At the arrival of the Spaniards, the Zacapu region seemed to hold a peripheral position in the great state system established by Tariacuri and his successors, the geopolitical core of which was located in the Patzcuaro Basin (Pollard Reference Pollard1993). At the end of the Postclassic period, the Lake Zacapu Basin was entirely under the rule of the Irecha of Tzintzuntzan. The first census conducted by Antonio de Caravajal in 1523, barely a year after Cristóbal de Olid and his men conquered the capital of the Tarascan empire (Espejel Reference Espejel, Williams and Weigand2011; Warren Reference Warren1989:85–90), indicates that this area was under the authority of two main cabeceras. The lord of Huaniqueo controlled the northeastern part of the basin, while the southwestern part was under the dominance of the lord of Cumanchen (Comanja). Zacapu and Naranjan were part of this second entity, and acted as sub-cabeceras. The census of Caravajal portrays a region with a relatively limited and dispersed population. For the southern and western sectors of the basin, the census reports between 341 and 782 dwellings, or 1,900–4,379 inhabitants, with the widely used coefficients (Migeon Reference Migeon, Breton, Berthe and Lecoin1991, Reference Migeon2016:23). Even if we consider the effects of minimization evoked by several authors (Espejel Reference Espejel, Williams and Weigand2011; Migeon 2016; Warren Reference Warren1989:89–90) and double the number of inhabitants, by taking into account settlements in the territory of Huaniqueo (304–822), we are still a long way off the 80,000 inhabitants estimated by Gorenstein and Pollard (Reference Gorenstein and Pollard1983) for the Patzcuaro Basin at that time.
Despite these figures, which may seem very low, Zacapu and its region played an essential role in the ideology of the rulers of Tzintzuntzan. According to Alonso de La Rea (Reference Rea1882 [1639]:44–45), the prestige of Zacapu in the eyes of ancient Purepecha people was comparable to that of ancient Rome for Christians. According to the chronicler, the cazonci, accompanied by the great lords of the kingdom, made an annual pilgrimage to the city to make offerings in a temple dedicated to Curicaueri. The importance of the city is also underlined by the long justification drawn up by Tariacuri to exhort his nephews to become masters of the city (Alcalá Reference Alcalá and Mendoza2000 [1541]:464–566). This symbolic pre-eminence was undoubtedly largely due to the region's role in the Uacusecha epic, as recounted in the annual festival of Equata Cónsquaro (Alcalá Reference Alcalá and Mendoza2000 [1541]:333–340). During this major ceremony, the petamuti reminded the subjects of the kingdom of the history of the reigning lineage and of the many twists and turns that accompanied peregrinations in early times. This history is one of migration that began when a Chichimeca group, the Uacusecha, arrived in the Zacapu Basin around the thirteenth century under the aegis of their leader, Hire Ticatame. Their stay in the region seems to have been rather short and ended as a result of conflicts with indigenous populations, who finally managed to drive out the Chichimeca, who went on to find refuge on the northern shore of Patzcuaro Lake. But beyond these misadventures, the Zacapu episode is undoubtedly mentioned because it is marked by an important event: the first alliance between the Chichimeca and local inhabitants, sealed by the marriage of Hire Ticatame and a Naranjan princess. This event prefigures the network of alliances that the Uacusecha were able to set up to establish their power throughout the region.
For the archaeology of Michoacan, the region of Zacapu is also important for its rich and still relatively well-preserved heritage, but also because of the numerous research programs carried out there. It is indeed in this zone that one of the first regional-scale research programs was launched at the beginning of the 1980s (Michelet Reference Michelet and Michelet1992; Michelet et al. Reference Michelet, Arnauld and Fauvet-Berthelot1989). Many important research studies had been conducted prior to that in the state, but they often focused on a specific site or period. The Michoacan Project laid the foundations for approaching the evolution of settlement systems over time, owing in particular to the construction of a chronology of 1,600 years, which is still a reference today (Table 1). The Uacusecha Archaeological Project (2009–2019) continues that research, subsequent research conducted in the 1990s. Some of the results of the project will be presented in this special section of Ancient Mesoamerica.
