Beekman 2010

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Recent Research in Western Mexican Archaeology

Christopher S. Beekman

Published online: 2 September 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract Western Mexico is vast and geographically diverse and has received far

less attention compared to other areas of Mesoamerica. Research over the past

decade allows the definition of four major subregions characterized by cultural

factors and distinct historical trajectories. A large proportion of the research in

western Mexico is still culture-historical in nature, oriented toward establishing

chronologies and relationships between regions. But along with a number of recent

efforts toward synthesis and consolidation, current theoretical research contributesto the study of mortuary patterns and social organization, alternative forms of social

complexity, agricultural intensification, empire formation, state involvement in the

economy, human-land relationships, and the interlocking relationship between

migration and sociopolitical reorganization.

Keywords Mesoamerica Mortuary practices Social complexity

Human ecology Empire Migration

Introduction

In this review article I consider recent archaeological research in the states of

Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacan, and the southern parts of Sinaloa,

Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and Queretaro, which together constitute the far western

portion of the larger culture area of Mesoamerica (Fig. 1). All of these states have

been included at one time or another in regional summaries of West Mexico

(Braniff 2004; Cardenas 2004; Foster and Gorenstein 2000; Gorenstein 2000;

Levine 1999; Nelson 2001; Olay Barrientos 1996, 1997; Pollard 1997; Williams

C. S. Beekman (&)

Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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DOI 10.1007/s10814-009-9034-x

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2004; Zepeda Garcıa Moreno 2001), but this is a large and diverse region and some

of the parts fit together awkwardly, if at all.

There are two ways in which this area has been conceptualized in recent years. First

there is the Occidente or West Mexico, a somewhat romanticized term characterizing

an area distinct from wider Mesoamerica (Avila Palafox 1989) that historically was

composed of Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima, largely based on the widespread occurrence

of shaft and chamber tombs (e.g., Kan et al. 1989) and more recently the distinctive

Teuchitlan temple architecture (e.g., Weigand 2000). Southern Sinaloa and southern

Zacatecas are frequently added as an afterthought, since the tombs and temples occur

there. Because of the impressive Late Postclassic Tarascan (or Purepecha) empire,

Michoacan is usually included, and the roots of Purepecha society are increasingly

sought in southern Guanajuato, where examples of the Teuchitlan temple architecture

and shaft tombs are found as well. Guerrero is rarely included, except occasionally for

the Rıo Balsas Depression along the border with Michoacan.

A second perspective, which we might call western Mexico or far westernMesoamerica, sees the region as not meriting characterization as a unified cultural

region in any sense (Pollard 1997). In this view, western Mexico has served as

something of a catchall for everything west of the Toluca Valley, and there is little

merit in continuing to refer to the entire region in cultural terms (detailed historical

Fig. 1 Map of western Mexico showing important rivers and lakes, modern Mexican states, and culturalsubregions. Lake basins: 1 San Pedro, 2 Magdalena, 3 La Vega, 4 Atotonilco, 5 Zacoalco, 6 San Marcos,

7 Sayula, 8 Chapala, 9 San Nicolas, 10 Zacapu, 11 Cuitzeo, 12 Pa tzcuaro. Valleys - 13 Banderas, 14

Tequila, 15 San Juan, 16 Malpaso, 17 Suchil

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treatments of research can be found in Cabrero Garcıa et al. 2002; Lopez Mestas and

Lopez Cruz 2001; McVicker 2005; Ruız 2003; Schondube 1998a; Sund 2000;

Townsend 1998; Viramontes Anzures 2005a; Weigand and Williams 1997).

Both characterizations possess some truth. Definitions based excessively on

material culture traits tend to atomize the region in a way that passes over similaritiesin underlying cultural practices. And approaches that seek a unifying identity to the

western states fail to recognize that this is an imagined Occidente, one that is

frequently used as a conceptual foil to the dominance of the national government in

Mexico City and Aztequismo in general. As the western states attempt to construct a

regional identity today, it is inevitable that such claims will appropriate prehistory

and seek the status of time depth for essentially modernist claims.

Implicit or explicit in these discussions is the issue of how Mesoamerican

western Mexico really was, and whether interaction with specific sources like

Olman, Teotihuacan, or Tula should be used to make that judgment. Mesoamericanpractices (Beekman 2003a, b; Jarquın Pacheco and Martınez Vargas 2004; Oliveros

Morales 2004, 2006) and deities (Aramoni Burguete 2004; Taube 2004, pp. 7, 14,

53, 98, 104, 120, 165) increasingly have been documented in western Mexico,

where they have a more diffuse and widespread character that is harder to associate

with specific donors to the east.

This concern is less important in recent research, and there has been more work

on diversity within western Mexico. Archaeological research of the past decade has

begun instead to suggest distinct subregions, which began to exhibit different

characteristics and historical trajectories beginning in the Formative period. Thesesubregions are the coast, the far western highlands, the eastern slopes of the Sierra

Madre Occidental, and the Bajıo/eastern highlands. I use these subregions, which

correspond only partly to geographic distinctions despite their enduring character, to

structure this summary. Since my own research area is in the far western highlands

of Jalisco, I spend more time on that subregion.

This review begins with a brief geographic description of western Mexico,

followed by a discussion of general themes that crosscut recent research. I follow

with a period-by-period summary that distinguishes between the subregions.

Recurring theoretical topics of importance in this discussion include sociopolitical

complexity, mortuary patterns, empire formation, political control of economy,

human-land relationships, and migration and political collapse/reorganization.

Geographic description and introduction to cultural subregions

As in other areas of tropical Mesoamerica, western Mexico’s annual cycle is broken

down into a dry season from November through May, and a rainy season from June

through October. This has a pronounced effect on streams and even the large lakebasins (Fig. 1), many of which become desiccated in the dry season. It is important

to note that apart from very basic issues, western Mexico does not form a

geographic unity and includes the Neo-Volcanic and Sierra Madre Occidental

ranges, the Pacific coastal plain, and the wide valleys of the Bajıo.

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The Pacific coastal plain stretches the entire length of the region, widest along the

coast of Sinaloa and northern Nayarit and narrower in Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacan

(Mountjoy 2000; Scott and Foster 2000). The most sustained contacts were primarily

along the coast, with more limited transportation networks in the interior. The area has

a warm and humid environment that supports tropical deciduous forests (INEGI 2008).Besides the possibility of farming along the coast, supported by streams and rivers

running down from the highlands, the sea itself provided resources such as seabirds,

fish, and shellfish; the latter were valued for their symbolic as well as food value

(Beltran Medina 2004; Gomez Gastelum 2005). The Pacific coast was the seat of

precocious social developments in the Archaic period and again in the Postclassic

period, when trade networks became increasingly important and sea transport

emerged. This geographic area forms a cultural subregion as well (Fig. 1).

The Neo-Volcanic axis refers to the west-east mountain range that runs from the

Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico. The igneous geology of the highlands includesmany sources of obsidian, with high-quality sources throughout Jalisco, Michoacan,

Guanajuato, and Queretaro (Darras 1999; Trombold et al. 1993; Weigand et al.

2004). The Ucareo source in northeast Michoacan is of particular significance, and

its products appear throughout Mesoamerica from the Early Formative (Healan

2004). Enclosed lake basins such as Cuitzeo, Patzcuaro, Chapala, Sayula, Zacoalco,

and Magdalena provided diverse fish and waterfowl in addition to expanses of

arable land. Elevations in the western Mexican highlands are generally lower than in

central Mexico, so the danger of frost was less (West 1948, Map 3). Probably for

these reasons, the highlands were important for nomadic Paleoindians; the resourcebase also fueled the most centralized regional political systems of the Precolumbian

period. Still, there is a notable cultural and temporal distinction between the shaft

tomb and Teuchitlan traditions of the western highlands of Jalisco and far western

Michoacan versus the enclosed patio tradition and Tarascan empire of the central

and eastern Michoacan highlands. This division, unmarked by obvious geographic

factors, separates two of the cultural subregions discussed in this article (Fig. 1).

The Sierra Madre Occidental parallels the Pacific coast and crosscuts the Neo-

Volcanic axis. It does not share the same wealth of resources, lacking the diverse

lake basins and high-quality sources of obsidian (there are exceptions: Darling 1993,

1998; Darling and Glascock 1998; Spence 1971). The area receives low rainfall and

has liminal potential for agriculture; settled life may have fluctuated with broader

climatic trends (Armillas 1969), and the region may be more sensitive to human

impact. The best-known communities are those along the eastern slopes, where

rainfall is supplemented by streams flowing from the higher elevations. The region

experienced intense activity during the Epiclassic period, with less evidence for

sedentary populations in earlier and later periods. The distinct history and cultural

practices associated with the area justify its designation as a separate cultural

subregion within western Mexico (Fig. 1).

The Bajıo comprises southern Guanajuato and Queretaro and separates the Neo-

Volcanic axis from the arid lands of northern Mexico. It is defined by wide

temperate valleys at slightly lower elevations than the highlands to the south.

Rainfall is low (Wright Carr 1999, pp. 76–77), and northern Guanajuato and central

Queretaro are particularly dry. While geographically distinct from the Michoacan

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highlands to the south, the Bajıo tends to share material culture and practices with

that area from the Middle Formative through the Postclassic (Fig. 1).

Few major rivers link these different geographic and cultural subregions, but

some served as significant conduits for communication in prehistory (Fig. 1). The

Rıo Lerma linked central and western Mexico, while the Rıo Balsas Depressionprovided a conduit to south-central Mexico and Oaxaca.

Paleoenvironmental studies of pollen cores, ostracods, lake sediment chemistry,

geomorphology, and changes in lake level document long-term climatic variation in

areas of western Mexico. Recent syntheses (Fisher et al. 2003; Israde Alcantara

et al. 2005; Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007; Metcalfe et al. 2007; Ruter

et al. 2004) indicate that cool and arid temperatures continued after the Younger

Dryas until about 9000–8500 B.C., coincident with the establishment of the modern

rainfall pattern of high summer precipitation. There followed several cycles of

wetter and drier conditions. A dry period that extended into the first millenniumA.D. further intensified during the Mesoamerican Epiclassic and Early Postclassic,

paralleling evidence from the Yucatan and elsewhere (Hodell et al. 1995); Metcalfe

and Davies (2007, p. 169) call this period ‘‘probably the driest of the Holocene.’’

The situation did not reverse toward increased precipitation until A.D. 1200.

The languages spoken by ancient populations of western Mexico have been

difficult to determine due to the lack of a writing system tied to language and the

spotty documentation of native languages by Spanish chroniclers outside of

Michoacan. Purepecha was spoken widely in Michoacan by the Late Postclassic

(and probably well before), although its historic distribution was greatly affected bythe expansion of the Tarascan empire. In historic times a variety of southern Uto-

Aztecan languages were spoken in areas farther west and in the Sierra Madre

Occidental (Hill 2001; Yanez Rosales 1994, 1998, 2001). The modern extension of

Otomanguean languages into the Bajıo should not be projected into the past, as post-

Conquest population movements brought those languages into the region (Reyes

Garcıa 1999; Wright Carr 1994). This area and the coast have been the most

difficult to characterize linguistically.

Research topics

Much research in western Mexico remains cultural-historical, with ceramic

typologies and dating occupying much effort. But the growing list of theoretical

topics includes interregional interaction, production and exchange, social inequality,

mortuary practices, the symbolism of rock art, human adaptation, subsistence

intensification, diet, political organization, and diverse studies of symbolism,

particularly of objects and their cultural meanings.

Researchers continue to make progress with mapping out basic time-space

systematics. All dates are presented here on a calibrated radiocarbon timescale unless

stated otherwise. I refer to actual dates or to period names in this summary rather than

the individual phase names established in each region by researchers, as the large

number of sequences that have been developed prohibits individual treatment

(Table 1). Many studies have advanced ceramic typologies or sequences (Beekman

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and Weigand 2000; Beltran Medina and Gonzalez Barajas 2007; Braniff 1998, 1999;Carot 2001; Flores Morales and Saint Charles Zetina 2006; Guevara Sanchez 2007;

Healan and Hernandez 1999; Hernandez 2001, 2006; Jarquın Pacheco and Martınez

Vargas 2007; Migeon and Pereira 2007; Saint Charles Zetina et al. 2006), and there is

a growing number of radiocarbon dates (Mountjoy 2006; Mountjoy et al. 2003;

Table 1 Chronological chart for western Mexico (some columns combine sequences to better represent

a region)

Date on Traditional

Mesoamerican

Periods

Coastal Colima

(Kelly 1980;

Mountjoy 2006)

Tequila Valleys in far

Western Highlands

(Beekman and

Weigand 2008;Oliveros and de los

Ríos Paredes 1993)

Suchil and

Malpaso Valleys,

Zacatecas

(Kelley 1985;Nelson 1997)

Cuitzeo and

Lerma Basin at

edge of Bajío

(Darras andFaugère 2005;

Hernández 2001)

Pátzcuaro Basin in

Michoacán

Highlands

(Pollard 2008)

1500

1400

1300

1200

1100

1000

900

800

700

600

oraucáraJamiloC005

400300

200

100

0

100

200 Chupícuaro R. 2

300

400

500

600

700

800

onatnaP009

10001100

1200

1300

1400

1500

2000

2500 La Alberca

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

5500

6000

6500

7000

7500

8000

8500

9000

9500

10000

10500

11000

11500

Early/Middle

Archaic

Paleoindian

Periquillo

Chanal

Capacha

Comala

Ortices

ArmeriaEpiclassic or Late

Classic

Late Urichu

Tariácuri

Early Formative

Late Archaic

Canutillo

El Opeño

Alta Vista/La

Quemada

Calichal

Late Formative

Middle Formative

Acámbaro Tardío

Acámbaro

Temprano

Tequila IV

Mixtlan

Perales Terminal

Tequila I

El Grillo

Loma Alta 3

Tequila II

Chupícuaro

Lupe-La Joya

Early Urichu

Loma Alta 1/2

Late Postclassic

Middle Postclassic

Early Postclassic

Chupícuaro

Temprano

Chupícuaro

Reciente 1

Postclassic

Perales

Choromuco

Tequila III

Classic

timescale

calibrated

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Nelson 1997; Oliveros Morales and de los Rıos Paredes 1993). Given the tenuous

basis for so many chronological sequences in western Mexico, the chronological

work alone has succeeded in altering our perspectives on several issues, for example,

timing the emergence of complex society. The third millennium B.C. evidence for

sacred architecture at El Calon, Sinaloa, has recently been critiqued (Grave Tirado2008) and the pyramidal shell mound may date to the Classic period. Recent

radiocarbon dates from Colima and northwestern Michoacan (Capacha and El Openo

sites) have moved the earliest ceramic complexes and social inequalities slightly later

in time, though still in the Early and Middle Formative (Mountjoy 2006; Oliveros

Morales and de los Rıos Paredes 1993). The Chupıcuaro sequence of southern

Guanajuato has finally been supported by radiocarbon dates and a more compre-

hensive subdivision into phases (Darras and Faugere 2005), providing greater

confidence in making long-distance comparisons to central Mexico (Darras 2006).

