Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:40:51.145Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intensive agriculture and socio-political development in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Christopher T. Fisher ,
Helen P. Pollard  and
Charles Frederick
Christopher T. Fisher
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 53706-1393, USA
Helen P. Pollard
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824, USA
Charles Frederick
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology & Prehistory, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Intensive agriculture played a pivotal role in the development of archaic states, but there is considerable debate concerning its relationship to population growth, climatic variability, and centralization.

Keywords

landscapesintensive agricultureTarascanwetland agricultureclimate changeWest Mexico
Type
Special section
Information
Antiquity , Volume 73 , Issue 281 , September 1999 , pp. 642 - 649
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boserup, E. 1965. The conditions of agricultural growth: the economics of agrarian change under population pressure. Chicago (IL): Aldine.Google Scholar
Boserup, E. 1981. Population and technological change: a study of long-term trends. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, E. 1976. Regional growth in the eastern Valley of Mexico: a test of the ‘population pressure’ hypothesis, in Flannery, K.V. (ed.), The early Mesoamerican village: 234–49. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, E. & Earle, T. (ed.) 1987. Specialization, exchange, and complex societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chacon, A.T. 1993. El Lago de Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, México. bosque limnológico de un lago amenazado. Morelia: Universidad Michoacana.Google Scholar
Chambers, R. 1980. Basic concepts in the organization of irrigation, in Coward, W.E. Jr (ed.), Irrigation and agricultural development in Asia: perspectives from the social sciences: 28–50. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
D’Altroy, T. & Earle, T.. 1985. State finance, wealth finance, and storage in the Inka political economy, Current Anthropology 26:187–206.Google Scholar
Dalan, R.A. & Bannerjee, S.K.. 1998. Solving archaeological problems using techniques of soil magnetism, Geoarchaeology 13: 3–36.Google Scholar
Doolittle, W. 1990. Canal irrigation in pre-historic Mexico: the sequence of technological change. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Erickson, C.L. 1993a. The social organization of prehispanic raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin, in Scarborough, & Isaac, (ed.): 367–424.Google Scholar
Erickson, C.L. 1993b. Archaeological methods for the study of ancient landscapes of the LLanos de Mojos in the Bolivian Amazon, in Stahl, P. (ed.), Archaeology in the American tropics: current analytical method and applications: 1–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Erickson, C.L. 1994. Methodological considerations in the study of ancient Andean field systems, in Miller, N. & Gleason, K. (ed.), The archaeology of garden and field: 111–53. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennslyvania Press.Google Scholar
Feinman, G.M., Kowalewski, S., Finstein, L., Blanton, R. & Nicholas, L.. 1985. Long-term demographic change: a perspective from the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, Journal of Field Archaeology 12: 333–62.Google Scholar
Fisher, C.T. 1999. Tariacuri’s or Vasco de Quiroga’s mess? Prehistoric empire building, colonialism, and the Western Mexican landscape. Paper presented at the 64th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Chicago.Google Scholar
Foster, G.M. & Ospina, G.. 1948. Empire’s children: the people of Tzintzuntzan. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Graffam, G. 1992. Beyond state collapse: raised fields and pastoral finanace in the south Andes, American Anthropologist 94: 882–904.Google Scholar
Kolata, A. (ed.). 1996. Tiwanaku and its hinterland: archaeology and paleoecology of an Andean civilization. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Kowalewski, S.A., Feinman, G.M., Finstein, L., Blanton, R. & Nicholas, L.. 1989. Monte Albán’s hinterland, part II: prehispanic settlement patterns in Tlacolula, Etla, and Ocotlan, the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Museum. Memoir 23.Google Scholar