Zacapu Basin chronology. Adapted and completed from Michelet Reference Michelet and Michelet1992.
* The Cuarum phase was defined recently from the discovery and excavation of the site of Mich. 415–—Las Iglesias (see Lefebvre et al. Reference Lefebvre, Dorison and Torres2023).
The present article aims to put this new research into a broader perspective, combining knowledge about the north of Michoacan with research carried out in the Zacapu region. Recent developments—in particular, the acquisition of LiDAR data—provide us with the possibility of revisiting some of the major issues of regional archaeology and open up new perspectives.
The Zacapu region: geographical context
The Zacapu region is located on the northern edge of the Michoacan highlands (Figure 1) and is part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (Demant Reference Demant and Michelet1992; Mahgoub et al. Reference Mahgoub, Reyes-Guzmán, Böhnel, Siebe, Pereira and Dorison2017; Reyes-Guzmán et al. Reference Reyes-Guzmán, Siebe, Chevrel, Guilbaud, Salinas and Layer2018). From a geological point of view, the landscape presents characteristic features. Like many of the great depressions of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the Zacapu depression was an endorheic lake basin (250 km2) surrounded by Quaternary volcanic mountains rising more than 2,000 m above sea level (Demant Reference Demant and Michelet1992; Dorison et al. Reference Dorison, Siebe, Reyes-Guzmán, Pereira and Padilla Gutierrez2018; Reyes-Guzmán et al. Reference Reyes-Guzmán, Siebe, Chevrel, Guilbaud, Salinas and Layer2018; Tricart Reference Tricart and Michelet1992). The climate and vegetation are of tropical mountainous type (Dorison Reference Dorison2019; Labat Reference Labat and Michelet1992), but it also differs from the more southerly regions (the Patzcuaro Basin and Meseta Tarasca) in that it is at a slightly lower altitude, which determines a warmer and less humid climate. Before it dried up at the beginning of the twentieth century, the body of water at the bottom of the basin (the Ciénega) was also shallower than that of Patzcuaro, and probably also less easily navigable (Arnauld et al. Reference Arnauld, Carot and Fauvet-Berthelot1993; Pétrequin Reference Pétrequin1994). The Zacapu Basin, like the neighboring Cuitzeo Basin, is in fact a lower plateau of the highlands preceding the great alluvial valley of the Lerma River to the north. The region is thus at the crossroads of two large ecosystems that also correspond to two pre-Hispanic cultural areas: the cold and humid Tarascan highlands in the south, and the lower and more arid northern regions of the Bajío.
Map of northern Michoacan, showing the location of the studied area and the surrounding regions and major known sites.
By this specific location, the region of Zacapu is involved in two macro-regional issues: the emergence and organization of the Tarascan state specific to the Michoacán highlands (Gorenstein and Pollard Reference Gorenstein and Pollard1983; Pollard Reference Pollard1993, Reference Pollard2008), and the fluctuations of the northern Mesoamerican frontier and the migrations associated with it (Armillas Reference Armillas1964, Reference Armillas1969; Braniff C. Reference Beatriz, Manzanilla and Luján1994). It is the convergence of these two major issues that makes the archaeology of the Zacapu region unique.
Research history in the Zacapu region
Interest in the archaeology of the Zacapu region dates back to the end of the nineteenth century and to the first explorations conducted by Carl Lumholtz in his famous 1896 expedition to northern and western Mexico (Lumholtz Reference Lumholtz1986 [1904]; Lumholtz and Hrdlička Reference Lumholtz and Hrdlička1898). Despite these early beginnings, research prior to the 1980s was scarce and limited (Caso Reference Caso1930; Freddolino Reference Freddolino1973). At the outset of the Michoacan Project, fewer than 10 sites were reported in the scientific literature (Michelet Reference Michelet and Michelet1992:16) and archaeological excavations had mainly concerned the site of Palacio (Forest Reference Forest2020).
