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Central Places and Cities: A Consideration of the Protohistoric Tarascan State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Helen Perlstein Pollard
Helen Perlstein Pollard*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Plattsburgh, New York 12901
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Abstract

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

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 677 - 696
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980

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