The Environmental Conquest of West Mexico: The Lake Pátzcuaro and Malpaso Valley Case Studies

Summary

Though the next century will bring great environmental challenges the impact of global warming pales in comparison to the dramatic environmental changes associated with European Colonialism, beginning in the late 15th century.

Chief among them is the Conquest of the Americas involving the breakdown of millennial-aged systems of land engineering and tenure, compounded by depopulation, and the introduction of the Euro-agro suite. Throughout Central Mexico the initial century of Conquest Europeanized the landscape limiting subsequent landuse to an adapted Mediterranean-style system of extensive agriculture and pastoralism.

Here we explore the environmental implications of these changes – pre and post conquest – for two disparate regions of Mesoamerica, the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, and the Malpaso Valley, Zacatecas. I will also demonstrate how the Post Colonial and modern landscape are products of this critical transition, and suggest future implications for conservation and global change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Environmental Rebound in the Protohistoric Americas: Untangling Cause and Effect

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16320