The early 1980s thus marked a turning point. At that time, two projects brought new data on the Zacapu Basin. The ENAH Patzcuaro-Cuitzeo Project, directed by G. Sapio (Espejel Reference Espejel and Carbajal2014:52–54), organized prospection on the southern bank of the basin in 1983 and 1984, resulting in the identification of about a hundred sites. Unfortunately, this research was interrupted by the accidental loss of the project leader. The Michoacan Project developed by the Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos (CEMCA), under the direction of Michelet (Reference Michelet and Michelet1992), began at the same time for a period of five years (1983–1987). It covered an area of 1,000 km2, extending from the foothills of the Meseta Tarasca in the south to the Lerma River Valley in the north, and included the western part of the Lake Zacapu Basin. The primary objective of the project was to reconstruct, in the long term, the evolution of settlement patterns throughout the study area, involving extensive survey of sites and the setting up of a reliable chrono-ceramic sequence through radiocarbon dating (Michelet Reference Michelet and Michelet1992; Michelet et al. Reference Michelet, Arnauld and Fauvet-Berthelot1989:79–80). The research carried out recorded 366 settlements of all types (see Michelet Reference Michelet and Michelet1992:18–33), 66% of which could then be dated from the study of material collected on the surface (pottery collected in 70% of the sites), in test pits (108 at 70 sites), or extensive excavations (seven sites). With the exception of two rock shelters found in the northern portion of the zone that could be assigned to the Paleoindian and Archaic periods (Faugère-Kalfon Reference Faugère-Kalfon1996:125–130), the remaining sites are placed in a sequence (Table 1) beginning at the end of the Preclassic period (100 b.c.) and extending to the Late Postclassic (a.d. 1500).
Research then rapidly focused on more specific questions that were studied in greater depth. Systematic survey and excavation carried out by Arnauld and colleagues (Reference Arnauld, Carot and Fauvet-Berthelot1993) in the Lomas sector made it possible to approach the question of the settlement of the lake area and to define the cultural complexes of the Late Preclassic, Classic, and Epiclassic periods (Loma Alta, Jaracuaro, and Lupe phases). The in-depth study of the Loma Alta site revealed significant development at the end of the Preclassic and the beginning of the Classic period (Carot Reference Carot2001, Reference Carot and C.2004). Research conducted by Faugère-Kalfon (Reference Faugère-Kalfon1996) in the Vertiente Lerma zone (southern Lerma watershed) documented fluctuations in the settlement in relation to the broader changes on the northern Mesoamerican frontier. In the same sector, the large obsidian deposits of Zinaparo-Varal were studied in detail by Darras (Reference Darras1999), providing new knowledge on the systems of exploitation and distribution of this vital resource. Finally, Postclassic settlement is particularly well-represented in the volcanic heights of the Zacapu Malpaís, where intensive research has been conducted on urban settlement organization (Michelet Reference Michelet, Calvo and Castro1988; Michelet et al. Reference Michelet, Ichon and Migeon1988, Reference Michelet, Pereira, Migeon and Manzanilla2005; Migeon Reference Migeon1984, Reference Migeon, Breton, Berthe and Lecoin1991, Reference Migeon2015) and burial practices (Puaux Reference Puaux1989).
At the end of this first phase of studies, the main lines of settlement in the region had already been outlined (Arnauld and Faugère-Kalfon Reference Arnauld, Faugère-Kalfon and Darras1998) and some important results had been highlighted: (1) the Late Preclassic and Classic settlement was centered on the lake area; (2) the Epiclassic occupation corresponded to the colonization of all the ecosystems in the region; (3) an abandonment process occurred in the northern sector (Vertiente Lerma) in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries; (4) while in the Zacapu Malpaís area, important urban settlements were formed and abandoned before the arrival of the Spaniards in the region.
New research followed this substantial and founding work, exploring various aspects of the region's archaeological past. From 1988 to 1991, a new phase of the Michoacan Project (named Michoacan II), directed by M.-C. Arnauld and P. Pétrequin, investigated the evolution of the environment in the Zacapu Basin through a program of sediment coring in the ancient lake (Pétrequin Reference Pétrequin1994). This interdisciplinary research documented an 8,000-year-old paleoenvironmental sequence and identified the first evidence of agricultural land clearance dating back to the beginning of the second millennium b.c. (a period still unknown to archaeology). Unfortunately, sedimentary records corresponding to the last two millennia were not preserved, depriving us of valuable information on environmental conditions during the periods documented by archaeology.