Social complexity has received attention in recent decades partly because itstruck at the heart of critiques that western Mexico was not part of Mesoamerica

(Weigand 1985). Researchers draw on social hierarchy, heterarchy, and agency

approaches. The best-known evidence for social complexity in western Mexico

prior to the Tarascans is the shaft tombs from the far western highlands. Even as the

evidence grew over the early 1990s for their association with notable social

inequalities (Galvan Villegas 1991), they were still seen as preceding the

appearance of the Teuchitlan tradition, a term coined by Weigand (1985) for

distinctive temple architecture found in much the same regions. Weigand’s

chronological sequence for the temples was based on increasing elaboration of thesurface architecture rather than through stratigraphically excavated ceramics. This

created (or resulted from the expectation of) a classic rise-and-fall trajectory toward

complex society extending from Late Formative to Late Classic (Weigand 2000)

that in many ways paralleled contemporary views of the Teotihuacan sequence in

central Mexico. The reevaluation of the sequence in the core of the Teuchitlan

tradition in central Jalisco began with the three-part seriation of excavated shaft

tomb lots (Galvan Villegas 1991; discussed in detail in Beekman and Weigand

2008). These phases were then anchored by several dozen radiocarbon dates each

from Llano Grande, Navajas, and Guachimonton, which collapsed the sequence into

a more narrow range from the Late Formative to the Early/Middle Classic periods.

The shaft tombs are now much more clearly associated with the surface architecture.

This change in peak construction, occurring in the Late Formative for both

(Beekman and Weigand 2008), has forced rethinking of a range of issues, including

proposals that the term ‘‘tradition’’—presupposing a long time depth—is inappro-

priate and ‘‘culture’’ is more suitable (Lopez Mestas 2007b, p. 38).

With important changes in chronology, the widely claimed evidence for

involvement by the central Mexican powers of Teotihuacan or Tula in western

Mesoamerica has gradually faded in importance. Teotihuacan is the clearest example.

When Pollard wrote in 1997, she expressed frustration with the widely claimed

Teotihuacan or Teotihuacanoide connections whose dating, context, and identity

were mostly unknown. The reevaluation of ceramic and architectural cross ties

(Beekman 1996a) and the collection of new radiocarbon dates (Nelson 1997) have

tended to date most of the contexts in question to the intervening Epiclassic, at least if

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we give that period the ample range of A.D. 500–900. The contexts that remain linked

to Classic period Teotihuacan are limited to the eastern portions of Michoacanandtoa

lesser degree Guanajuato (Filini 2004; Filini and Cardenas 2007).

Western Mexican researchers continue to consider the topic of very-large-scale

interaction. The boost in credibility that contact with South America receivedfollowing Hosler’s study of metallurgy (Hosler 1994) has given impetus to further

studies of textiles and shell (Anawalt 1998; Beltran Medina 2001) and a computer

simulation of coastal trade (Callaghan 2003). Specific mechanisms of interaction

have not progressed beyond what Pollard reported in 1997, however. Studies of

contact with the American Southwest continue to discuss physical exchange of

goods such as turquoise (Kelley 2000; Meighan 1999; Weigand and Garcıa de

Weigand 2001), but others have shrived themselves of the material underpinnings of

world systems theory in favor of the less tangible linguistic ties along the Sierra

Madre Occidental that facilitated communication and even migration (e.g.,Cramaussel and Ortelli 2006; Hill 2001; Villalpando 2002). This parallels the

trend elsewhere in Mesoamerican studies away from macroregional studies and

toward agent-level interaction.

Much recent theoretical research investigates economic matters. Craft production

is being addressed for a wide range of materials, including obsidian (Clark and

Weigand in press; Darras 1999; Esparza Lopez 2003; Healan 2005; Weigand et al.

2004) and pottery (Aronson 1996; Hirshman 2003; Moctezuma 2001; Strazicich

1998, 2001; contributions in Valdez et al. 2005). There is obvious utility in pottery

for exploring ideology and identity through design analysis and for researchinghousehold economy through the study of forms and vessel sizes. Metallurgical

production is a frequent research topic (Mendez et al. 2006), particularly its control

by the state (Hosler 1999, 2004a, b; Maldonado Alvarez 2005; Maldonado Alvarez

et al. 2005; Roskamp 2005). The technical processes of salt procurement (Liot 1998,

2000; Williams 1999, 2002) or mining for various minerals (Schiavitti 1996) have

received archaeological and ethnoarchaeological attention. Formal surface archi-

tecture certainly exists from at least the Late Formative period, and there are studies

of architectural design, labor investment, and social variation in construction

practices (e.g., Beekman 2008a; Ramos de la Vega and Crespo 2005; Weigand

1996, 1999). Vernacular architecture is less well understood and our opportunities

for its study are diminishing as time goes on. Ethnoarchaeological approaches have

been rescuing valuable data on traditional methods of ceramic production, salt

extraction, and lifeways around the few dwindling lakes in the region (Senior 2001;

Shott and Williams 2001, 2006; Williams 1999, 2002, 2005).

Studies of exchange are as diverse as those of production. Research encompasses

jade, turquoise, and other blue-green stones (Berney 2002; Lopez Mestas 2007a;

Mountjoy et al. 2004; Weigand 2008), shell (Beltran Medina 2001; Cabrero Garcıa

2004; Gomez Gastelum 2003a, b; Lopez Mestas 2004; Suarez Dıez 1997), feathers

(Olay Barrientos 2004a), and iron pyrite (Mountjoy et al. 2004). The lion’s share of

research pursues the exchange of obsidian (Benitez 2006; Darling 1998; Darling and

Glascock 1998; Esparza Lopez and Tenorio 2004; Esparza Lopez et al. 2001;

Healan 1998; Millhauser 1999; Spence et al. 2002) through laboratory character-

ization methods. Compared to other regions of Mesoamerica, ceramic studies are

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relatively undeveloped, but a few very good recent studies provide a template for

future work (Hirshman 2008; Pollard et al. 2001; Strazicich 1998, 2001;

contributions in Liot et al. 2006a; Valdez et al. 2005). A unique ceramic study by

Wells (1998, 2000) used more standard characterization methods to show how

different clay sources in the Malpaso Valley had different spatial distributionswithin La Quemada, referencing the surrounding communities in microcosm. The

next step for studies of exchange needs to be expansion of individual studies of

exchange into longitudinal and cross-sectional studies that compare results across

sites or well-established ceramic phases (neatly done in Ramırez Urrea 2005, 2006;

Ramırez Urrea et al. 2005).

Other topics of interest include mortuary analysis, continuing a research trend

that has a long history in western Mexico (e.g., Abbott Kelley 1978; Nelson et al.

1992; Pickering 1985). This includes analyses of the skeletal remains and burial

practices (e.g., Acosta Nieva 1996, 2003; Cahue and Pollard 1998; David et al.2007; de la Garza 1998; Fowler et al. 2006; Lopez Mestas et al. 1998; Martin et al.

2004; Oliveros Morales 2004, 2006; Pereira 1996, 1999, 2005, 2007; To 1999;

Urunuela Ladron de Guevara 1997, 1998; Valdez and Urunuela Ladron de Guevara

1997), which should be synthesized to develop comparisons between regions and

periods. One interesting use of forensic principles (Pickering and Cuevas 2003;

Pickering et al. 1998) identified signs of necrophaghous flies on ceramic figures

from shaft tombs, providing potential insight into timing of burial and tomb

atmosphere. These organic deposits also provide datable material and hence a

method of authentication for museum collections. Rock art has seen increased study(Faba Zuleta 2001; Faugere 1997; Faugere and Darras 2002; Forcano 2000;

Horcasitas and Miranda 2004; Mountjoy 2001; Murray and Viramontes 2006;

Taladoire 1999; Torreblanca Padilla 2000), and interpretation of imagery within the

context of the broader landscape (Viramontes Anzures 2005a, b; Viramontes

Anzures and Crespo 1999) should produce interesting results. Finally, the religious

and ideological significance of archaeoastronomical orientations in Mesoamerica

(following Aveni et al. 1982) has led to preliminary research on this topic, largely

using well-preserved architecture to evaluate different orientations toward the

horizon (DuVall 2007; Juarez Cossıo and Sprajc 2001; Kelley and Abbott Kelley

2000; Lelgemann 1997). Archaeoastronomy may be an overly narrow approach to

how people viewed their surroundings; a landscape archaeological approach might

provide further insights.

Studies of human ecology continue in the vein described by Pollard (1997), with

most attention devoted to established agriculturalists. The archaeological traces of

nomadic populations are so tenuous that the generalized surveys that are usually

carried out are unlikely to bear fruit (see Benz [2000] for an example of what could

be done with problem-oriented survey). Farmers and intensive collectors along the

coasts are the best studied to date. Investigations of diet based on bone isotope,

phytolith, or faunal/malacological/macrobotanical analyses are being done by

numerous specialists (Beltran Medina 2001; Cahue et al. 2002; Dvorak 2000; Elliott

2000, 2005, 2007; Lopez Mestas and Ramos de la Vega 2005; Mountjoy and

Claassen 2005; Schoenwetter and Benz 2004; Trombold Alcantara and Israde

2005), and some use the data to address social practices of food preparation and

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consumption (Turkon 2002, 2004). Other data sets, such as the hollow shaft tomb

figures, show great potential for food studies in their depictions of culturally

appropriate foodstuffs (Schondube 1998b). Investigations of health are more limited

but should grow with increased excavation of formal cemeteries (Mansilla et al.

2000; Urunuela Ladron de Guevara 1997, 1998). There is much room in westernMexico for the adoption of systematic survey methods, yet in some areas phase-

specific settlement maps already allow analysis of the distribution of rural

settlement in relation to farmland (Arnauld and Faugere Kalfon 1998; Beekman

1996b; Carot 2001; Cordova Tello 2007; Elliott 2005; Faugere 1996; Fisher et al.

2003; Heredia Espinoza 2008; Mountjoy 1970, 1982; Mountjoy et al. 2003; Pollard

2008), which has led to such classic insights elsewhere in Mesoamerica. More

surveys exist than are represented in this list of citations, but many are unpublished.

Lake basins remain the primary focus for human ecological studies. They have

attracted attention both as foci for early farming and complex social developmentsand as repositories of paleoenvironmental evidence in the form of pollen, diatoms,

ostracods, phytoliths, or geomorphological change (Bradbury 2000; Caballero et al.

1999, 2002; Davies et al. 2004; Endfield and O’Hara 1999; Israde Alcantara et al.

2005; Leng et al. 2005; Lozano Garcıa and Xelhuantzi Lopez 1997; Metcalfe 1997,

2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007; Metcalfe et al. 2000, 2007; Ruter et al. 2004;

Telford et al. 2004). Many researchers see the importance of this work for

archaeology, but those studies done in direct collaboration with archaeologists will

be the best tailored to our interests (e.g., Arnauld et al. 1997; Fisher 2000, 2005,

2007; Fisher et al. 2003). Importantly, some research on climate and anthropogenicchange has expanded into areas outside the lake basins and has provided a more

rounded understanding of the issue (Mata Gonzalez et al. 2002; Nelson et al. n.d.).

The raised field systems identified by Weigand in the Magdalena and La Vega Lake

basins of central Jalisco have undergone dramatic swings in interpretation. Early

surface studies speculated that they were associated with the proposed peak of

settlement density in the Classic (Weigand 1993a). One critic dismissed them as

modern trenching based on their regularity (Butzer 1996), but field studies and

radiocarbon dating established their construction in a series of stages during the

Classic period (Stuart 2003, 2005). The fields finally achieved acceptance among

prominent researchers of Mesoamerican agriculture (Whitmore and Turner 2002),

but the peak of hierarchy in the area has now been redated to the Late Formative

(Beekman and Weigand 2008). Clearly, the association of agricultural intensifica-

tion with political centralization requires further research, and studies of early canal

irrigation in the Patzcuaro Basin have dated these examples to periods of political

competition rather than state centralization (Fisher et al. 1999).

Social complexity and, in particular, political organization are an ongoing area of

interest. There is some use of spatial analysis at the regional level (Cardenas Garcıa

1999a; Crespo Oviedo 1996; Ohnersorgen and Varien 1996), and world systems or

core-periphery models continue to be applied at larger scales (Beekman 1996b, c,

2000; Jimenez Betts 1998, 2006, 2007; Pollard 2003, 2005a). Other investigations into

power and inequality are based on excavations in public architecture and mortuary

contexts (Beekman 2008a; Lopez Mestas and Montejano Esquivias 2003; Pollard

1996; Pollard and Cahue 1999). Some approaches develop models that originated in

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other areas of the world, such as the segmentary state (Beekman 1996c; Weigand and

Beekman 1998) or the chiefdom (Mountjoy 1998), but models developed from

western Mexican ethnohistoric and ethnographic models need greater consideration

(e.g., Coyle 1998; Liffman 2000; Neurath 2002; Paredes Martınez 1997a, b).

