Helen Perlstein Pollard

A reexamination of human-induced environmental change within the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico

This paper presents 2,000 years of settlement and land use within the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Mexico. Three findings challenge the conclusions of previous research. We show (i) that initial land degradation was caused by settlement, not by agriculture; (ii) that population density inversely correlates with erosion; and (iii) that land degradation was associated with European Conquest but not from the introduction of the Euro-agro suite. Instead, demographic collapse caused by European-introduced disease prevented human-generated landscapes from being maintained, resulting in widespread degradation. These findings support the use of indigenous landscape technology for modern conservation if past failings can be resolved.

Recent Research in West Mexican Archaeology

The last decade has seen the greatest increase in archaeological research in western Mexico since the 1940s. Unlike previously heralded renewals, this one is accompanied by widespread skepticism of the dominant culture-historical paradigm linking west Mexico to the rest of Mesoamerica, to the American Southwest, and to South America. Current research offers substantive new data and interpretations bearing on issues such as the definition of Mesoamerica, the role of South American long distance contacts, the human ecology of highland lakes, the role of river systems in Mesoamerican prehistory, and the nature/role of prehispanic elite exchanges.

A MODEL OF THE EMERGENCE OF THE TARASCAN STATE

Abstract By a.d. 1350, central-western Mexico was incorporated into the Tarascan state. This irechequa tzintzuntzani (kingdom of Tzintzuntzan) has been known primarily from sixteenth-century documents. With three decades of archaeological, ecological, and ethnohistoric research, it is now possible to propose a model of the emergence of the first archaic state in Michoacan. Critical issues to be addressed include (1) why state formation occurred (and why this form); (2) why even secondary state formation was “delayed” for more than a millennium; (3) why it occurred in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin; and (4) the role of Purepecha ethnicity in the process.

CENTRAL PLACES AND CITIES: A CONSIDERATION OF THE PROTOHISTORIC TARASCAN STATE

Systems of human settlement serve as primary sources of evidence for investigating variability in the evolution of complex societies. In particular, the existence of and nature of cities reveals much about the nature and direction of sociopolitical changes characteristic of prehistoric states. The present study places the analysis of prehistoric urbanism within the context of settlement system analyses and applies this approach to the protohistoric Tarascan state of western Mexico. This first synthesis of our knowledge of major Tarascan settlements evaluates the protohistoric communities at Tzintzuntzan, Ihuatzio, Patzcuaro, and Erongaricuaro (within the Lake Patzcuaro Basin) and considers those outside the Tarascan core, especially Zacapu. This study suggests that the Tarascan state did not participate in the Central Mexican urban tradition, and that the historic capital, Tzintzuntzan, may have been unique in its urban status. Rather, the state was characterized by a complex and overlapping network of central places and specialized places. To the extent that this pattern diverges from other prehistoric systems it constitutes one source for understanding the diversity in the protohistoric Mesoamerican world.

Agrarian Potential, Population, and the Tarascan State

Estimates based on potential maize crops and maize consumption patterns of the 15th-century Mesoamerican protohistoric Tarascan population living within its geopolitical core (Lake P�ttzcuaro Basin) indicate that this population had not maintained itself through agricultural- and lacustrine-carrying capacity alone. It was through having to obtain basic resources such as maize from outside the basin that the Tarascans developed mechanisms that formed the particular character of their state.

Merchant Colonies, Semi-Mesoamericans, and the Study of Cultural Contact: A Comment on Anawalt

Using evidence of dress modes, metallurgy, mortuary structures, and language, Anawalt (1992) presents a model of the impact of Ecuadorean trading colonies on West Mexican prehistory. But the model is built on inaccurate data about the Tarascans, and simplifies, to the point of distortion, the prehistory of the region. Furthermore, by linking the hypothesized Ecuadorean colonies to a semi-mesoamerican quality that is assumed to characterize West Mexico, Anawalt perpetuates a normative, typological approach to the definition of Mesoamerica and the study of cultural interaction.

West Mexico Postclassic

relative time period: Follows the West Mexico Classic tradition, precedes the Spanish colonial period.

Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State.

Pollard draws upon ethnohistoric documentation, ecological data, and archaeological research, including her own recent work in the region, to provide a comprehensive overview of the Tarascan state, one of the two great political powers the Spanish encountered when they arrived in Mexico in the early

Research standards and archaeological monographs: The case of cozumel

Jeremy A. Sabloff and William L. Rathje, eds. A Study of Changing Pre‐Columbian Commercial Systems: The 1972–1973 Seasons at Cozumel, Mexico. A Preliminary Report. Monographs of the Peabody Museum, Number 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1975. xii + 138 pp. Maps, figures, illustrations, tables and references.

Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State

7.50.