The decade of the 1990s saw the development of new research as part of three distinct projects. First, the project, Ciénega de Zacapu, led by M. E. Fernández-Villanueva (Centro Regional INAH Michoacan) in 1992 and 1993 (Fernández Villanueva Reference Fernández Villanueva1992) focused on the site of El Palacio, which had been little studied until then by researchers of the Michoacan Project. This involved the partial topographic survey of the site and the excavation of a habitation dated to the Milpillas phase. Then, work carried out by S. Pulido Méndez and his team (Dirección de Salvamento Arqueológico of INAH) in 1994, during the construction of the Maravatio–Zapotlanejo section of the Mexico–Guadalajara highway, extended the inventory of existing sites (Pulido Méndez et al. Reference Pulido Méndez, Araiza, Grave Tirado and Ortuño C1995, Reference Pulido Méndez, Araiza and Grave Tirado1996). The construction of the highway in the northwestern part of the lake basin and in the Vertiente Lerma area provided the opportunity for new surveys, extending to about 6 km on either side of the new road. In the first sector, which was still unexplored at the time, 43 settlements were identified, while 55 sites were located in the second sector (including several already inventoried in the 1980s). Finally, new research took place from 1993 to 1997, as part of a third phase of the Michoacan Project (named Zacapu Project), directed by M.-C. Arnauld. This initiative was less concerned with extending survey coverage (only four new sites were identified) than with developing further questions that had arisen based on earlier survey results. Four themes were developed:
(1) The archaic occupation of the region was further documented by the exhaustive excavation of the Los Portales Cave (Mich. 389), where remains of pre-pottery settlement, dated to 5200 to 2000 b.c., were recovered (Faugère-Kalfon Reference Faugère-Kalfon2006).
(2) The settlement patterns in the Lomas area were clarified by the in-depth study of the sites of Loma Alta (Carot et al. Reference Carot, Fauvet-Berthelot, Barba, Link, Ortíz and Hesse1998) and Potrero de Guadalupe (Pereira Reference Pereira1997, Reference Pereira1999). Extensive excavations yielded new data on the occupational sequence, architecture, and burial practices at these sites for the period a.d. 1–900. This research was continued from 1996 to 1998 as part of the Architecture de Loma Alta project, directed by P. Carot, which revealed the important architectural development of the site and some of the ritual activities that took place there (Carot and Ponce López Reference Carot and López1997; Carot et al. Reference Carot, Fauvet-Berthelot, Barba, Link, Ortíz and Hesse1998).
(3) The systems of exploitation and distribution of obsidian were completed by the excavation of the sites of El Durazno (Mich. 407) and Las Iglesias del Cerro de la Cruz (Mich. 101), two workshops in use for the production of prismatic blades during the Postclassic, located at some distance from the Zináparo-Varal deposits (Darras Reference Darras2008).
(4) Finally, new research was carried out on the large urban settlements of the Malpaís (Michelet Reference Michelet and Darras1998, Reference Michelet, King and Mirambell2000; Michelet et al. Reference Michelet, Pereira, Migeon and Manzanilla2005; Migeon Reference Migeon and Darras1998). In fact, while research conducted in the 1980s made it possible to locate a large number of sites, detailed but incomplete plans had only been plotted for the site of Las Milpillas (Mich. 95), accompanied by extensive excavations. In order to better grasp the extent of the postclassic settlements on the Malpaís, their chronology, and to conduct population estimates, a systematic survey was carried out on the sites of El Infiernillo (Mich. 38) and Malpaís Prieto (Mich. 31), supplemented by more succinct operations (partial plans and surveys) at El Palacio (Mich. 23) and other smaller sites.