The research thus considered in western Mexico fits largely into cultural-ecological or political-economic frameworks, but the region could contribute

greatly to a symbolic archaeology (Hodder 1982). The western states possess vivid

imagery in pottery, figurines, models, and petroglyphs that offer tremendous

potential for issues of power, identity, and gender (Aedo 2003; Gabany Guerrero

2004; Logan 2007; Taube 2004). There are a few studies of political ideology

(Beekman 2003a, b; Graham 1998; Lopez Mestas 2005, 2007b; Olay Barrientos

1998; Williams 1998), worldview (Oliveros Morales 2006; Taube 1998; Witmore

1998), and the symbolic meaning of objects and their properties (Darras 1998;

Gomez Gastelum 2005, 2006, 2007; Hosler 1994), but various other topics come tomind. What was the conceptual relationship between ceramic manufacture and the

beginnings of metallurgy? How was the landscape given meaning by those who

lived upon it (see Medina Gonzalez 2000; Viramontes Anzures 2005c)? The recent

resurgence of archaeological interest in death and social memory is primarily

represented at El Openo (Oliveros Morales 2006) but could be addressed elsewhere.

Given the international prominence of West Mexican imagery even outside of

archaeological circles, there is much untapped potential here, and the region could

be contributing greatly to these issues. The growing interest in migration, a topic so

bound up in issues of identity, will necessitate a more agency-based perspective thatrecognizes the active manipulation of material culture.

Clearly, researchers must avail themselves of disciplines other than archaeology

to expand the potential of our research; space allows me to mention only a few.

DNA research offers the eventual promise of application to archaeological

populations (Herrera Salazar et al. 2007), although the prehistoric samples to date

are too small to be considered anything other than exploratory. Skeletal and

particularly nonmetric studies have provided more concrete results to date on social

relationships and migration (Angel 1998; Beekman and Christensen 2003; Urunuela

Ladron de Guevara 1997, 1998). Linguistic and ethnohistoric research has

established the presence of Nahuatl-speaking communities among other languages

in early colonial Jalisco (Yanez Rosales 1998). Proto-language reconstruction also

has led to the controversial conclusion that Nahuatl emerged among agricultural

communities within the bounds of Mesoamerica (Hill 2001), which has led to

proposals that Nahuatl was already present in central Mexico prior to the Epiclassic,

or that its origins lie somewhere in western Mexico. Ethnohistoric research has not

only documented lifeways in the initial centuries after contact (Acosta 2003;

Magrina 2002; Paredes Martınez 1997a, b; Weigand and Garcıa de Weigand 1996;

Yanez Rosales 1998), but also evaluated key documents (Lizama Silva 2007;

Roskamp 2000; Stone 2004). Some of this work is now feeding into true historical

archaeology in western Mexico (Beekman et al. 1999; Fisher 2007; Gonzalez

Romero et al. 2000; Lopez Taylor 2004; Pollard 2005a), and hopefully this research

can be expanded. There has been impressive growth in ethnographic work among

the Huichol, Cora, and other populations in Jalisco and Nayarit (Coyle 1998;

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Jauregui and Neurath 2003; Neurath 2004; Schaefer and Furst 1996; Serreau 1997;

Tellez 2001) and aggressive Spanish translation of the ethnological work of up to a

century past (Diguet 1992; Preuss 1998; Zingg 1998). Much of this work addresses

topics of great interest for pre-Columbian studies, but these are generally not the

peyote-focused studies of the 1960s and 1970s. The studies of traditional religioushierarchies and political organization (Fikes 1985; Neurath 2002; Tellez 2006) and

of ritual decoration, objects, and architecture (Faba Zuleta 2003; Kindl 2000;

Malvido Mirando 2000; Neurath 2000; Perrin 1996; Schaefer 1996) provide well-

anchored studies very conscious of their value to archaeologists.

Finally, the preservation of the pre-Columbian cultural heritage of western

Mexico remains challenging. Looting is still rampant, but as always the major

destructive forces are those of development. The vast urban center of Guadalajara,

Mexico’s second largest city, continues to expand and put pressure on archaeo-

logical remains as well as on the ecology of Lake Chapala. Increasingly intensivemodern agriculture makes greater use of machinery and landscaping methods with

greater impacts on archaeological remains. Coastal development continues to grow

in response to tourism, resulting in a great deal of salvage archaeology. Archaeology

with the objective of the restoration of sites for tourism also has begun to be an

issue, and archaeologists in western Mexico have not yet openly grappled with the

problems and prospects this presents for problem-oriented archaeology. Challenges

to the centralized management of archaeology in Mexico have emerged (Weigand

2007). One interesting development has been the declaration of the site of

Guachimonton, subject to large-scale excavations since 1999 (Weigand and Garcıade Weigand 2003a, b), as part of a World Heritage zone (Heredia Espinoza 2008;

World Heritage Centre 2006). Although this is encouraging, the primary focus of

the declaration is actually the tequila production area north of the Tequila Volcano

for its contribution to Mexican culture. The expansion of the agave industry into

previously safe areas has resulted in destruction or extensive damage at major sites

in this region in recent years. The international recognition of tequila production as

cultural heritage thus seems decidedly ironic (Ojeda Gastelum et al. 2008). The

protected site of Huitzilapa, symbolic in many ways of the new burst of energy in

western Mexican archaeology when Pollard wrote in 1997, was destroyed in its

entirety by bulldozing for agave planting in 2003, and the ensuing legal battle has

resulted in minimal punishment for the offending tequila company.

The early hunters and gatherers of the Paleoindian and Archaic periods

(11,500–5000 B.C.)

Although the Paleoindian and Archaic periods do not receive a great deal of

attention, there has been some progress in identifying preagricultural sites. Claims

for pre-Clovis populations in western Mexico have been made for decades on the

basis of modified Pleistocene faunal remains that were collected without context

(Haley and Solorzano 1991; Solorzano 1975). These claims received increased

attention in recent years with the discovery of a portion of a hominid skull with

heavy brow-ridges among these same collections. Although widely reported in the

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popular press, along with claims of an affinity to Lower Paleolithic remains from

Europe, the fragments were collected years prior and no information exists on their

original location except to say that they are from western Mexico (Dixon 1999, pp.

92–95).

The earliest secure evidence for human activity pertains to more traditional timeperiods. Finds of mammoths, sloths, and other megafauna dating to the end of the

Pleistocene have been known for years around the lakes of the Bajıo (Brown 1991, p.

28) and the Neo-Volcanic axis, particularly the Sayula, Zacoalco, and Chapala Basins

(Aliphat Fernandez 1988, pp. 147–148), but only once have they been found in

conjunction with human artifacts (see Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda 1962, pp. 404–405).

Large lanceolate points of the Clovis, Folsom, and other styles traditionally dated as

early as 11,500 B.C. have been recovered as isolated finds in the Sierra Madre

Occidental, (Aliphat Fernandez 1988, Fig. 2), north-central Guanajuato (Aveleyra

Arroyo de Anda 1962), northern Queretaro (Martz et al. 2000), and northernMichoacan (Faugere 1996, p. 125, Fig. 59), and the lake basins of central Jalisco

(Aliphat Fernandez 1988, Fig. 2; Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda 1962; Benz 2000; Hardy

1994; Leon Canales et al. 2006; Lorenzo 1964; MacNeish and Nelken Terner 1983,

Fig. 2). An obsidian point with Clovis affinities, from a source in Queretaro, was

found at the Kincaid site in south-central Texas (Hester et al. 1985), suggesting trade

of raw materials by bands of hunters and gatherers that ranged widely across the

intervening expanses. Presumably dating to the same general period is a rough biface

found in deep deposits in the Juchipila Valley of southern Zacatecas (Aveleyra Arroyo

de Anda 1962, p. 398, Fig. 1). The Sayula-Zacoalco-Chapala Lake basins of the farwestern highlands are particularly rich in Paleoindian finds. Bones of extinct fauna

with evidence of human modification have already been mentioned, and the nearby

site of Cerro de Tecolote has produced lithics in association with extinct fauna

(Aliphat Fernandez 1988, pp. 161–162). More recently, fossilized human remains

were identified from the Zacoalco and Chapala Basins (Irish et al. 1998, 2000).

As some have noted, the presence of big-game hunters and gatherers is largely

centered in western Mesoamerica (MacNeish and Nelken Terner 1983). Cultural

remains from eastern Mesoamerica relate to a distinct chopper tradition that is found

farther north in Texas (MacNeish and Nelken Terner 1983, p. 76; MacNeish et al.

1967, p. 238). There may have been separate paths down the Sierra Madre Occidental

and the Sierra Madre Oriental, but the opposing climatic patterns reconstructed for

western and eastern Mexico prior to 9000 B.C. also may have been a factor

(Bradbury 1997; Metcalfe et al. 2000). Further research on these early periods may

clarify the distinctions between western and eastern Mesoamerica in later times.

Our reliance on distinctive and isolated lithics continues into the Archaic period,

when some climatic records suggest trends toward warmer temperatures and greater

precipitation (Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007). Lerma points from the

Early and Middle Archaic have been identified in large numbers from the Sayula-

Zacoalco Lake basin (Hardy 1994), but no further research has been pursued on this

period. We unfortunately still have no excavations of living areas or artifacts

associated with gathering. This time period is clearly the most understudied in the

region, and researchers of earlier periods from elsewhere should be encouraged to

develop research projects in western Mexico.

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The Late Archaic period (5000–2000 B.C.)

The Archaic period is traditionally defined as that time when Mesoamericans began

to experiment with the domestication of plants and animals. Research elsewhere in

the Mesoamerican highlands indicates that this process accelerated during the LateArchaic, coincident with a peak dry period and low lake levels across the highlands

(Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007). Yet there was a range of adaptations

among the diverse environments of western Mexico (Fig. 2).

It is quite likely that the initial domestication of several major components of the

Mesoamerican diet took place in the general region covered by this article, and our

understanding of the background for maize in particular has received a massive

synthesis by Staller et al. (2006). Genetic research comparing the remains of modern

domesticated maize with modern wild maize (teosinte) has found that the closest

genetic ancestor is the wild form Zea mays parviglumis found in the BalsasDepression, while the second closest wild relative is found today in southern Jalisco

(Doebley et al. 1990). The closest genetic ancestor to the common bean is the wild

bean found today across highland Jalisco (Smith 2001). As exciting as these studies

are, they require archaeological projects to identify actual samples to determine the

place, date, and tempo of domestication. Recent pollen and phytolith analyses in the

Iguala Valley of Guerrero (Piperno et al. 2007) place domesticated squash and maize

phytoliths within the span of 10,000–5000 B.P. (uncalibrated, but by approximately

Fig. 2 Late Archaic sites in western Mexico

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4000 B.C. in calendrical years) and forest clearance in association with zea pollen

around 5200 B.C. This is part of the Balsas watershed and Benz (1999) posits how

maize might have spread northwest into southern Jalisco and Michoacan.

The spread of domesticated crops is difficult to follow due to the differing

categories of evidence used to identify their presence (see Blake 2006 for a balancedtreatment), but studies suggest that farming emerged in the Late Archaic in far

western Mesoamerica. Deforestation suggesting land clearance, but without

evidence for maize pollen, occurs in cores in the Zacapu Basin of northern

Michoacan by 4000–3600 B.C. (Arnauld and Faugere Kalfon 1998, p. 17). The first

evidence of maize pollen comes from lake cores from the Patzcuaro Basin in central

Michoacan around 1500 B C. (Bradbury 2000), whereas older studies identify maize

pollen in Laguna San Pedro in southern Nayarit by 1900–1300 B.C. and in La Hoya

San Nicolas in the southern Bajıo by 1300 B.C. (Brown 1984, 1985; see Stuart

2003, p. 67). The movement of farming populations farther north was quite gradual.Maize and squash phytoliths have been found in the Malpaso Valley of southern

Zacatecas along with land clearance in the final centuries B.C. (Nelson et al. n.d.).

Maize agriculture is otherwise assumed to be present by the appearance of the

earliest fully sedentary communities, although this is often much later than the

likely first appearance of plant domestication.

Early agricultural settlements have not been identified in western Mexico as yet,

and the only habitation sites of definite Archaic date known from the highlands

show no evidence of plant domestication, suggesting a comparatively late transition

to agriculture. A regional project covering northernmost Michoacan that excavatedand radiocarbon dated successive occupations of Cueva de los Portales to about

5200–2000 B.C. (Faugere 2006) has produced the first full monograph on an early

western site that spans the entire Late Archaic. This important sequence deserves a

quick summary. The early La Garza occupation (5200–4500 B.C.) appears to have

been a seasonal campsite, with a diverse obsidian and andesite assemblage of heavy

choppers, blade scrapers, and points, and evidence for the consumption of deer and

probably birds. The lithic assemblage includes visually distinct varieties of obsidian

that do not fall within the range of local sources, consistent with the partly

contemporary finds from La Alberca (see below). A second phase shows a more

specialized set of tools for hunting and probably repeated use as a temporary work

station; that period includes the first evidence for grinding stones. The disappear-

ance of nonlocal obsidian in that period and thereafter might suggest the reduction

of residential movement and the establishment of a collector strategy (a la Binford

1980). The third phase (Portales, 3100–2500 B.C.) was the most extensive seasonal

camp, with evidence of hunting, hide preparation, basketry making, and

woodworking. Manos point to processing of seeds, and deer, turtles, frogs, birds,

and rodents were hunted. Although it was damaged, the final Archaic occupation

has a disproportionate amount of heavy woodworking tools that suggests some

relation to initial forest clearance associated with farming. That occupation is

contemporaneous with the region’s oldest-known intentional burial (radiocarbon

dated to c. 2500–2200 B.C.) from La Alberca in the western highlands of

Michoacan (Gabany Guerrero 2004, pp. 14–15). The burial was placed in a location

later used for cliff painting and suggests a ritually important locale, but evidence for

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habitation is lacking. Another recent and pioneering effort to identify preceramic

sites successfully radiocarbon dated deposits in Abrigo Moreno 5, a cave site

southeast of Lake Sayula, to 3500 B.C. (Benz 2000). Materials were too sparse there

to truly describe ancient lifeways, but other possible sites with promise also were

identified and will hopefully be excavated in the future.More Archaic evidence pertains to coastal populations that subsisted on maritime

resources, and perhaps those populations present the earliest evidence of social

complexity. The earliest materials are a small collection of artifacts associated with

a shell mound on the coast of Nayarit dated to 2850–2200 B.C. and called the

Matanchen complex (Mountjoy 1970, 2000; Mountjoy and Claassen 2005). The site

was interpreted as a food-extraction station, and Voorhies (1996, pp. 22–25)

interprets similar remains on the Chiapas coast specifically as solares where shells

would be dried and processed. A slightly later shell mound at Cerro el Calo n in the

mangrove swamps of the Marismas Nacionales to the north, and dated to 2250 B.C.,is an intriguing find. This 23-m-high mound is actually composed of unopened

Anadara grandis (brackish water clam) and other shells and was thus an actual

construction of unknown purpose (Scott 1985; Scott and Foster 2000). The dating of

this feature has been disputed recently (Grave Tirado 2008), although this once

unique occurrence has since been duplicated farther south on the Chiapas coast (J.

