Cities on the Move across Northwestern Mesoamerica: Contribution by Dominique Michelet

Summary

The paper aims at enhancing the contribution by Dominique Michelet and his teams to the knowledge of sedentism and urbanization on the northern and northwestern fringes of Mesoamerica (mainly San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Mexico). Distinct processes of mobility, migration and agglomeration developed in those regions, in particular with reversibility of sedentary life related to multiple factors, among which climatic and agrarian cycles are only partly known so far. Specific community organizations were plausibly experiencied through a series of ‘transformative relocations’ (Nelson et al.). The latter would have produced Postclassic urban capitals like Tula, Hidalgo, as well as ‘pre-Tarascan’ and ‘Tarascan’ large and compact settlements like Milpillas, and Malpais Prieto, (Malpais de Zacapu, Michocacan). Michelet brought up detailed results of fieldwork explorations combined with acute perception of broad environmental, subsistance and cultural changes on a Mesoamerican scale.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20271