These latter works clarified settlement patterns in the Malpaís and its immediate surroundings. The results indicated that the large settlements of the Milpillas phase (a.d. 1200–1450) had been able to house 13,500–16,500 inhabitants and that their development may have involved a significant influx of exogenous population (Michelet Reference Michelet, Mastache, Cobean, Cook and Hirth2008). Indeed, while some earlier settlements (Lupe, La Joya, and Palacio phases) were known, particularly in the southern part of the Malpaís, they did not seem to be sufficiently numerous to envisage a natural increase in the local population. It was therefore logical to assume that a large part of the Milpillas settlement phase was the result of migration that occurred from the thirteenth century onwards, originating in northern regions (Michelet et al. Reference Michelet, Pereira, Migeon and Manzanilla2005). Furthermore, the absence of typological markers from the Tariacuri phase in most of the studied sites showed that the Malpaís settlements had been largely abandoned long before the Spanish conquest. Finally, evidence of abandonment rites observed in the hearths of houses in several of these sites implies that this abandonment was not sudden, but organized (Migeon Reference Migeon2003). The archaeological data obtained in Zacapu thus seemed to validate, in part, the narrative recorded in the Relación de Michoacán. However, it also showed quite a different reality from that of the narrative, particularly in terms of the scale and nature of the phenomenon, and raised other questions.
The Uacusecha archaeological project
The decade of the 2000s marked a pause in the research conducted in Zacapu. During this period, the researchers involved in the Michoacan Project decided to undertake research in the Bajío region that would open up new perspectives on the integration of this region with the northern Michoacan. In particular, the results obtained in the Barajas Massif, located on the northern bank of the Lerma River, some 40 km north of the Zacapu Basin, clarified settlement variations in this part of the Bajío region, where sedentary occupation came to an end around the ninth to tenth centuries (Migeon and Pereira Reference Migeon, Pereira and Faugère-Kalfon2007; Pereira et al. Reference Pereira, Migeon and Michelet2001, Reference Pereira, Migeon, Michelet and Manzanilla2005). It thus preceded the abandonment of the Vertiente Lerma zone and suggested a gradual contraction of the northern border towards the southern highlands. It could therefore be assumed that the population movements accompanying this contraction took the form of repeated displacements over short distances, marked by successive reorganizations of settlement networks.
The resumption of research as part of the Uacusecha Archaeological Project (2009–2019) was consistent with the questions raised by movements at the northern border, of which the Chichimeca migrations reported by the Relación were only the last episodes (Pereira Reference Pereira2016, Reference Pereira, Pereira and Gutierrez2018). This return to Zacapu allowed us to re-examine previously obtained data and to consider them from the perspective of a long-term process. Additionally, initial data could be enhanced by the use of new methods and approaches. These should lead to a better characterization of the urban phenomenon of the Zacapu Malpaís and place such phenomenon into a diachronic perspective, and the context of broader social change that led to or pre-dated the formation of the Tarascan state.
The early stage of the project (2009–2014) sought to characterize the societies that lived in the urban areas of the Malpaís during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Admittedly, many results had been acquired during previous research. However, the latter still offered a partial view of the occupation of the Malpaís and the use of new, previously unavailable methods made it possible to update various aspects of our knowledge. The contributions of GPS mapping, GIS processing of spatial data, and, finally, LiDAR coverage (from 2015 onwards) allowed us to envisage site organization with considerably increased resolution. In this context, the spatial analysis of the urban sites was largely completed and systematized by Forest (Reference Forest, Brunet and Sauvin2013, Reference Forest2014, Reference Forest, Pereira and Gutierrez2018, Reference Forest2020), highlighting the logic of urban organization and inter-site variations. In addition, the extensive excavations carried out on the site of Malpaís Prieto provided new data on the domestic and ceremonial life of these supposedly Chichimeca urban populations. The excavation of four domestic units, corresponding to different socioeconomic sectors of society, provided a wealth of information on domestic architecture, material culture, and resource management (Forest et al. Reference Forest, Jadot, Manin, Pereira and Gutierrez2018; Pereira and Forest Reference Pereira and Forest2011; Pereira et al. Reference Pereira, Forest, Michelet and Jadot2012). Operations conducted in the main ceremonial center of the site (Pereira and Michelet Reference Pereira, Michelet, Pereira and Gutierrez2018; Pereira et al. Reference Pereira, Michelet, Forest, Quezada, Gillot, Sion, Perla, Barrientos, Castañeda, Jadot, Mireles, Blancas and Ortiz2018b) provided new insights into architecture, spatial organization, and ritual practices. Finally, the stratigraphic data obtained during the various excavations, combined with absolute dating, enabled us to specify the duration of site occupation and to explore patterns of site formation and abandonment (Pereira et al. Reference Pereira, Forest, Jadot, Darras, Arnauld, Beekman and Pereira2021).
