The archaeological salvage team working alongside the Mexico–Querétaro train project has uncovered a series of funerary contexts, including cists and shaft tombs, at the Ignacio Zaragoza site in Tula de Allende, Hidalgo.
The discoveries are expected to provide important insights into the beliefs, social structure, and culture of communities that flourished during the height of the Teotihuacan civilisation.
The site appears to have been occupied between approximately AD 225 and 550–600, with smaller-scale reoccupations during the Late Postclassic period.
Tula de Allende, Hidalgo — The excavation of several funerary contexts, including five shaft tombs discovered within a pre-Hispanic domestic complex near the community of Ignacio Zaragoza, will be key to understanding the beliefs, social organisation, and cultural practices of settlements in the region during the Teotihuacan period.
Mexico’s Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, stated that the discoveries in Tula demonstrate “the importance of archaeological salvage in understanding, preserving, and studying the deep-rooted memory of these territories.
Every burial, offering, and archaeological context recovered by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) provides information about the ways of life, beliefs, and social organisation of the people who inhabited this region more than a thousand years ago. It also confirms that infrastructure development can proceed alongside rigorous research and heritage preservation.”
Since September 2025, a team from the Mexico City–Querétaro Passenger Train Archaeological Salvage Project, coordinated by archaeologist Víctor Heredia Guillén under the supervision of INAH’s Directorate of Archaeological Salvage, has focused investigations on a 2,400-square-metre area along the railway route.
According to field director Laura Magallón Sandoval, the first indications came from ceramic material scattered across the surface, particularly remains of Postclassic Coyotlatelco and Mexica pottery dating from AD 900–1521. Test excavations subsequently revealed the foundations of ancient walls.
Excavations supported by orthophotography identified a pattern of small residential compounds linked by courtyards, with houses oriented along north–south and east–west axes.
The Ignacio Zaragoza site was reoccupied during the Late Postclassic period, although most of the structures belong to the Tlamimilolpan (AD 225–350) and Xolalpan (AD 350–550) phases associated with Teotihuacan. Due to 1,800 years of erosion and prolonged agricultural use, many stones from the original buildings were removed, leaving only their foundations intact.
Despite this, archaeologists uncovered numerous burial contexts created within the rocky substrate beneath the settlement. Surface cists and shaft tombs excavated into tepetate, a hardened volcanic soil, were found inside several rooms.
Magallón Sandoval noted that more than a dozen collective and individual burials have been recorded, including both complete and partial skeletons. Preliminary analysis by physical anthropologists José Manuel Cervantes Pérez and Abril Machain Castillo indicates the remains belong to children, adolescents, and primarily adults.
Archaeologist Juana Mitzi Serrano Rivero explained that two shaft tombs were identified in one room. The northern tomb contained two burial chambers aligned east–west, while the southern tomb featured a single east-facing chamber.
The northern shaft measured 80 centimetres in circumference and 1.69 metres deep, with chambers averaging 60 centimetres in diameter and a total length of two metres. The southern shaft measured 80 centimetres in diameter, 1.80 metres deep, and 90 centimetres long.
Inside the northern tomb, archaeologists recovered the remains of eight individuals, most of them adults, alongside 47 miniature ceramic vessels.
“Six of the individuals were placed in a seated position, with ceramic offerings at their feet, while two burial contexts had been disturbed,” Serrano Rivero explained. “It appears the tomb was reused, and when the final individual was interred, the funerary bundle of a previous burial was removed.”
Among the grave goods recovered were a small shell, fragments of a semicircular mother-of-pearl pendant, and a small plaque made from the same material. Incised ceramic vessels were also discovered and removed with surrounding soil for micro-excavation.
Archaeologist Jonathan Velázquez Palacios stated that the region had been exploited for raw materials since pre-Hispanic times, particularly lime, which may have been essential for producing the stucco used in Teotihuacan’s monumental architecture, located around 90 kilometres away.
The Ignacio Zaragoza site, investigated with the participation of archaeologists Cecilia Carrillo Román, José Muñoz Sánchez, José Ángel Esparza Robles, and Johan González Ávila, should be understood within a wider regional context.
Velázquez Palacios concluded that northern Tula contains multiple Classic-period settlements, including Chingú, regarded as a regional centre connected to Teotihuacan expansion, as well as El Tesoro, Acoculco, El Llano, and La Malinche. At Acoculco, archaeologists previously uncovered tombs reflecting Zapotec and Teotihuacan traditions, together with both extended and flexed burials.
Header Image Credit : Víctor Heredia
Sources : INAH
