INAH Says a Puebla Complex Worked as a Solar Observatory Over 2,500 Years Ago, the First Outside the Maya Area

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) says a complex at Teteles de Ávila Castillo, in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, worked as a solar astronomical observatory more than 2,500 years ago. The project team calls it the first such site recorded outside the Maya area. The claims come from INAH Bulletin 471, dated 13 October 2026, and the bulletin cites no independent peer review.

A square flanked by two platforms

The complex lies east of the Great Plaza of the ceremonial precinct, which the bulletin also calls Group E or Tetelihtic. It is an open square with a platform at each end. The elongated east platform measures about 90 meters north to south by 40 meters east to west. The west structure, about 46 meters by 27 meters, served as the observation point. The bulletin says the layout matches Group E complexes in the Maya area, such as Uaxactún in Guatemala, and that the Teteles complex is roughly twice as large.

What the team says it tracked

The team says the town’s original layout and the orientation of its pyramids followed astronomical knowledge and the surrounding landscape, including the hills and the astronomical horizon of the sierra. Observations from the front of the east platform at dawn reportedly track the sun’s path at the equinoxes and solstices. According to the bulletin, the elongated platform does not mark the equinoxes at its center. It marked the start of the Mesoamerican calendar in February and the harvest in October. The team also links the orientation of the main structure to Canopus, the second-brightest star in the night sky. The bulletin gives no measured alignment angles or observation dates.

How long people used the site

The team says the site was in use from the Middle Formative, around 900 BCE, to the Protoclassic, around 100 CE. Group E at Uaxactun dates to the Middle Preclassic period (1000 to 600 BCE). The site was partly abandoned when Cantona, Cholula and Teotihuacan emerged, and offerings on the periphery dated 100 to 600 CE suggest continued ceremonial use. A Totonac offering from 600 to 900 CE on one platform indicates the site was abandoned by then.

Hypotheses, not conclusions

The project director, Alberto Diez Barroso Repizo of INAH Puebla, suggests that a Maya presence at Teteles could date to about a thousand years before the Common Era, which he links to the relationship between Maya and Huastec groups. He also proposes a possible link between the orientation toward Canopus and the Nahua goddess Nantehuitz, and he suggests that the first inhabitants were ancestors of the Totonac groups of Yohualichan and El Tajin. The bulletin presents all three ideas as possibilities, and the research is ongoing.

Source: INAH Bulletin 471, 13 October 2026. Photo credit: Alberto Diez.