The materials recovered also open new avenues of research for the study area. The study of pottery led to the development of a new technological approach to Postclassic productions (Jadot Reference Jadot2016), which shows the existence of discontinuity in vessel-shaping processes compared to earlier productions. Lithic productions in obsidian (analysis carried out by V. Darras and M. Forest) and dacite/andesite (analysis carried out by O. Quezada, UNAM) enable us to envisage the supply networks of the Malpaís Prieto urban community. The archaeozoological study of the faunal remains, for its part, has brought to light, in a systematic manner, the use of fauna for both food and ritual purposes (Manin Reference Manin2015, Reference Manin, Pereira and Gutierrez2018; Manin et al. Reference Manin, Lefèvre and Pereira2015). The implementation of a soil-sampling protocol for the systematic extraction of archaeobotanical remains, moreover, has resulted in the development of carpological and anthracological analyses (Elliott and Pereira Reference Elliott and Pereira2015). Human remains have been studied and are still undergoing studies related to morphology (Natahi Reference Natahi2019; Natahi et al. Reference Natahi, Coquerelle, Pereira and Bayle2019), bone modifications related to activities and pathologies (ongoing analysis conducted by I. Barrientos, UNAM), isotopic signatures (analyses of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen carried out by A. Manin, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, and of strontium by D. Price, University of Wisconsin, as part of the ANR Mésomobile Project), and paleogenetics (analyses conducted by X. Roca Rada as part of a Ph.D. dissertation under the direction of B. Llamas, University of Adelaide). Finally, a program of radiocarbon (AMS) and archaeomagnetic dating (sampling of the hearths and the analyses were carried out by A. Chauvin and M. Gómez-Paccard, University of Rennes) has been carried out in order to improve occupation sequence resolution of all four Malpaís urban settlements sites (Pereira et al. Reference Pereira, Forest, Jadot, Darras, Arnauld, Beekman and Pereira2021).
In a second phase of the project, initiated in 2014, research has been extended beyond the boundaries of urban settlements in order to place them in a broader regional and diachronic perspective. One aim was to define the hinterland of these sites in order to better understand their territorial influence and the possible impact of their agricultural supply activities on soils and landscapes (Dorison Reference Dorison2019). The second was to assess the extent to which the Middle Postclassic urban settlements in the Malpaís formed a break with respect to previous (Epiclassic and Early Postclassic) or later (Recent Postclassic and Colonial) phases of occupation, and to re-evaluate the consequences of the changes observed in different spheres (settlement networks, exploitation of resources, mobility of populations). From this perspective, it was necessary to define the occupation of all the Malpaís volcanic flows and their immediate surroundings, and to compare the evolution of this area with other neighboring areas.
This new research was made possible by the ANR research program “Mésomobile: Mobilités, territoires et mutations sociopolitiques dans le centre-ouest de la Mésoamérique,” which funded a large number of analyses and field studies. As part of this program, a LiDAR coverage of 91.3 km2 was carried out over almost the entire Malpaís and its immediate surroundings. The results presented in this special section were greatly enhanced by this new source of information, which has been used to address a variety of issues.
Before introducing specific topics in this section, some general information on the operations carried out in recent years is called for. During the second phase of the Uacusecha Archaeological Project, new surveys were undertaken in and around the Malpaís, as well as in the surrounding areas. The objective was to improve the archaeological map of the zone and its chronology. Thus, new visits were organized in already known sites in order to refine their geolocation, and to characterize their size, organization, and chronology. These new surveys also recorded 64 new sites, detected by pedestrian survey (20) or thanks to LiDAR data (44). Surface artifact collections, test pits, or more extensive excavations (sites Mich. 415, 416, 428) were carried out at 29 of these new sites. Other previously recorded sites were explored and surveyed further and more systematically, which greatly clarified their chronology. The ongoing analyses of the collected material remains have supported the improvement of the regional chronology (Table 1) and expanded our knowledge on diverse aspects, such as economic organization, human populations, or ritual practices, aspects that will only be mentioned briefly in this special section.
