Zona Arqueológica La Campana

Zona Arqueológica La Campana is the largest excavated pre-Hispanic settlement in the state of Colima, occupied from roughly 700 BCE through the Postclassic period, with its principal architectural phase dating to 700-900 CE. The site sits on the northwestern edge of Colima City and preserves the ceremonial core of a settlement tied to the broader western Mexican shaft-tomb tradition, though the visible structures postdate the shaft-tomb burials found nearby. Excavated remains include circular and rectangular platform mounds arranged around plazas, a ballcourt, and a large stepped structure known locally as El Ídolo, built from river cobbles and adobe-clay mortar rather than the cut limestone typical of Maya or central Mexican sites. The small on-site museum, administered by INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia), exhibits ceramics, obsidian tools, and figurines recovered during the 1990s excavations led by archaeologist Rodolfo Rodríguez, alongside site maps explaining the settlement's residential and ceremonial zones. Interpretation follows a chronological approach, walking visitors from the earliest occupation phases through the site's Postclassic abandonment. Consolidation and roofing were carried out by INAH to protect the cobble-and-mud construction from Colima's rainy season, and the plazas remain open-air with shaded walkways connecting the main structures. Because the architecture uses river stone rather than dressed masonry, erosion control is an ongoing conservation concern, and some peripheral mounds remain unexcavated and fenced off. The site offers views toward the Colima volcano to the north, which shaped settlement patterns and is referenced in the museum's interpretive panels on the region's pre-Hispanic economy and obsidian trade routes.