Hodgson, personal communication, 2004), where another intentionally created shell

mound at Alvarez del Toro has multiple floors and dates to older than 3000 B.C.

These may be ceremonial platforms of some kind, although other evidence is sparse.

If the original dating holds, this suggests that as in southeastern Mesoamerica, someof the earliest complex developments may have occurred on the Pacific coastal

plains.

Early and Middle Formative periods (2000–300 B.C.)

The Early and Middle Formative periods document the earliest sedentary

populations in West Mexico, coinciding with climatic trends toward wetter

conditions (Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007) and the continuing spread of

agriculture across the region. It is helpful to begin with some broad parameters.

Grove (1974, 2006) and others (Niederberger 1987; Oliveros Morales 2004; Tolstoy

1971) draw attention to a major west-east cultural distinction from the Early

Formative that centered on the valleys of central Mexico. To the east and south were

cultures that shared a variety of ties with Olman on the Gulf Coast. To the west

along the Rıo Lerma-Santiago were societies with shared ceramic ties (use of resist

and red-on-brown decoration and exotic bottle forms) and generalized links to

northwestern South America. The Olmec art style was almost totally absent in the

west. Places like Tlatilco were pivot points between these two patterns; the Tlatilco

assemblage had long-distance links to western Mexico but also possessed a ceramic

component with purported Olmec affiliations to the east. I argue that the western

sites linked by the Rıo Lerma shared a strong sense of place on the landscape

claimed through family tombs and cemeteries and sometimes round tumuli used for

burial.

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This west-east dichotomy has previously fed debate over whether western

Mexico was outside Mesoamerican traditions or one of several contributors to them

(e.g., Schondube 1980; Weigand 1985), but this west-east division may just as

easily be a continuation of the Paleoindian and Archaic pattern mentioned

previously, in which different patterns of animal and plant exploitation took place inthe west and the east. The division also may separate Otomanguean speakers in the

east from the Purepecha and southern Uto-Aztecan language groups in western

Mexico (Beekman 2008b).

The Early and Middle Formative remains identified to date in the western

highlands are primarily mortuary features that I argue were family claims upon the

landscape (Fig. 3). A cemetery of elaborate tombs defined by a stairway and

subterranean chamber has been excavated at El Openo, in the Jacona-Zamora

Valley of northwestern Michoacan (Noguera 1942; Oliveros Morales 1970, 2004);

isolated examples of this tomb form have been found farther west in the MagdalenaLake basin (Weigand 1985, p. 61). Radiocarbon dates place these tombs between

1400 and 1000 B.C. (Oliveros Morales and de los Rıos Paredes 1993), but the major

recent contribution to our understanding comes from Oliveros Morales’ (2004)

synthesis of the excavations there and his theoretical discussion of their significance

(Oliveros Morales 2006). The tombs vary in size and often have two wide benches

on either side, upon which were laid the dead of succeeding generations of a family

or lineage. People decorated their bodies through cranial reformation, and teeth

Fig. 3 Early and Middle Formative sites of western Mexico

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were often filed. The dead were accompanied by offerings of the earliest known

pottery in the region, including resist-decorated ceramics, hollow ceramic figures

representing animals, and solid figurines depicting individuals wearing specialized

clothing used in the rubber ballgame. Perforators made of human bone have been

found, and examples made of deer bone are widely distributed in Early and MiddleFormative burials (and at Archaic Cueva de los Portales). Although these

implements could have been used for a variety of mundane tasks, it seems more

likely that they had more exotic functions such as autosacrifice or bloodletting.

There also are a striking number of obsidian spear points in the tombs, suggesting

the continuing importance of hunting or of conflict and warfare. Oliveros Morales

(2004, 2006) interprets the tombs in terms of common Mesoamerican themes

relating to the underworld, which should be incorporated more frequently into

discussions of the importance of Olman in Mesoamerican prehistory (as in Grove

2006).Imported goods demonstrating the wealth and social networks of these families

include probable turquoise (from one of several possible locations in northern

Mexico or New Mexico), jade from the Motagua Valley of Guatemala, marine shell

from both the Pacific and Atlantic Casts, iron pyrite mirrors reminiscent of types

made in Oaxaca (Pires Ferreira 1975, pp. 37–55), and green obsidian from Pachuca

in central Mexico (Oliveros Morales 2004, pp. 118–119, 146, 150–152; Robles and

Oliveros Morales 2005). Exchange was mutual, as obsidian from the Ucareo source

in northeastern Michoacan was being traded east into the Basin of Mexico, the

Oaxaca Valley, and the Gulf Coast by that time (Healan 2004, Cuadro 1). Althoughthere have long been hints of possible structures atop some of the El Openo-style

tombs (e.g., Weigand 1993b), the settlements accompanying these cemeteries

remain unidentified.

There is a similar class of remains in low-to-middle elevations of Colima and

southern Jalisco where cemeteries have been found (Kelly 1980; Mountjoy 1989), in

one case associated with a small surface altar (Weigand 1985, p. 61). These remains

are grouped under the term Capacha because of the similar deeply engraved or

zone-painted ceramics, often using exotic stirrup spout or bottle forms. Capacha

cemeteries have been partially excavated (Kelly 1980) but not always published.

The cemeteries commonly demonstrate repeated use of the same area for simple

interment in pits. Typical offerings include pottery, grinding stones, and hollow

ceramic anthropomorphic figures (Kelly 1980). The most spectacular recent find is a

series of cemeteries in the Mascota Valley of southwestern Jalisco that, according to

the excavator, document the transition from Capacha-like ceramics to El Pantano

culture (Mountjoy 2006; Mountjoy et al. 2004). The most detailed data to date are

from El Pantano where dozens of burials were placed in shallow pits within a

restricted area, each burial cutting into prior ones. Offerings included locally made

pottery but also figurines made of jade from the Motagua Valley and iron pyrite

jewelry (Mountjoy et al. 2004). Bone isotope studies of the skeletal remains have

revealed that the population consumed maize (Cahue et al. 2002); this fits well with

the frequent appearance of grinding stones in Capacha burials (Kelly 1980),

although Cahue notes that their dentition does not show the usual decay associated

with early agricultural populations. The Mascota cemeteries provide the most

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carefully sequenced and contextualized radiocarbon dates for Capacha-related

ceramics, extending from 1000 to 800 B.C. and hence Middle Formative.

The Capacha-like materials in the highland lake basins just east of Mascota

presage later developments, but cemeteries are still the only contexts found to date

(e.g., Liot et al. 2006b). In the valleys surrounding the Tequila volcano, where ElOpeno-style stairway-and-chamber tombs had been in use, there are limited

architectural remains from this slightly later period. Burials are found beneath small

circular constructions in bottle-shaped tombs, and larger numbers of individuals

were interred in circular or oval burial mounds of up to 40 m in diameter and 2 m

high at San Felipe and another dozen sites in the Magdalena Lake basin (Weigand

1985, pp. 60–63). None of these mounds has been excavated, unfortunately, leaving

a significant gap in our understanding of the rise of more politically centralized

systems in the Late Formative. People had begun to carefully collect and curate

human remains in burial cysts (e.g., Liot et al. 2006b), suggesting the care of ancestors and the presence of corporate groups.

The Pacific Coast is best discussed from southeast to northwest. The Rıo Balsas

Depression has produced evidence for Early and Middle Formative pottery-using

populations (Cabrera Castro 1986, 1989; Paradis 1974), but beyond the basics of

identifying their presence and the similarity of the ceramics to the Capacha pottery,

there has been relatively little work on lifeways. The presence of artifacts and

sculpture related to the Gulf Coast does suggest that the region had rather different

social connections than the rest of western Mexico (Paradis 1974), and I consider

this region to lie outside the bounds of this article. North of the Rıo Balsas is thecoast of Michoacan, which has produced no evidence of occupation prior to the

Classic period (Novella and Moguel Cos 1998), and so a gap exists between the

lower Balsas and the coast of Jalisco. Farther northwest are the river valleys of the

Rıo Purificacion, the Rıo Tomatlan, the Banderas Valley, and the San Blas area

before reaching the increasingly wide coastal strip of the Marismas Nacionales.

There is little evidence from the far north, which had seemed so precocious in the

Archaic period, and the densest occupation instead lay along the narrower southern

coasts. Many decades of research there have reconstructed a mixed strategy of

farming and the intensive exploitation of marine resources, including everything

from deepwater mammals such as dolphins to manta rays to tidepool shellfish

(Mountjoy 1970, pp. 58–73, 1982, pp. 284–286, 325–326, 1989, 1993, pp. 24–28,

2000, pp. 84–88; Mountjoy and Claassen 2005). These occupations are marked by

the use of pottery similar to that used in Capacha sites (Mountjoy 2000, pp. 84–88),

habitation terraces, grinding stones, animal bone tools for making basketry, and

clearly watercraft. The earliest radiocarbon dates (collected in Mountjoy et al. 2003)

place the beginning of this occupation to around 900 B.C. for San Blas and the

Banderas Valley, with more tenuous evidence from the Tomatlan area. Commu-

nication along the coast must have been in place by this period, most notably

evidenced by the slim comparisons between local pottery and that from the far-off

Guatemalan and Ecuadorian coasts.

Farther east and slightly later in time were the sites of the Chupıcuaro culture, so

named because of the similar pottery used by peoples across the southern Bajıo and

documented in detail at Chupıcuaro (Porter 1956; Porter Weaver 1969). Although

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related ceramics have been reported along the Rıo Lerma basin from central Mexico

to the Pacific Coast (McBride 1969), these represent related local pottery traditions

of generally later time periods (e.g., Mixtlan phase). This suggests the common

basis out of which later peoples along the Lerma Basin sprang, but we should not

consider this a uniform ‘‘culture’’ across a wide territory. The only people thatdefinitely made the high-quality Chupıcuaro ceramics during 600 and 100 B.C. were

limited to the Cuitzeo Basin and Rıo Lerma Basin of southeastern Guanajuato

(Darras and Faugere 2005; Gorenstein et al. 1985; Healan and Hernandez 1999;

Porter 1956) and probably into the San Juan Valley in southern Queretaro (Saint

Charles Zetina 1998). These people are best known from the 400 burials excavated

from the cemetery at Chupıcuaro where individuals were interred individually or

sometimes several to a pit, associated with miniature hearths that were somehow

used in the mortuary process. Although warfare may be involved, ancestral worship

is a viable explanation for the striking number of headless burials and isolated skullsat the Chupıcuaro cemetery, as the curation of human remains was common

throughout western Mexican prehistory. While the decoration of ceramics uniquely

emphasizes designs related to central Mexico, we see many of the same burial

accompaniments as elsewhere in the western highlands, including solid and hollow

human figures, imported shells from both the Pacific and Gulf Coasts, etc. We

assume that these people consumed maize and practiced agriculture, although

substantiating evidence would be very welcome, and the presence of domesticated

dogs in the burials may indicate their dual role as companion and food. The frequent

occurrence of projectile points could indicate the continued contribution of hunting.Circular earthen mounds (Mena and Aguirre 1927) or patios (Darras and Faugere

2005) are a form of public architecture found at early Chupıcuaro sites in

Guanajuato, but later changes in form suggest deeper shifts in ideology and/or the

activities carried out there (Darras 2006; Darras and Faugere 2005); I discuss these

later. Shaft tombs have recently been identified in Chupıcuaro sites during the

Chupıcuaro Reciente 1 phase (400–200 B.C.) (Darras and Faugere 2007),

demonstrating further crosscutting ties between the subregions during the Middle

Formative.

The Early and Middle Formative remains in western Mexico hint at long-distance

connections that help define the early era of pre-Columbian culture. Resist and red-

on-brown decoration as well as exotic bottle forms link Capacha, El Openo, and the

contemporary Basin of Mexico site of Tlatilco via the Rıo Lerma; less specific

comparisons link all three with ceramic traditions in coastal Chiapas and Guatemala

and in northwestern South America. Furthermore, all the highland sites are defined

by mortuary remains clustered into cemeteries, an uncommon occurrence elsewhere

in Mesoamerica outside of Oaxaca, suggesting forms of social organization distinct

even from neighboring societies along the Pacific Coast. By the Middle Formative

period, circular mounded architecture was shared by societies in central Jalisco, the

southern Bajıo, Morelos (Grove 1970), and the Basin of Mexico at the early center

of Cuicuilco (Muller 1990; a similarity previously noted in Florance 2000). Social

groups in the far western highland and Bajıo/Michoacan highland subregions were

linked through trading networks to the farthest corners of Mesoamerica to obtain

luxury items, and yet they were conspicuously not participating in the Olmec art

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style. Processes toward political centralization and social inequality had certainly

begun in the highlands, although membership in corporate social groups and not

individual accomplishment was the likely vehicle for defining wealth and status.

Late Formative and Classic periods (300 B.C.–A.D. 500/600)

The Late Formative is distinguished by rapid population growth and expansion into

many new areas, increased differentiation between subregions in the highlands,

evidence for social inequalities across most of western Mexico, and rapid political

centralization in some areas (Fig. 4). A tradition of enclosed patio architecture

developed in the Bajıo and spread to the eastern highlands of Michoacan. The far

western highlands of West Mexico came to share certain ideological concepts

relating to mortuary symbolism during the Late Formative, much of which centeredon the lake basins and valleys surrounding the Tequila Volcano of central Jalisco.