Finally, it is important to note that this novel research benefited greatly from the fruitful collaboration of archaeologists with the volcanologists from the Instituto de Geofísica at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, who, under the direction of C. Siebe, are carrying out in-depth research on the eruptive sequences of the highlands of Michoacan and, more particularly, those of the Zacapu Basin (Mahgoub et al. Reference Mahgoub, Reyes-Guzmán, Böhnel, Siebe, Pereira and Dorison2017; Reyes-Guzmán et al. Reference Reyes-Guzmán, Siebe, Chevrel, Guilbaud, Salinas and Layer2018; Siebe et al. Reference Siebe, Guilbaud, Salinas, Kshirsagar, Chevrel, Fuente, Jiménez and Godínez2014). This work has characterized and dated the Zacapu Malpaís volcanic formations. Such results are important to investigate the exploitation of lithic resources and the evolution of the landscape under the effect of eruptions.
Archaeology and landscape in northern Michoacan: revisiting the archaeology of the Zacapu Malpaís from the perspective of LiDAR data
Since its first introduction to the field of Mesoamerican archaeology in 2009 (Chase et al. Reference Chase, Chase, Weishampel, Drake, Shrestha, Clint Slatton, Awe and Carter2011), the application of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has steadily advanced our knowledge of archaeological sites and their environment. The data obtained by airborne laser scanning and data processing adapted to the detection of archaeological topographical anomalies (Fernandez-Diaz et al. Reference Fernandez-Diaz, Carter, Shrestha and Glennie2014) suddenly multiplied the perception of an archaeological reality that had long been hampered by the visual barriers imposed by vegetation. For Chase and colleagues (Reference Chase, Chase, Fisher, Leisz and Weishampel2012), this new technology marks a genuine revolution for Mesoamerican archaeology, in light of the new perspectives it offers for revealing the innumerable sites preserved in forest environments (Fisher et al. Reference Fisher, Cohen, Fernandez-Diaz and Leisz2017). There is no doubt that the resulting data not only change our perception of diverse types and dimensions of sites (Canuto et al. Reference Canuto, Estrada-Belli, Garrison, Houston, Acuna, Kováč, Nondédéo, Auld-Thomas, Castanet, Chatelain, Chiriboga, Drápela, Lieskovský, Tokovinine, Velasquez, Fernandez-Diaz and Shrestha2018; Inomata et al. Reference Inomata, Triadan, Vázquez López, Fernandez-Diaz, Omori, Méndez Bauer, Hernández, Beach, Cagnato, Aoyama and Nasu2020), but they also enable us to observe the landscapes in which they are located on an unprecedented scale and with unparalleled precision, revealing innumerable transformations brought about by humans over time.
The archaeology of Michoacan has benefitted greatly from these new advances over the past few years. The first study on the subject was conducted in 2013 as part of the LORE-LPB project, directed by C. Fisher (Chase et al. Reference Chase, Chase, Fisher, Leisz and Weishampel2012; Cohen Reference Cohen2016; Fisher and Leisz Reference Fisher, Leisz, Comer and Harrower2013; Fisher et al. Reference Fisher, Cohen, Solinis-Casparius, Pezzutti, Bush, Forest and Torvinen2019). Applied to the Malpaís of Rancho Seco (southeast of the Patzcuaro Basin), it revealed considerable pre-Hispanic settlement at the Angamuco site, which gave rise to research studies focused mainly on the urban organization of this settlement occupied during a.d. 300–1530.
