Santa Maria de las Navajas is located in the southeastern corner of the Tequila valleys, on the floor of the wide pass leading towards the southern lakes of Sayula and Atoyac, and towards Lake Chapala. From the structures on the edge of the mesa where it sits, one can see deep into the pass to the southeast past San Ysidro Mazatepec (on the route to Lake Chapala), and the wide pass in the southern part of the core area leading past Ameca towards Lake Sayula and Atoyac. The architecture exhibits a curious mixture of older Teuchitlan Tradition circles and the newer sunken patios. Here the latter are actually appended to the former.

A brief reconnaissance in March of 2002 established that the settlement is considerably more extensive than this 1993 map indicates. The site covers a mesa, today planted in maize and maguey, and smaller residential structures can be seen all around. Several clusters of larger architecture can be seen at various points around the mesa, and these have not been mapped either. The summer 2002 season of the TVRAP focused on mapping the site and evaluating its extent, while the 7 month field season in 2003 carried out excavations in Circle 1 and Circle 5.

Comments to Chris Beekman