A further modest expansion out of central Jalisco occurred during the Classic

period, disseminating concepts relating to agricultural ritual and elite status. This is

interesting when considered against the climatological backdrop of a slow drying

trend that culminated in the Epiclassic.

The Tequila Valleys of central Jalisco incorporate the Magdalena lake basin to

the west and wetlands to the south and southeast, most of which have today been

Fig. 4 Late Formative and Classic period sites of western Mexico

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drained by modern agricultural projects. In what may have been a lusher

environment at the time, a population of several tens of thousands grew up over

the course of this period in a continuous and dispersed settlement pattern primarily

south of the Tequila Volcano (Ohnersorgen and Varien 1996; Weigand 1993a,

2000), likely exploiting infield maize agriculture. As before, corporate social groupsappear to have been of critical importance, and cemeteries of family-based shaft-

and-chamber tombs much like those of El Openo and Chupıcuaro are found in

abundance across the rural areas. The richest tombs are beneath or in close

association with public architecture in ceremonial centers, creating a dichotomy

between rural families and those in more privileged settings (e.g., the modest tombs

at Tabachines [Galvan Villegas 1991] versus the elite tombs at El Arenal or

Huitzilapa [Corona Nunez 1955; Ramos and Lopez Mestas 1996]). Obsidian

workshops (e.g., Soto de Arechavaleta 1982, 1990) and exchange (Weigand et al.

2004) tied together families across central Jalisco and beyond.The ceremonial centers included two major new forms of architecture, both

perhaps oriented toward dampening conflict and drawing together the corporate

social groups. The first was the ball court, a specially constructed playing field for the

more formal versions of the rubber ballgame known across Mesoamerica (Weigand

1991). Elsewhere, the ballgame has been considered a mechanism for channeling

social competition between groups into a safer and less conflictive form (Gillespie

1991; Taladoire and Colsenet 1991). This may very well be the case here between

these corporate groups, which may have been lineages or ‘‘houses’’ (Beekman 2005,

2008a), the latter including strong ties to place and membership defined by othermechanisms as well as biological descent (Joyce and Gillespie 2000).

The second architectural form was the guachimonto n, a highly symmetrical

cluster of buildings in which a circular stepped altar or pyramid forms the

centerpiece. An even number of rectangular buildings, usually eight, forms a ring

around the central pyramid, creating a complex of distinctive appearance (Weigand

1985, 1996, 1999). These temples embody the multileveled universe of Meso-

american cosmology, and identifiable ceremonies from the Mesoamerican calendar

took place on the pyramid (Beekman 2003a, b; Kelley 1974; Taube 1998; Witmore

1998). The form most likely evolved out of Middle Formative circular burial

mounds, but with a different relationship between the various corporate social

groups that used them. Pollard (1997) assessed early claims that the guachimonton

sites across western Mexico constituted a single state (Weigand 1985); she

concluded they represented a complex social phenomenon but that considerable

work needed to be done to move beyond top-down regional analysis based almost

strictly on surface surveys.

Our understanding has improved considerably since then, and it is possible to

suggest more about the lower levels of political organization. Excavations at Llano

Grande and Navajas over the past several years have found that the symmetry

visible on the surface obscures what are actually quite distinct construction methods

for the surrounding rectangular structures (Beekman 2005, 2008a). Different

artifacts were found as well, with some structures housing large pottery vessels,

others with a larger number of stone tools, and others with fragments of hollow

ceramic figures better known from tombs. The different corporate groups built their

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structures independently, yet as part of a broader template of eight such structures in

a precise arrangement. I interpret these as elite lineages or perhaps elite members of

lineages present on the broader landscape, but authority was shared in some way in

a corporate mode (in the sense of Blanton et al. 1996). In larger circles the

relationships are distinct, and there may be structures around a circle that wereconstructed using disparate methods, suggesting larger social alliances (Beekman

2008a). Individual ceremonial centers may have from one to ten guachimontones of

varying sizes (Ohnersorgen and Varien 1996; Weigand 1985), creating a conundrum

for archaeologists as to how this shared power structure may have been instantiated

at larger scales. In a sense, we now need to close the gap between older regional

studies and newer local studies in order to understand how this local political

activity created the apparent core and periphery distribution of guachimonton sites

across west Mexico (see Beekman 2000, although now chronologically flawed).

Offerings found in the shaft-and-chamber tombs allow rich reconstructions of lifeand beliefs among the people who lived here but can be better interpreted in light of

what we know today from the archaeology. Among the figures and models that have

been recovered, people carry stacks of pottery (to market?), others draw sap from

the agave plant to make pulque, women nurse children, wedding and agricultural

ceremonies are held in the architecture, and male-female pairs suggest unique

gender relations (see Beekman 2003a; Logan 2007; von Winning 1969; von

Winning and Hammer 1972). Exotic imported goods found in the tombs and public

buildings are in many respects like those from the earlier El Openo tombs,

suggesting similar external connections exploited by corporate social groups. Someof those goods, notably the imagery in three-dimensional architectural models and

figures (Beekman 2003a, b) and shell jewelry (Lopez Mestas 2004, 2005), have

allowed studies of political ideology linking Late Formative elites to agricultural

fertility and the cosmos.

Recent excavations at Llano Grande, Navajas, and Guachimonton have clarified

the chronology for the region and allow us to sketch a trajectory of change over time

(Beekman and Weigand 2008). The earliest dated evidence of occupation at any of

these sites dates to 300 B.C., but construction of the guachimontones began by 100

B.C. The largest circles excavated are those at the large center of Guachimonton and

the sizable community of Navajas, and there is an exceptional amount of

construction that took place at the former. There is evidence for fortified or

strategic centers at the entrances into the Tequila Valleys, perhaps suggesting that

the Tequila Valleys (though nothing outside of central Jalisco) had become

politically unified around the center of Guachimonton (Beekman 1996b, c). Stuart’s

(2003, p. 241, 2005) project on the raised fields and canals used for intensified

agriculture in the western part of the central valleys (Weigand 1993a) indicates that

they were built by the beginning of the Classic period. Locally made artifacts

indicating elite status, like obsidian jewelry and hollow ceramic figures, disappeared

from rural contexts like the cemetery of Tabachines but continued in ceremonial

centers such as Guachimonton, Navajas, and Llano Grande and in the shaft tombs

from Huitzilapa and San Sebastian (Beekman 2005; Beekman and Weigand 2008;

Galvan Villegas 1991; Long 1966; Ramos and Lopez Mestas 1996). We may

hypothesize increasing centralization of control over markers of authority. Most of

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the evidence for long-distance trade pertains to this period, but such goods were

ultimately deposited in elite and particularly burial contexts.

The tradition of using shaft-and-chamber tombs for the interment of the dead,

especially the elite, became widespread in far western Mexico during the last part of

the Late Formative. Radiocarbon dates and/or distinctive ceramics show that shafttombs were used at many locations in Jalisco (Beekman 1996b, pp. 198–201, 278–

287; Corona Nunez 1955; Galvan Villegas 1991; Long 1966; Mountjoy 1993, pp.

28–30; Mountjoy and Sandford 2006; Schondube 1980, pp. 172–212; Valdez 1994),

Colima (Kelly 1978, 1980; Olay Barrientos 1993), Nayarit (Corona Nunez 1954;

Gifford 1950; Mountjoy 1970, pp. 74–78), and Guanajuato (Darras and Faugere

2007) by at least this period, while those in the northern canyons of Jalisco and

Zacatecas (Cabrero Garcıa 1989, 1991, 1993, 2005; Cabrero Garcıa and Lopez Cruz

1997, 2002, pp. 125–129) are slightly later. Undated shaft tombs have now been

identified in the basin of the Rıo Tepalcatepec in southwestern Michoacan (LopezCamacho and Pulido Mendez 2005). It is evident, however, that there are many

different local activities that were practiced in these subterranean chambers, and

there is less support for calling them all shaft tombs. For example, cremations

were stored in pots inside the shaft tombs found along the coast (Mountjoy 1993,

pp. 28–30) and in the northern canyons (Cabrero Garcıa and Lopez Cruz 2002), while

the tombs outside central Jalisco had fewer chambers and shorter access shafts.

There are significant transformations in central Jalisco at the very end of the Late

Formative (Beekman 2007). The later excavated circles, particularly those

constructed after the threshold of A.D. 200 at Llano Grande and Huitzilapa, aremuch smaller in size. The building activities that continued at Guachimonton were

modifications of existing circles and not new constructions. Future work will need to

corroborate this pattern, but present evidence suggests a change in the trend toward

centralization, with a shift toward stability or perhaps fragmentation at the dawn of

the Classic period. The contemporaneous shaft tombs at the rural cemetery of

Tabachines are characterized by decreasing size, decreasing number of occupants,

and decreasing number of offerings (Beekman and Galvan Villegas 2006). This may

reflect the increasingly marginal position of this cemetery just outside the Tequila

Valleys, but it may also point to broader trends away from the importance of

corporate groups in rural areas. Yet Stuart’s radiocarbon dates from excavations in

the raised fields in the Magdalena Basin suggest that the fields were still very much

in use and, indeed, were elaborated during that period (Stuart 2003, p. 241).

One interesting change, which may signal that the Tequila polity had merely

shifted strategies, is the exportation of the circular architecture to distant regions,

albeit in a discontinuous manner (Fig. 4). Although small guachimontones are

found across all states that border Jalisco, the only ones dated by radiocarbon are

those from the Bolanos Canyon to the north. There the dates associated with

guachimontones and their accompanying shaft tombs (Cabrero Garcıa and Lopez

Cruz 2002, pp. 125–129) directly parallel those for the remainder of the Classic

period in central Jalisco. The circles at Comala in Colima (P. Weigand, personal

communication, 2005), at Tepecuazco in the Juchipila Valley of southern Zacatecas

(Lelgemann 2005; Weigand et al. 1999), and at Los Braziles in the coastal Banderas

Valley (Mountjoy 2000, p. 90; Mountjoy et al. 2003) are all dated by their ceramics

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to between A.D. 200 and 600. This puts all the dated circles outside the core during

the Classic period and suggests a greater degree of political dynamism over that

period than we had previously been able to define. These circles are not likely to

have been imposed by some centralized power in the Tequila Valleys or carried by

expanding populations and were probably adopted by local rising elites forassociated agricultural rituals and opportunities to consolidate their own power

(Beekman 2000).

Most areas of the far western highlands that began to use shaft-and-chamber

tombs or guachimonton temples were regions that already shared some cultural

affinities, but the societies of the cultural subregion in the Bajıo and the eastern

Michoacan highlands were centralizing under a separate impetus. In the Bajıo,

settled communities continued in the Chupıcuaro area. The public architecture at the

core of these settlements was no longer the circular mounds or patios of the Late

Formative (Darras and Faugere 2005) but was more diverse, based around thecentral module of an enclosed patio, often with a central altar (e.g., Cardenas Garcıa

1999a; Ramos de la Vega and Crespo 2005). Public buildings of this form may just

predate the Late Formative in southern Guanajuato and Queretaro (Castaneda and

Cano Romero 1993; Castaneda Lopez et al. 1988, pp. 323–324; Crespo Oviedo

1991a), where ‘‘Chupıcuaro’’ ceramics (phase unspecified) have been found in some

of these sites, but the enclosed patios most securely pertain to the Classic period

(Filini and Cardenas 2007). Communities bringing their style of public buildings

with them expanded into northern Guanajuato and south into Michoacan. The

timing for this expansion is unclear, as absolute dates are limited, but thesecommunities must have been in northwest Guanajuato by the Early to Middle

Classic (Zubrow 1974, pp. 41–43); ceramics suggesting the first agricultural

colonies in southern San Luıs Potosı (Rodrıguez 1985) also date to that time.

Although Late Formative Loma Alta phase populations in the lake basins of the

Michoacan highlands had leadership positions based on ritual associations (Pereira

1999), cremated their dead, and interred them in ceramic vessels (Carot 2001), the

enclosed patio architecture is not attested there until the Loma Alta 2b phase at

Loma Alta in the Zacapu Basin (Arnauld et al. 1993; Carot 2001; Carot and Fauvet-

Berthelot 1996; Carot et al. 1998; Pollard 2008, p. 220). Slightly later examples

occur at Erongarıcuaro in the Patzcuaro Basin (Pollard 2005b), Santa Marıa to the

east (Manzanilla Lopez 1996), and perhaps at Tingambato to the southwest (Pina

Chan and Oi 1982). Loma Alta communities participated in long-distance obsidian

trade, but prismatic blade technology was an import from central Mexico (Pollard

2008, p. 220). Other populations farther south (the Rıo Tepalcatepec region of

southwestern Michoacan and the middle reaches of the Rıo Balsas) are documented

but are not yet known to have participated in this architectural tradition (Cabrera

Castro 1986, 1989; Kelly 1947; Paradis 1974).

The Bajıo was unified only in the sense of sharing a generalized architectural

tradition based on enclosed patios, and Cardenas (1999a) has reconstructed several

distinct polities through a spatial analysis. Societies in this region interacted

differently with the highland polities to the west and east. In the western Bajıo are

numerous settlements with small solitary guachimontones, often in a discrete sector

of the community (e.g., Castaneda Lopez et al. 1988, Fig. 17; Crespo Oviedo 1993;

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Filini and Cardenas 2007; Moguel Cos and Sanchez Correa 1988; Sanchez Correa

and Marmolejo Morales 1990, Fig. 4). These appear intrusive and may be isolated

outposts situated in alien territory (Beekman 2000; Weigand 2000).

