1994 Qanat La Venta Project
Chris Beekman, Phil Weigand, John Pint

To date there has been little Colonial period archaeology in western Mexico, and most archaeological and historical research has been centered in the large urban centers such as Guadalajara. Rural towns and infrastructure have tended to fall between the cracks, as we pointed out in our studies in the La Venta area, just 10 km northwest of Guadalajara. Phil Weigand located a tunnel system behind the town of La Venta del Astillero in the 1970s during his researches into ancient mining, and spelunker John Pint came across it a short time later. During my archaeological survey of the La Venta Corridor in 1993, I was mystified by the thing until I met John, who described his earlier mapping adventures in the tunnel. I relayed this to Phil, who in turn made the connection to the Qanat, a form of subterranean aqueduct originally developed in the Near East in the first millennium B.C. The qanat form expanded through the Middle East and northern Africa during the Arab invasions of the first millennium A.D., and it was eventually brought to Spain, and from there to the New World beginning in the 16th century. Steve Lansing recently told me that the irrigation networks on Bali are also qanats - in all my enthusiasm to trace the history of qanats to the west of their homeland, I had neglected to look to the east. A qanat is constructed by identifying a high point in the water table, tapping it, and channelling the water via an underground tunnel to its eventual destination. Vertical shafts leading from the surface down into the channel are used for access during construction, and for later maintenance. The water can be used for irrigation, supplying herds of cattle, or running a mill.
The Qanat La Venta is an example of this technology in western Mexico, an area where qanats had not yet been documented. We decided that mapping and reporting this feature would be an important contribution to the Colonial archaeology of the region. We spent several months mapping the shafts from the surface, the interior of the tunnel, and features appearing on the aerial photos of the area that appeared to be vestigial remains of the qanat. In the end, we calculate that the total length of the definite and probable qanat segments add up to a staggering 8 kilometers. Despite this, the feature is still without historic documentation.

Historical information was rather thin, but we draw several main conclusions. First, the qanat probably dates to the Colonial period, but was modified early in this century (probably after the Mexican Revolution). Second, qanats in general, though perhaps not our example, were most likely in existence in central Jalisco by the end of the 16th century. Three major economic activities in central Jalisco at this time were wheat, cattle ranching, and to a lesser extent sugar cane. We proposed that the qanat, and others like it, were probably oriented towards the former two activities - irrigation of wheat, or water supply for cattle herds. Monica Barnes, who studies qanats and related features throughout Latin America with David Fleming, recently suggested to me that water brought by the qanat could potentially have powered a mill, and a sugar cane processing mill did exist in the general region (somewhere) as of the 16th century.

Some features, however, suggest later refurbishment. Brick check dams were found within the underground channel at two points, and vertical shafts had been sealed up in some branches, but shored up with brick linings in other sections. This suggests to us an attempt to repair the qanat at a late date, and interviews with older local men found that they had participated in some sort of repair work early in this century.

Links to related publications:

• Beekman, Christopher S., Phil C. Weigand, and John J. Pint. 1999. Old World Irrigation Technology in a New World Context: Qanats in Spanish Colonial Western Mexico. Antiquity 73(279):440-446.

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