La Quemada rises from a hill in the Malpaso Valley, in Villanueva municipality, about 56 kilometres southeast of the city of Zacatecas. The landscape is not a backdrop to the archaeological zone: the builders used the slope itself to organise plazas, terraces, passageways and ceremonial, residential and administrative spaces. The result differs from the regular street grids associated with some of central Mexico’s ancient cities. Here, the visitor reads the settlement by moving up and across the hillside.
The name La Quemada is generally explained as a reference to a nearby hacienda that burned, although the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) presents that origin cautiously. The site is also popularly associated with Chicomoztoc, a legendary place in accounts of the Mexica migration. That association is not an established identification of the ancient city. INAH says the settlement’s origins remain a mystery, and the signposted phrase “Ruinas de Chicomoztoc” should not be mistaken for proof that this was the mythical place.