The eastern Bajıo and eastern Michoacan highland subregion had architectural

and ceramic connections to central Mexico, suggesting close interaction though notnecessarily dominance. I have already mentioned the similarities that have been

drawn between Chupıcuaro and the central Mexican center of Cuicuilco (Darras

2006). These links are insecurely dated but presumably pertain to Ticoman III times

in the Basin of Mexico, or about 300–150 B.C. Following this are links to

Teotihuacan, thought by many scholars to indicate trade or dominance (Castan eda

Lopez et al. 1988, p. 326; Crespo Oviedo 1998; Manzanilla Lopez 1996; Saint

Charles Zetina 1996). The enclosed patio architecture, for example, may have its

origin in central Mexico, since three-temple complexes resembling the most

complex forms from Guanajuato began at Teotihuacan by the Tzacualli phase (A.D.1–100) (Rattray 1991, p. 4). The ceramic evidence for contact with Teotihuacan

pertains to two distinct periods—the site of Barrio de la Cruz in Queretaro includes

Tzacualli phase ceramics from central Mexico, while the remainder of the clearly

dated evidence across Guanajuato and Queretaro pertains to the Tlamimilolpa-

Xolalpan phases (c. A.D. 200–600) (Brambila and Velasco 1988; Castaneda Lopez

et al. 1996; Crespo Oviedo 1998 , pp. 325–326, 330; Saint Charles Zetina 1996, p.

148, 1998, pp. 337–339). Most such ceramics occur in burial contexts, and Filini

and Cardenas (2007) find them to be quite infrequent and hardly indicative of

Teotihuacan dominance or even direct contact. The dating for cases in Michoacan(specifically the Cuitzeo Basin) is less specifically assigned to the Classic period

(Cardenas Garcıa 1999b; Filini and Cardenas 2007; Manzanilla Lopez 1996).

Filini (2004; Filini and Cardenas 2007) summarizes much of this information

(see also discussions in Carot 2001; Pollard 2005b) and uses data from the Cuitzeo

Basin to develop a model of Teotihuacan contact. Filini and Cardenas conclude that

some artifacts such as Thin Orange pottery and Pachuca obsidian are actual imports,

but that more common are local imitations of Thin Orange vessels. Clearly,

Teotihuacan and its products held some ideological weight, but ceramic designs,

imports, and copies are found in largely elite contexts that these authors consider

more indicative of careful and autonomous selection by local elites. Loma Alta

phase artifacts and perhaps people from Michoacan have been identified from

multiple contexts at Teotihuacan (Gomez Chavez 1998, 2002; Gomez Chavez and

Gazzola 2007; White et al. 2004), so some aspects of this communication appear to

be bidirectional. When considering Teotihuacan’s importance in this area, we are

confronted repeatedly with the notion that Teotihuacan was a center of potent

ideological status, but there is little indication of its direct involvement in local

matters. The model of Teotihuacan interaction is very much parallel to what I have

suggested (Beekman 2000) for the adoption of most guachimontones outside the

Tequila Valleys—local elites adopting symbolically charged architecture for use in

their very local power struggles. We should consider the possibility that the shift

from circular mounds and patios to enclosed patio architecture in the Bajıo in the

Late Formative may have its roots in the waning status of Cuicuilco and the rise of

Teotihuacan (Florance 2000). The Bajıo polities may have leaned greatly on their

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connections to central Mexican powers to justify their authority. Darras (2006)

sounds a note of caution about the database here, as the ceramic ties between these

two areas are apparently less well substantiated than is often claimed; these are

viable hypotheses to specifically test in the field.

Farther to the west and separated from trends in the Bajıo by the archaeologicallyunknown territory of Los Altos of northeastern Jalisco are the eastern slopes of the

Sierra Madre Occidental. Small sedentary agricultural communities with simple

decorated ceramic vessels and rectangular residences built directly on the soil are

found here and across much of northwestern Mexico from early in the Late

Formative period (Foster 2000). The first arrival of farmers in the Malpaso Valley c.

500-400 B.C. has only recently been posited through evidence for land clearance

(Nelson et al. n.d.). But in the Early Classic, villages of the Chalchihuites culture

began to emerge. They are defined by public architecture composed of enclosed

patios and pottery with similar counterparts in the Bajıo. Classificatory debatesdominated the literature for many years, with some arguing that Chalchihuites sites

represent a dominant foreign presence over local Loma San Gabriel culture

populations (Kelley 1971, 1985), while others saw a continuum between the two,

with Chalchihuites as an autochthonous development (e.g., Hers 1989). Most

distinguish the sites located in the Malpaso Valley of southern Zacatecas and

focused on the hilltop site of La Quemada from the Chalchihuites sites in the Suchil

Valley of northwestern Zacatecas such as the ceremonial center of Alta Vista,

although both possess certain similarities in architecture and ceramics. Neither

settlement presents extensive evidence for activity at that time, though to be clearmost research in those areas has focused on the later Epiclassic. During the Classic,

the evidence for social hierarchy, pottery trade networks, or mineral resource

exploitation (Schiavitti 1996; Strazicich 1998) is limited. Surveys have been carried

out in both areas in recent years (Cordova Tello 2007; Elliott 2005), and the results

will be important for clarifying the origins of these populations.

On the Pacific Coast, population grew rapidly over this period. Mountjoy sees

subsistence along the Nayarit and Jalisco coasts as continuing a mixed pattern and

quantifies finds of both marine shell and animal bone to support this. He argues that

the movement of settlements farther inland at that time does suggest greater

emphasis than before on agriculture (Mountjoy 1970, pp. 74–87, 1989, p. 21).

Certainly contact with the highland interior appears more important than previously,

and isotopic studies of diet would be an important contribution and useful

comparison to existing studies in coastal Chiapas and Guatemala. Contact between

the coast and the societies of the highland lake basins followed the comparatively

easy routes down the Rıo Santiago, the Rıo Ameca, and the Rıo Armerıa. At their

termini we find small communities burying their dead in shaft-and-chamber tombs

(although often with significant variations such as urn cremations) along the coast of

Colima and in the Banderas and San Blas Valleys of southern Nayarit (Kelly 1978,

1980, pp. 3–6; Mountjoy 1970, pp. 74–87, 1993, pp. 28–30; Mountjoy and Sandford

2006). The tombs are found along with small ceremonial centers with mounds and

open plazas (Mountjoy 2000, p. 90). The intervening and newly populated Cihuatlan

and Tomatlan River valleys of the Jalisco coast are equally interesting. There shaft-

and-chamber tombs do not appear to have been part of the burial repertoire,

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although cemeteries of pit burials were (Meighan 1972; Mountjoy 1982, pp. 326–

327; 1989, pp. 20–22, 2000, p. 91). External ties are clearest with the rugged interior

of southwestern Jalisco (Kelly 1945a, 1949). La Pintada, a site with an estimated

population of over 1000 inhabitants, and the massive refuse area at Morett point to

significant population growth and aggregation. Intensive craft production appearedat La Pintada in the Tomatlan Valley (Mountjoy 1982, p. 323, 1989, p. 21) and

Playa del Tesoro on the northern Colima coast (Beltran Medina 1994, 2001), where

extensive shell workshops may have supplied the interior’s demands for decoration

or funerary items. This in turn may have linked this area of the coast to distant trade

networks; Mountjoy (2000, p. 90) mentions other likely imports, including

Caribbean shell and jade at La Pintada; Beltran Medina (1994) argues for links to

distant Teotihuacan.

The Classic period along the coast is unclear in some areas, perhaps because

differences between Classic and Late Formative ceramics have not yet beenidentified and so the Late Formative materials appear to continue for nearly a

millennium. It took years of research for the ceramics of Colima, Nayarit, and

highland Jalisco to be separated out (e.g., Beekman and Weigand 2008; Kelly 1980;

Valdez 2005; Zepeda Garcıa Moreno 2001). That period was the heyday of the

shaft-and-chamber tomb mortuary tradition in Colima (Kelly 1978, 1980), and

guachimonton architecture occurred simultaneously with the tombs both there and

to the northwest, where the Rıo Ameca leaves the upland canyons and hits the wide

coastal plain (Mountjoy 2000, p. 90; Mountjoy et al. 2003). Ceramics comparable to

those in Colima occur farther southeast along the coast of Michoacan as part of thefirst evidence for population there (Novella and Moguel Cos 1998; Novella et al.

2002), suggesting colonization and/or interaction in that direction. The dynamism of

this period is only beginning to be understood, but it is defined by increasing social

and political complexity.

Epiclassic period (A.D. 500/600–900)

First, a terminological note. I use the term Epiclassic in its sense of marking the

period of upheaval between Teotihuacan and Tula, but Late Classic is used more

frequently in areas of western Mexico (largely Michoacan) that show greater

continuity across this period. The Epiclassic is the second major time period for

which there is a great deal of new research, and a number of interpretive proposals

have emerged that help consolidate the situation. This was a period of extreme

change across western Mexico, with implications far beyond the region into other

parts of Mesoamerica (Fig. 5). Basic work on linking chronological sequences led

to the recognition of a number of cross-ties in architecture, ceramic complexes, and

figurines originally thought to encompass Guanajuato to central Jalisco and

extending north along the Sierra Madre Occidental to La Quemada and Alta Vista in

Zacatecas (Jimenez Betts 1988, 1992). This was interpreted at the time as a world

system centered on Teotihuacan and extending into northwest Mexico (Jimenez

Betts 1992). Still, radiocarbon dates (Nelson 1997) and further detailed comparisons

emerged that linked these complexes in a chain extending from central Jalisco to the

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Coyotlatelco complex in central Mexico (Beekman 1996a). Although these

ceramics are still sometimes referred to unhelpfully as a red-on-buff tradition,

there are actually various decorative mediums, colors, vessel forms, and new

designs that co-occur across most of the areas considered.

The greatest continuity in ceramic designs and architecture in this transformation

lies in the Bajıo, which some authors believe experienced a population expansion

(Brambila Paz and Crespo 2005; Wright Carr 1999). Major centers receiving

archaeological attention in recent years include Plazuelas, Canada de la Virgen,Peralta y El Coporo, and Cerro Barajas (Castaneda Lopez et al. 2007; Migeon and

Pereira 2007; Pereira et al. 2005); the main finding to date seems to be the lack of

synchronicity in their occupational sequences over the Late Formative through Early

Postclassic periods. The enclosed patio architecture and ceramic complex either

replaced or significantly impacted prior customs across the highlands close to the Rıo

Lerma and to a lesser extent the societies east of the Sierra Madre Occidental

(Beekman 1996a). Mortuary customs were altered in many regions, but in different

ways. One widespread new pattern was the use of stone-lined pit tombs, as cemeteries

in rural areas (Schondube and Galvan Villegas 1978), for the special burials of sacrificed deity impersonators (Holien and Pickering 1978), or as crypts for large

numbers of individuals over extended periods of time (Pina ChanandOi 1982; Pollard

and Cahue 1999); some of these manifestations suggest a resurgence of corporate

descent groups.

Fig. 5 Epiclassic period sites of western Mexico

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Two of the best studied sites from this period are Alta Vista in the Suchil Valley

of northern Zacatecas and La Quemada in the Malpaso Valley of southern

Zacatecas. The former has not received sustained attention in recent years, and older

interpretations of the site as linked to Teotihuacan continue to have an influence on

current scholarship (despite Kelley 1985). After decades of ungrounded theoriesabout La Quemada, this hilltop site and the surrounding valley are becoming better

understood. The site belongs squarely in the Epiclassic (Nelson 1997) and

aggregated quite rapidly around a ceramic complex with undoubted similarities to

those of the Bajıo and Alta Vista. The site is visually spectacular, with massive

terraces creating flat spaces for residential and ceremonial architecture. A tall and

narrow pyramid, a ball court, and numerous enclosed patios with central altars and

pyramids at one end form the repertoire of public architecture. The site is most

notorious for the widespread display of partial human remains (Nelson et al. 1992),

which may represent the display of sacrificed captives or venerated ancestors(Martin et al. 2004; Perez et al. 2008). Studies at the site have tended to characterize

the elite hierarchy as expressing their social position in more subtle ways, such as in

food practices (Turkon 2004). Research has more often pointed to difference rather

than hierarchy in La Quemada society (Millhauser 1999; Wells 1998, 2000).

The timing of the Epiclassic changes continues to evolve. My earlier correlation

of ceramic complexes ran into the problem that the western Mesoamerican phases

corresponding to the changes tended to have one or two radiocarbon dates apiece

(Beekman 1996a), but I concluded that the changes in question appeared to pertain

to the period A.D. 550–900. Later radiocarbon dates from Coyotlatelco contexts incentral Mexico (Nichols and Charlton 1996; Parsons et al. 1996) and from La

Quemada at the opposite end of the region (Nelson 1997) support this dating. But

recent work in La Higuerita in central Jalisco encountered new architecture, ceramic

types, and burial patterns, and excavations there have produced radiocarbon dates

beginning around A.D. 400 (Lopez Mestas, personal communication, 2005; Lopez

Mestas and Montejano Esquivias 2003), immediately following or overlapping the

recently redated sequence in that area (Beekman and Weigand 2008). Clearly, a

central linchpin in this sequence is the Bajıo, where a robust chronological anchor is

needed.

Explanations for change across such a wide expanse of Mesoamerica are likely to

be multifaceted. One interpretation that has widespread support is that of political

reorganization (Beekman and Christensen 2003, pp. 147–149), sometimes concep-

tualized as a restructuring of the Mesoamerican world system (Jimenez Betts 2006,

2007). The complex political system centered in the Tequila Valleys of central

Jalisco collapsed, and the use of guachimonton architecture and shaft-and-chamber

tombs ceased throughout the western highlands (Beekman and Christensen 2003;

Weigand 1990), even as multiple new political centers of various sizes emerged.

The ceremonial center of Alta Vista was built in the Suchil Valley of Zacatecas,

oriented toward astronomical observations at the Tropic of Cancer (Aveni et al.

1982; Kelley 1971). Farther south in the Malpaso Valley, construction at the

fortified hilltop center of La Quemada took place primarily in this period (Nelson

1997). Other new ceremonial centers emerged in the Jalisco highlands at El Grillo

(Galvan Villegas and Beekman 2001), Ixtepete (Galvan Villegas 1975), Santa Cruz

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de Barcenas (Weigand 1990), and the recently discovered La Higuerita (Lopez

Mestas and Montejano Esquivias 2003). New towns were founded even in areas

where the transformation in material culture was less extensive, as in Michoacan.