The huge archaeological potential of the Zacapu Malpaís area understandably motivated the LiDAR coverage of this area. This operation was coordinated by J.C. Fernandez-Diaz of the National Center of Airborne Laser Mapping (University of Houston) and was carried out in March 2015. It led to the acquisition of data over an area of 91.3 km2, which includes a large part of the volcanic flows of the Malpaís, as well as the areas bordering it to the north, east, and south. The accuracy of the generated digital elevation model is 50 cm per pixel, thus offering sufficient resolution to detect a large number of topographic changes of anthropogenic origin. The LiDAR coverage extends over a total of 84 sites (Figure 2), 40 of which had been previously identified. New data from these sites have considerably improved the quality of information, as most of them were only very partially known. The extension and organization of a number of these sites could thus be reassessed by means of various computer-mapping operations (Dorison Reference Dorison2019; Forest et al. Reference Forest, Costa, Combey, Dorison and Pereira2020), combined with field campaigns conducted between 2015 and 2019 (Pereira et al. Reference Pereira, Michelet, Dorison, Faugère, Quezada, Lefebvre, Forest, Medina, Barrientos, Goudiaby, Jadot, Manin, Barba, Blancas, Ortiz and Gillot2016, Reference Pereira, Michelet, Forest, Quezada, Gillot, Sion, Perla, Barrientos, Castañeda, Jadot, Mireles, Blancas and Ortiz2018b). The LiDAR data also located 44 new sites, only nine of which have been verified in the field so far. Based on their morphological characteristics, 35 unverified sites were associated with a chronological period—however, they must be explored in the future.
Distribution of sites located in the area covered by LiDAR in and around the Zacapu Malpaís.
Until now, research focused on two main areas: the northern part of the Malpaís, characterized by a high concentration of sites that include three of the four urban settlements; the southeastern part of the Malpaís, separated from the first by the imposing Capaxtiro flow, where lies the site of El Palacio-La Crucita (Mich. 23), as well as satellite sites. In addition, the LiDAR-derived data have opened new avenues for volcanology research in the area, documenting, among other things, the formation processes of the Malpaís Holocene flows (Reyes-Guzmán et al. Reference Reyes-Guzmán, Siebe, Chevrel and Pereira2021).
In this special section of Ancient Mesoamerica, we aim to present the recent results of archaeological research at the Zacapu Basin that integrates LiDAR data. We emphasize an important aspect, difficult to address in LiDAR-based research: the diachronic evolution of the local landscape. Indeed, although the image generated with LiDAR data gives the illusion of a photographic snapshot, it is obviously the result of the long evolution of landscapes and the extraordinary corpus of anthropogenic features displayed was formed in different temporalities. Landscape was continuously reshaped from 3200 B.P. (the first major Holocene eruptions; see Mahgoub et al. Reference Mahgoub, Reyes-Guzmán, Böhnel, Siebe, Pereira and Dorison2017) to March 2015. The challenge is thus to map the large number of features “exposed” by the LiDAR data, but also to place them in the temporal framework in which they can be correctly interpreted. Although we are still far from completing the interpretation of the 91.3 km2 covered by the LiDAR survey, the following contributions shed light on several critical episodes of this long history.
The present compilation proposes six contributions addressing diverse facets of the archaeology of the Zacapu region. They have in common the use of LiDAR data as an important source complementary to archaeological fieldwork. But these data, above all, are used to address specific issues and a diversity of approaches (micro-regional settlement patterns, intra-site organization, agrarian features, geo-archaeological approaches, volcanology, volcanic stone quarry systems) and periods (mainly from the Classic/Epiclassic period to early Colonial times). It illustrates how the Malpaís volcanic flows have been alternately considered as attractive and repulsive, and how the combination of human and volcanic activities contributed to shaping the northern Michoacan highlands landscape and societies.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dominique Michelet for his comments on this article, and also Marion Forest for her corrections on the English version of the text (originally written in French and translated by Louise Byrne). I am also grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their useful corrections and comments.
Funding
The research presented in this special section was carried out as part of the Uacusecha Archaeological Project, directed by the author and funded by the Commission consultative des recherches archéologiques à l'étranger of the Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires Etrangères and the UMR 8096 “Archéologie des Amériques” (CNRS, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), and also supported by the Mésomobile project “Mobilités, territories and socio-political mutations in central-western Mesoamerica,” directed by Véronique Darras and funded by the National Research Agency (grant ANR-14-CE31-0016). Both projects were supported by the French Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos (CEMCA) and authorized by the Consejo de Arqueología of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).
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