Matheny, R.T. & Garr, D.. 1983. Variation in prehispanic agricultural systems of the New World, Annual Review of Anthropology 12: 79–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metcalfe, S.E., Street-Perrott, F.A., Brown, R.B., Hales, P.E., Perrott, R.A. & Steininger, F.M.. 1989. Late Holocene human impacts on lake basins in Central Mexico, Geo-archaeology 4: 119–41.Google Scholar
Michelet, D. 1992. El centro-norte de Michoacán: características generales de su estudio arqueológico regional, in Michelet, D. (ed.), El proyecto Michoacán 1983–1987: medio ambiente e introducción a los trabajos arqueoiógicos: 12–46. Mexico (DF): Centre d’Études Mexicaines et Centraméricaines.Google Scholar
Nichols, D.L. & Frederick, C.D.. 1993. Irrigation canals and Chinampas: recent research in the northwest Basin of Mexico, in Scarborough, & Isaac, (ed.): 123–51.Google Scholar
O’Hara, S. 1993. Historical evidence of fluctuations in the level of Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico, over the last 600 years, Geographical Journal 159: 51–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Hara, S., Metcalfe, S. & Street-Perrot, A.. 1994. On the arid margin: the relationship between climate, humans, and the environment. A review of evidence from the highlands of Central Mexico, Chemosphere 29: 965–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Hara, S.L., Street-Perrott, F.A. & Burt, T.P.. 1993. Accelerated soil erosion around a Mexican highland lake caused by Prehispanic agriculture, Nature 363: 48–51.Google Scholar
Palerm, A., & Wolf, E.R.. 1957. Ecological potential and cultural development in Mesoamerica, Pan American Union Social Science Monograph 3: 1–37.Google Scholar
Parsons, J., Parsons, M., Poper, V. & Taft, M.. 1985. Chinampa agriculture and Aztec urbanization in the Valley of México, in Farrington, I.S. (ed.), Prehistoric intensive agriculture in the Tropics: 49–96. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 232.Google Scholar
Pollard, H.P. 1993. Tariacuri’s legacy, the prehispanic Tarascan State. Norman (OK): University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Pollard, H.P. 1995. Estudio del surgimiento del Estado Tarasco: investigaciones recientes, in Williams, E. & Weigand, P.C. (ed.), Arqueología del Occidente y Norte de México: 29–65. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán.Google Scholar
Pollard, H.P. 1997. Recent research in West Mexican archeology, Journal of Archaeological Research 5: 345–84.Google Scholar
Pollard, H.P. 1998. Emergence of the Tarascan State: the Urichu, Xaracuaro, and Pareo polities. Unpublished report to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University Google Scholar
Price, T.D. & Feinman, G.M. (ed.). 1995. Foundations of social inequality. New York (NY): Plenum Google Scholar
Sanders, W.T., Parsons, J.R. & Santley, R.S.. 1979. The Basin of Mexico: ecological processes in the evolution of a civilization. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Scarborough, V. 1991. Water management adaptations in nonindustrial complex societies: an archaeological perspective, in Schiffer, M. (ed.), Archaeological method and theory 3: 101–54. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Scarborough, V. & Isaac, B. (ed.). 1993. Economic aspects of water management in the New World. Greenwich (CT): JAI Press. Research in Economic Anthropology Supplement 7.Google Scholar
Sluyter, A. 1994. Intensive wetland agriculture in Mesoamerica: space, time, and form, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84: 557–84.Google Scholar
Stanish, C. 1994. The hydraulic hypothesis revisited: Lake Titicaca Basin raised fields in theoretical perspective, Latin American Antiquity 5: 312–32.Google Scholar
Street-Perrott, F.A., Perrott, R.A. & Harkness, D.D.. 1989. Anthropogenic soil erosion around Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, during the Preclassic, Late Postclassic, and Hispanic Periods, American Antiquity 54: 759–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M., Long, A., Kra, R.S. & Devine, J.M.. 1993. Calibration, Radiocarbon 35: 1.Google Scholar
Turner, B.L., Hanham, R.Q. & Portararo, A.V.. 1977. Population pressure and agricultural intensity, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67: 384–96.Google Scholar
West, R. 1948. Cultural geography of the modern Tarascan area. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution. Institute of Social Anthropology publication 7.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, K. 1957. Oriental despotism. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, H.T. (1984). Prestate political formations, in Earle, T. (ed.), On the evolution of complex societies: essays in honor of Harry Hoijer. 41–77. Malibu (CA): Undena Publications.Google Scholar