Sites like Tingambato (Pina Chan and Oi 1982), Urichu (Pollard and Cahue 1999),

Guadalupe (Arnauld and Faugere Kalfon 1998; Pereira 1999), Zaragoza (FernandezVillanueva 2004), and Jiquilpan (Noguera 1944) emerged as new centers of

population and authority in the associated Lupe phase (Pollard 2008, pp. 221–223).

Leadership positions were linked to warrior status (Pereira 1999) and have been

argued to be associated with the earliest water control features in the Patzcuaro

Basin (Fisher et al. 1999). Some of the new sites made use of the talud-tablero

architectural facades so often associated with Teotihuacan but in forms that postdate

that urban center (Beekman 1996a). This process of Epiclassic political balkani-

zation has, of course, been recognized for Mesoamerica in general for many years.

An intensification of resource exploitation can be explained within a politicalreorganization framework as well. The multitude of small unstable polities scrambled

for legitimization in the highly volatile political environment, and there was a greatly

increased demand for exotic materials and innovative iconography as new symbols of

authority (Beekman and Christensen 2003, pp. 145–149; Pollard and Cahue 1999). It

has been argued that copper metallurgy made its first appearance in Mesoamerica

through direct interaction with metallurgists from northwestern South America. The

new technology was used to make bells, rings, needles, and tweezers through lost-wax

casting and cold working (Hosler 1994, pp. 44–85). The only Epiclassic sites with

metal are not well published, however. The turquoise-processing workshop at AltaVista was extremely active and accompanied a general increase in the importation of

this exotic resource from the American Southwest (Weigand and Garcıa de Weigand

2001; Weigand and Harbottle 1992). The extensive mines at nearby Chalchihuites

were devoted to the extraction of chert for jewelry and other minerals, probably for

pigment (Schiavitti 1996; Weigand 1968). Paint of this kind could have been used for

the colorful and exotically decorated Pseudo-Cloisonne ceramics and their variants

(Holien 1977), which were more widely used than before, extending to Jalisco,

Zacatecas, and Guanajuato. Exploitation of the Ucareo and Zinaparo obsidian mines

of northern Michoacan expanded greatly, and their products were transported across

Mesoamerica (Darras 1999; Healan 2004), forming major parts of the assemblage at

the major central Mexican centers of Xochicalco and Tula (Healan 1998, 2004). The

still obscure cinnabar mines of Queretaro’s Sierra Gorda may have increased in use,

and a cinnabar-to-mercury processing site at San Jose Ixtapa dates to that period

(Barba and Herrera 1986; Secretaria de Patrimonio Nacional 1970). The intensifica-

tion of production at the salt works of south-central Jalisco shows that less exotic

materials experienced increased demand as well (Liot 2000), although it is unclear

whether the market population had increased or not.

Lopez Austin and Lopez Lujan (1999) have recently argued that part of the

Epiclassic transformation across Mesoamerica was the expansion of a new world

religion based on the feathered serpent. Certainly some of the evidence for ceramic

decoration and for the postmortem modification of human remains (Martin et al.

2004; Nelson et al. 1992; Pereira 1996; Perez et al. 2008) could fit this view. But as

Christensen and I have noted previously (Beekman and Christensen 2003, p. 149),

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once these ideas reached the greater population centers of central Mexico, the

different major Epiclassic centers used many of the same motifs but combined them

in different ways that led to quite different styles at each site (e.g., Xochicalco vs.

Cacaxtla). Experimentation is the major theme across Epiclassic centers, and while

new ideas may indeed have been in the wind, different polities promoted differentversions of the story. At the scale of ordinary people, utilitarian vessel forms and

decoration other than designs also changed in some areas, indicating a more

profound rupture at the level of everyday life than the spread of religious beliefs

(Beekman 1996a).

The Epiclassic political reorganization summarized above coincides with late

first millennium intensification of drier conditions, as recorded in various

paleoclimatic studies across the western highlands (Fisher et al. 2003; Israde

Alcantara et al. 2005; Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007; Metcalfe et al.

2007) and beyond (Hodell et al. 1995). The hypothesis that climatic downturn in thenorth eventually led to the region’s depopulation dates back to Armillas (1969), and

while the model does not seem to explain the original test case (La Quemada, see

Nelson et al. n.d.), it deserves serious consideration along the Rıo Lerma.

Depopulation of the area north of the Lerma is indeed the ultimate outcome of the

Epiclassic transformation, but it was preceded by political intensification, making

the picture more complicated than simple response to climatic stimulus.

Very similar social disruptions occurred in central Mexico at that time, associated

with the fall of Teotihuacan and the appearance of new ceramics and architecture

during the Coyotlatelco phase (recently the subject of numerous studies in Kowalskiand Kristin Graham 2007; Solar Valverde 2006). A growing number of researchers

have proposed that those changes partly follow the physical movement of

populations out of a source area near the Bajıo and into the highlands (e.g.,

Beekman and Christensen 2003; Braniff 1972, 1999, 2005; Carot 2005; Hers 1989,

2005; Mastache and Cobean 1989; Mastache et al. 2002; Michelet et al. 2005;

Nelson and Crider 2005; Paredes Gudino 2004), with a variety of interpretations of

the process. Some researchers speak of Chichimecs as the migrants in question (e.g.,

Braniff 2005; Hers 1989; Jimenez Moreno 1959), while Christensen and I see them

as dislocated farmers (Beekman and Christensen 2003). Regardless, these migra-

tions followed earlier Classic period trade and communication routes that had linked

the Bajıo with both central Jalisco and central Mexico. This corresponds very well

to a reinterpretation of the ethnohistoric evidence that argues that Nahuatl speakers

entered central Mexico prior to the Postclassic period (Beekman and Christensen

2003, pp. 120–127; see also the debate between Dakin and Wichman [2000] and

Kaufman and Justeson [2007]), and a more recent study that argues that Nahuatl-

speaking communities were in place in the Mezquital Valley of western Hidalgo by

the 6th century A.D. (Christensen and Beekman 2005). Other scholars have argued

that any migrations into the area did not occur until the Early Postclassic (e.g.,

Fournier and Vargas Sanders 2002). Jimenez Betts (2006, 2007) has recently

polarized political reorganization versus migration as competing explanations for

the Epiclassic changes, but the discussion here indicates that the two co-occurred in

this case and many others (Beekman and Christensen 2003; Nelson and Crider

2005).

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Compared to the turmoil in the highlands, the coast was comparatively placid,

with ceramic designs and decoration as evidence of contact with the interior

highlands but without the abrupt change (Beekman 1996a). There was instead a

notable increase in population and economic diversification, and larger ceremonial

centers were established in at least the Banderas and Tomatlan Valleys (Mountjoy2000, pp. 93–95). The difference is that older intrusive forms of ceremonial

architecture (such as the guachimontones) were replaced by different ones,

including sunken courtyards and small pyramids. In some ways, this period

suggests the beginnings of the reorganization along the coast that characterized the

Early Postclassic.

Postclassic period (A.D. 900–1522)

The Postclassic is widely regarded as a period of continuing aridity, contributing to

the abandonment of the north-central part of Mesoamerica (Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe

and Davies 2007). Population in the Bajıo declined steeply in the Early Postclassic

period (if not earlier, see Filini and Cardenas [2007] for a decline after A.D. 700)

(Fig. 6). Recent research has not added to the handful of sites in Queretaro, eastern

Guanajuato, and southern San Luıs Potosı that show connections to the multiethnic

city of Tula in the Mezquital Valley of Hidalgo (Braniff 1972; Castaneda Lopez

et al. 1988, pp. 327–329, 1989, pp. 40–41, Mapa 5; Crespo 1976; Flores Morales

and Crespo Oviedo 1988). The most prominent of these centers was El Cerrito(Crespo Oviedo 1991b) in southern Queretaro. There imported pottery from Tula,

chacmool and other sculptures, and substantial architectural platforms suggest an

important center and active involvement by Tula in distant areas along the northern

limits of sedentism. After c. A.D. 1100, with a few exceptions along the border with

Michoacan (e.g., Gorenstein et al. 1985; Healan and Hernandez 1999; Wright Carr

1999, p. 84), sedentary populations in Guanajuato either disappeared or became

unrecognizable (Castaneda Lopez et al. 1988, 1989), in spite of paleoclimatological

evidence of wetter conditions and a recovery from the Epiclassic desiccation

(Metcalfe 2006; Metcalfe and Davies 2007; Metcalfe et al. 2007). Southern

Queretaro was largely abandoned as well, but mining support centers such as Ranas

and Toluquilla in the Sierra Gorda of far northern Queretaro may have continued

well into the Postclassic (Mejıa 2005). The ceramic sequence in northern Zacatecas

(Kelley 1971) and radiocarbon dates from certain sectors of La Quemada (Jimenez

Betts and Darling 2000; Trombold 1990) make it clear that although occupation

continued into the Early Postclassic along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre

Occidental, it was not as widespread as previous developments and archaeological

invisibility soon followed.

This collapse of the interior was undoubtedly related to the rise of Pacific Coast

communities. There was much disruption of trade routes in the highlands and along

the coasts (Ramırez Urrea et al. 2005). Earlier trade routes linking Mesoamerica

with the American Southwest had followed the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre

Occidental, but trade in materials like turquoise shifted to a coastal route (e.g.,

Weigand and Garcia de Weigand 2001). The forms of exchange and the existence of

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merchants dedicated to moving goods between Mesoamerica and the Southwest are

points of great debate (see Foster 1999; Kelley 2000), but trade and contact occurred

in some form aided by the rise of coastal communities. From the Tomatlan Valley

on the Jalisco coast north to Sinaloa emerged the Aztatlan complex (Beltran Medina

2004), a term given to a string of towns sharing very similar ceramics and in very

regular contact with one another. Each major river valley had a primary center along

the river and close to the coast, such as Nahuapa in the Tomatla n Valley, Ixtapa in

the Banderas Valley (Mountjoy 1993; Mountjoy et al. 2003), Chacalilla in the San

Blas area (Mountjoy 1970), Amapa on the Rıo Santiago (Meighan 1976), and

smaller centers farther up the coast (Ekholm 1942; Kelly 1938, 1945b). Many of

them had public architecture in the form of pyramids and ball courts. Cemeteries

made a reappearance on the coast at that time (Mountjoy 2000, p. 98).

Mountjoy (2000, p. 96) notes that the location of the Aztatlan centers along rivers

leading to the coast, but not directly on the coast itself, is an indication that both

trade and more intensive floodplain agriculture were being combined into robust

economies (see also Kelley 2000 on trade). He also refers, with varying degrees of

supporting data, to the likely cultivation and exportation of tropical products likecotton and cacao among these sites. Centers farther north on the coast of Sinaloa and

Nayarit may have cultivated tobacco (Mountjoy 2000, p. 96) and collected oysters

(Scott and Foster 2000) for export. Craft production areas are also evident. Amapa,

a Classic period site that grew rapidly at that time, had evidence for copper smelting

Fig. 6 Postclassic sites of western Mexico

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and shell jewelry manufacture (Meighan 1976). Bordaz (1964) studied ceramic kilns

at Penitas, evidence for craft production that is still uncommon across Mesoamerica

and has received very little further attention. M. Ohnersorgen’s (personal

communication, 2007) recent project at Chacalilla in southern Nayarit is directed

toward clarifying this diverse economic activity.Aztatlan-style ceramics extended inland up the Rıo Santiago or Rıo Ameca all

the way to the Laguna Chapala (Bond 1971; Lister 1949; Meighan and Foote 1968)

and presumably beyond, as many have related the elaborate Aztatlan iconography to

the Mixteca-Puebla art style of the central highlands (Ekholm 1942; Smith and

Heath Smith 1980). Hence some highland centers seem to have served as gateways

to areas farther east; this includes the site of Oconahua, whose large tecpan-style

palace is the subject of current excavations (Weigand et al. 2005). High-quality

obsidian from the nearby source of La Joya, intensively mined and administered

from Las Cuevas on the Laguna Magdalena, was transported great distances up anddown the coastal route, based largely on visual identifications (Mountjoy 2000, p.

96; Spence et al. 2002; Weigand and Spence 1989). For the most part, there is

insufficient new research on this period to characterize these trading towns

politically or socially. Recent research at La Pena in the Sayula Basin is an

exception, particularly in the reconstruction of shifting trade networks from

Epiclassic to Early Postclassic (Liot et al. 2006a; Ramırez Urrea et al. 2005, Fig. 1).

The cultural similarities among the Aztatlan sites decline in the Late Postclassic, yet

these linked trading communities continued to grow in population and expand into

new areas until the Spanish conquest (Mountjoy 2000, pp. 100–106).South of the Aztatlan sites and along the Colima coast, the major ceremonial

center of El Chanal covered several square kilometers on the Rıo Colima. The site

consists of public architecture in the form of a ball court, a columned structure, and

several buildings with carved stairways depicting calendrical symbols and the

Mesoamerican rain god and flayed god (Olay Barrientos 1998, 2004b). Copper,

silver, and gold artifacts were numerous in burials here, predictably resulting in

looting. El Chanal ceramically presents a very different picture from the Aztatlan

sites in that its similarities to Early Postclassic Tula suggest more inland contacts

(Kelly 1980; Olay Barrientos 2004b). Given similar claims for isolated evidence for

Teotihuacan along the coast in earlier times (Beltran Medina 1994; Matos and Kelly

1974; Taube 1998), one wonders whether there was a route of communication to

central Mexico via the coast or Rıo Tepalcatepec to the Balsas rather than via the

Rıo Lerma.

Michoacan Early/Middle Postclassic (A.D. 900–1350)

The emergence of the Purepecha (Tarascan) empire in the Postclassic period is a

major process that has received much more archaeological attention recently; it is

the only area in western Mexico where a breakdown into Early/Middle and Late

Postclassic is feasible. Both Tarascan and Purepecha are used to refer to this empire

but neither is satisfactory as Purepecha is properly the name of the language group

and Tarascan is an apparently postconquest term invented by the Spanish.

