four centuries.

The city’s architectural features and alignments suggests it may have served as an astronomical observatory, specifically one that was designed to track celestial movements that synchronized with the agricultural cycle. Its largest central structure (designated Structure 1) appears to align with Canopus, the brightest star in the southern constellation Carina, which may have been associated with the goddess Nantehuitz, known as “our mother of the south” to the indigenous people of the region.

Structure 1 aligns with the February appearance of the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus. (Teteles de Ávila Archaeological Project/INAH)

All of this helps to highlight the fact that ancient Tetelihtic was some type of religious or ceremonial center. And in fact during the most recent round of excavations there, the INAH archaeologists were performing excavations in a large ceremonial complex that covers an area of 7.4 acres (three hectares) in Tetelihtic’s Great Plaza (Los Cerritos), and it is this sacred site that appears to have a connection to the Totonac culture.

Ritual Objects Found

Inside one of its structures, a well, (designated Structure 2), the Mexican archaeologists, led by Alberto Diaz Barroso Repizo from the INAH Puebla Center, found a most intriguing set of objects and substances, all of which appear to have been connected to ritual activity.

“Tetelihtic had its heyday between 200 BC and 100 AD, in the Terminal Formative period, but then came an unemployment of more than four centuries,” Barroso Repizo explained an INAH press release. “However, we have indications of its reuse in the Epiclassic, between 650 and 900 AD, such as the presence of Maxtlaloyan pottery and the location of a well in Structure 2, which must have been excavated by a Totonac group to honor the ancestors and the place of origin.”

Barroso Repizo and his colleagues were able to make this determination about the well because the artifacts retrieved from its ancient depths were all familiar from studies of the Totonac culture.

“Inside the well there was an offering with remains of charcoal, ceramic potsherds and the fragment of a palm that represents a snake,” the archaeologist said. “The palm is, along with the yoke and the axe, a structural type that characterizes the Totonac culture.”

Various objects have been recovered from the site. (Teteles de Ávila Archaeological Project/INAH)

Barraso Repizo and his fellow researchers believe the Totonac must have returned to Tetelihtic  during the aforementioned Epiclassic or Late Classic Period (650-900 AD), reoccupying a site they had actually constructed long ago. The form of the sacrificial offerings in the well connects the rituals performed with Totonac ancestor worship, and the layout of the city and its building patterns also links it to this civilization.

 “The architectural style of Tetelihtic’s ceremonial center suggests links to the Huasteca region, supporting the theory that its original inhabitants were ancestors of the Totonac people who later settled in Yohualichan (Cuetzalan, Puebla) and El Tajín (Veracruz),” the INAH press release stated.

Aerial scan of the Teteles de Ávila Castillo site. (Teteles de Ávila Archaeological Project/INAH)

A Brief History of the Totonac People

The Totonac culture endured through much of the first millennium and into the middle of the second millennium. It reached its peak during the Late Classic Period (Epiclassic), when its people lived in a series of large and prosperous cities that traded with each other and cooperated in many other ways.

The leading city in the Totonac confederation was El Tajín, which was located in the lands of the modern state of Veracruz. Notably, El Tajín was built up significantly following the sacking of Teotihuacan by insurgents in the year 600 AD. There are in fact major similarities between the ancient Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan and some of the buildings found at El Tajín , offering more evidence to support the assertion that the Totonacs founded Teotihuacan, and possibly constructed El Tajín as is replacement.

In 900 AD the Totonac confederation of urban centers split up, dividing their territory into three provinces in the north and south and in the mountains. The culture began to decline at this point, and it experienced a significant loss of population around 1200 AD after suffering through a series of murderous attacks at the hands of the nomadic Chichimeca people.

Sometime after this what remained of the Totonac culture was conquered and oppressed by the Aztecs, leaving the culture in a precarious state. The Totonac people saw a way out of their bondage when the Spanish conquistadores arrived in their territory in the early 16th century, however, and in 1519 approximately 30 Totonac leaders formed an alliance with the conquistador leader Hernan Cortes. Together the combined Spanish and Totonac forces marched into Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital) and smashed it to pieces, ultimately giving the Aztecs no choice but to surrender to the Spanish.

The Totonacs hoped the Spanish would grant them independence as a reward for their assistance. But instead the Totonac people were assimilated into the growing Spanish empire in the Americas, after which they quickly converted to Catholicism and left their traditional culture behind. About 90,000 Totonacs survive today, with almost all living in the states of Veracruz and Puebla.

But the memory of the ancient Totonac culture lives on, through ancestral memories and through their recovered ruins and artifacts, which tell the true story of their glorious past. It now appears that the list of great cities they built includes Tetelihtic in the state of Puebla, and it remains to be seen if even more settlements in the region will eventually be linked to the ambitious ancient Totonac people.

Top image: One of the structures the heritage site of Tetelihtic, found in the municipality of Teteles de Avila Castillo being worked on.           Source: Teteles de Ávila Archaeological Project/INAH

By Nathan Falde