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Unlike central Mexico, where Spanish efforts to document native culture resulted

in a wealth of ethnohistoric data, western Mexico has fewer surviving records to

guide archaeological research. The most valuable is certainly the Relacio n de

Michoaca n (several new and online editions in Escobar Olmedo [2001 (1541)];

Espejel Carbajal [2009 (1541)]; Mendoza [2000 (1541)]), recorded by a Franciscanbut incorporating the oral histories of Tarascan elites. This remarkable document

describes the origins of the Tarascan state through cycles of internecine warfare

following the movement of migrant Chichimecs from Zacapu south into the

Patzcuaro Basin. These migrants also are referred to as uacu secha, or ‘‘eagles,’’ and

are the ancestors of the royal lineage (Roskamp 2001). Recent analyses of the text

have taken a less literal approach to its contents by delving into the multi-authored

process of creating the text (Stone 2004) and dissecting the imperial charter that it

formed (Haskell 2008). Haskell’s analysis focuses on the native views of power and

authority present within the document, such as the unification of Chichimecmigrants and indigenous Islanders that both created a social totality and established

superior and inferior classes.

The archaeological record for the period of state formation is more complex than

might be gleaned from the story told in the Relacio n and has recently been

summarized in detail (Pollard 2008). Perhaps the single dominant thread throughout

this period is of ethnic and linguistic continuity from the Formative period

Chupıcuaro or Loma Alta populations through the Postclassic. The competing towns

of the Epiclassic (or Late Classic) phases across the Michoacan highlands form the

backdrop for Postclassic developments. Outside the Patzcuaro Basin, major long-term research has been carried out primarily north and northeast of Michoacan. The

earlier Epiclassic increase in exploitation of the Ucareo source continued into the

Early Postclassic, with products from this source at the central Mexican centers of

Tula and Xochicalco (Healan 1998, 2004). But information from the Tula area

indicates that this supply decreased dramatically over the course of the Early

Postclassic Tollan phase (Mastache et al. 2002). Researchers in the Zacapu Basin of

northern Michoacan (Arnauld and Faugere Kalfon 1998; Faugere Kalfon 1996;

Michelet 2001) have noted a major increase in population during the Early

Postclassic, accompanied by a population shift from the lake basin into the defensible

terrain of the surrounding sierra. A remarkable concentration of up to 20,000 people

in an area of 5 km2 was formed in the nearly waterless and barren area of basaltic lava

known as the Malpaıs (Migeon 1998). New forms of architecture included elaborate

columned halls, ballcourts, and monumental platforms, which the excavators have

related to forms from the western Bajıo and Zacatecas. They argue that populations

were moving out of the Bajıo at that time (Michelet et al. 2005), and the interaction

between prior populations and newcomers could have provoked significant disrup-

tions. There may well have been Nahuatl speakers from the Bajıo moving in on

Purepecha speakers at that time, although they were more quickly absorbed into the

population and did not have the impact that earlier migrants had in central Mexico or

central Jalisco. Internal population movement appears more fundamental; the large

populations of the Malpaıs left the area later in the Postclassic (Arnauld and Faugere

Kalfon 1998; Migeon 1998), and another large cluster of settlement located closer to

the Patzcuaro Basin may have been short-lived as well (Pollard 2008).

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The ceramic sequence in the Patzcuaro Basin does not align with that of the

Zacapu project at critical points and is more detailed for the period of Tarascan state

formation in the Early and Middle Postclassic (compare Arnauld and Faugere

Kalfon 1998 with Pollard 2008). The research in the Patzcuaro Basin has had a

strong paleoecological focus, combining landscape studies with excavations at theprovincial sites of Urichu and Erongarıcuaro. A dramatic process of growth brought

the overall estimated population of the basin from 10,000 to 40,000 by A.D. 1350

(Pollard 2008, Fig. 12), doubling in the Early Postclassic Early Urichu phase and

again during the Middle Postclassic Late Urichu phase. During that demographic

expansion, the levels of Lake Patzcuaro dropped to their lowest level until modern

times due to the extreme aridity of the period (Fisher et al. 2003). The growing

population colonized the newly available lands and left themselves extremely

vulnerable to a reversal in lake levels. After A.D. 1100 the lake level rose in

response to climatic shifts or geological activity (Israde Alcantara et al. 2005;Metcalfe et al. 2007), drowning optimum farmland along the lakeshores (Fisher

et al. 2003; see particularly Pollard 2008, Figs. 4, 5). Pollard argues that the

combination of dramatic resource reduction following prior resource abundance and

the existence of competing elites guaranteed the resulting intense conflict between

independent kingdoms as they fought to maintain their resource base (Pollard 1982,

2008; Pollard and Gorenstein 1980). Pollard sees this conflict as leading to

aggressive conquest by those kingdoms most affected by land inundation—

Patzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan, the most important cities of the later empire—and the

formation of the Tarascan state by A.D. 1350. This ‘‘back story’’ to the moreprogrammatic ethnohistoric account exemplifies how such written histories were

politically expedient and formalized versions that are at best fragmentary accounts

of complex processes (Haskell 2008).

Michoacan Late Postclassic (A.D. 1350–1522)

The documentary evidence has long portrayed the Tarascan empire as politically

centralized relative to the Mexica empire. The Tarascan were ruled by a hereditary

king, and a proliferation of lesser nobles held specific positions within a specialized

and hierarchical bureaucracy. Major research in the Late Postclassic has addressed this

picture of a centralized state through considerations of the role of identity within the

empire, the degree to which the state extended its reach over the economy, and the

state’s relationships with polities to the east and west. Many of these topics interrelate.

For example, Pollard and Cahue (1999) contrasted burial offerings from Epiclassic

and Late Postclassic Urichu. While Epiclassic elites followed a more network strategy

(Blanton et al. 1996) and drew upon symbols of elite authority from foreign sources,

the Late Postclassic elites possessed primarily locally produced elite goods that served

as more home-grown symbols of power (Pollard 2000a, b). Urichu had become a less

important center in the Late Postclassic, and these were not the highest royal elites who

monopolized foreign goods. However, the widespread occurrence of artifacts

associated with Tarascan elites speaks to a shared language of material symbols that

helped define elites and the state (Acosta Nieva and Urunuela Ladron de Guevara

1997; Haskell 2008; Pollard 2008).

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Although the evidence from the Urichu burials might suggest that the state was

monopolizing the production of elite symbols of authority (a view consistent with

the ethnohistoric picture of the Tarascan state), current research points to a variety

of relationships between the state and the economy. Pollard emphasizes that the

Late Postclassic Tarascan economy was a dramatic change from the very localeconomies that immediately preceded it. She reconstructs the economy as a hybrid

system whereby tribute in foodstuffs, cloth, and firewood was mobilized from

conquered provinces, but other major resources such as copper and bronze working

and obsidian from the Ucareo mines were state-controlled enterprises (Hirshman

2008; Pollard 1993, 2000a, b, 2008).

Diverse materials show quite different patterns. Copper and bronze production

appears to have been most clearly associated with the state, with political

involvement in the extraction and smelting of copper. Sites in the Balsas area

associated with copper mining are receiving attention now through survey andexcavation (Hosler 1999, 2004b). Maldonado Alvarez’s (2008) study of metal

working in the Zirahuen area of the southern highlands has pointed out that the

chain of discrete production steps involved would have made it easier for the state

to prevent specialists of any one step in manufacture from learning the others.

This may be important when considering the proposed state control over obsidian

production at Ucareo. Darras (2008) has recently cast doubt on the model of state

control of obsidian by examining the social contexts of blade producers in the

Zinaparo-Cerro Varal source over time. According to her analysis, percussion

blade production took place among rural part-time crafts producers living close tothe source material during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic. When population

moved away from the sources to the Malpaıs in the Middle Postclassic, it was the

increased distance from the source and greater population concentration that

necessitated shifts in the consolidation of the chaine d’operatoire and the

beginnings of pressure blade production in Michoacan. She uses this to consider

whether production directly at Ucareo might not have been in local hands even

during the period of Tarascan dominance over the area. The presence of Ucareo

obsidian elsewhere in Mesoamerica did diminish as the area came under Tarascan

control, but this may not reflect direct appropriation (Healan 2004). Surprisingly,

given the exotic nature of Tarascan ceramics and its apparent role in the

construction of Tarascan elite identity, pottery production shows the least

evidence of state control. Hirshman (2008) evaluates issues of labor investment,

intensity of production, standardization, and source clays to conclude that

Tarascan pottery was produced and distributed within a market system without

state involvement.

The expansion of the Tarascan empire and the maintenance of its boundaries

remain important topics. Tarascan military expeditions were directed toward

southern Jalisco, which was held only briefly but sufficiently to be identified

archaeologically through the presence of individuals buried with Tarascan elite

artifacts (Acosta Nieva and Urunuela Ladron de Guevara 1997). More research has

been done along the empire’s eastern border. The frontier in the northeast in

particular appears to have been particularly porous, with various ethnic commu-

nities of Otomı, Matlatzinca, and Nahuatl speakers. That trend has now been pushed

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back in time to the Middle Postclassic with the identification of enclaves of probable

Otomı in the area of the Ucareo obsidian mines prior to Tarascan state formation

(Hernandez and Healan 2008), demonstrating the long history of links between

northeastern Michoacan and the adjoining states of Queretaro, Hidalgo, and Mexico.

These links continued in the last century before the Spanish conquest. The Tarascanand Mexica empires first clashed directly in the mid-15th century in the Toluca

Valley, followed by several later battles that favored first one and then the other

(Pollard 2000b). The frontier between them continues to receive an impressive

amount of research (Brambila Paz 1997, 1998; Hernandez Rivero 1996; Silverstein

2000, 2001, 2002), with analyses of fortifications and considerations of frontier

organization within a large and powerful empire.

Conclusions

Western Mexican research has expended considerable effort on the question of

regional identity. Is it part of Mesoamerica? Is it a cohesive region unto itself? The

answers are becoming clearer even as archaeologists are becoming less interested in

this kind of classificatory exercise. Some of the most important crops of the

Mesoamerican subsistence regime were domesticated in or on the edge of western

Mexico; shared deities, worldview, and rituals are now known beginning in the

Early Formative period; and complex and regional political systems were in place

by an early date. On the other hand, western Mexico itself does not form an integralunit and the crisscrossing ties of interaction cover but do not erase the subregional

differences that are now becoming apparent. My concluding comments therefore

cannot pertain to all parts of western Mexico because each area has different

problems and prospects.

I have proposed four subregions based on separate cultural practices and

pathways that may provide the basis for discussion in future research. The coast is

the most briefly treated here, and it needs more archaeological attention in the

coming years to keep pace with economic development. The region has provided

hints of early social complexity at El Calon and a mixed subsistence base that does

not emphasize agriculture until the Postclassic. These are issues that parallel those

farther south along the Pacific Coast, and fruitful comparisons could be pursued in

the future. The later Aztatlan sites along the coast are an opportunity to study craft

production and exchange in competitive political economies and the conditions

under which complex trading networks form.

The eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental were colonized by agricultural

populations at a later date than other regions and experienced a brief florescence in

the Epiclassic before near abandonment of the region. This is an excellent region in

which to study the interaction of ecology and politics through integrated

archaeological and paleoenvironment studies. This region also has been well

known since at least the 1970s for the profound social role of the postmortem

treatment of human remains. The classic distinction between whether these are

sacrificed captives or venerated ancestors has been pursued with clear relevance,

and comparisons need not be limited to neighboring areas.

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As migration becomes a more serious topic for research in archaeology, the

Epiclassic in western Mexico possesses great potential for theoretical, not culture-

historical, analysis. Unlike other archaeological examples of migration, this area

possesses rich and confusing documentary accounts, detailed linguistic evidence,

and a growing body of skeletal and genetic data that can be integrated to considerthe topics of migration, ethnic identity, political instability, economic restructuring,

and climate change.

The highlands and Bajıo together include complex societies that differed from

those elsewhere in Mesoamerica, and research has begun to emphasize those

differences rather than try to force them into a mold of what Mesoamerican

polities ‘‘should’’ look like. The Teuchitlan tradition or culture emerged in a

social environment that emphasized ancestral ties to place, where it may have

been impossible for any one family to monopolize social capital and establish a

centralized kingship as in other areas of Mesoamerica. Research on the originsof this political system should be of high priority in the coming years while such

sites still exist. The Tarascan empire was the most complex political system to

have emerged in western Mexico, and it also contributes to an understanding of

the diversity in imperial societies. The creation of a privileged political elite

identity through material culture is a frequent theme worldwide, but the state’s

ambivalent control over the ceramics that formed a central part of that identity

invites deeper study and comparison. On the other hand, how was the Tarascan

state able to establish control over some parts of the economy in contrast with

the famously ‘‘hands-off’’ policy usually pursued by the Aztecs? Ten years ago Iwould have answered that the Tarascan state did not have to negotiate and

engage with prior complex societies the way the Aztec did, but the highland

polities of the preceding Classic and Early Postclassic are increasingly difficult

to ignore.

When writing in 1997, Pollard told us not to use the western Mexican data only to

answer central Mexican questions, but to focus on problems of relevance to western

Mexico. I would modify that statement today and say that we must pursue questions of

interest that also are relevant elsewhere. Teuchitlan is not Teotihuacan, and the

Tarascans are not the Aztecs. But by understanding these examples in their own

unique social and historical context and showing how they are relevant to other

research, we help sustain the more invigorated west Mexican research of recent

decades.

Acknowledgments I express my appreciation to Gary Feinman and Douglas Price for their invitation

to write this article and for their patience. Linda Nicholas helpfully guided me through the editorial

process. Space does not allow me to thank each of the region’s researchers who graciously provided

vitaes and lists of their publications, but all were of great help. I ask their forgiveness for those works

that were left out for reasons of space. David Grove, Ben Nelson, Helen Pollard, and the anonymous

reviewers did an excellent job of identifying weaknesses or imbalances in the presentation, and I hope

that I have responded effectively to their comments. Special thanks go to Achim Lelgemann for sharinghis existing bibliography of northwest Mexico, to Melissa Logan for her art catalog bibliography, to

Angeles Olay Barrientos and Helen Pollard for their lists of articles in two hard-to-find journals, and to

Fernando Gonzalez for sharing Ana Maria Crespo’s bibliography of the Bajıo region. Any errors

remain my own.

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