Early Animal Use in Rural New Spain: Comparing Trends and Practices in Sixteenth- to Seventeenth-Century Indigenous and Spanish Settlements from Michoacán, Northwestern Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The massive introduction of European animals in what is today Mexico started in 1519 and historical documents attest for the rapid spread of livestock, in particular cattle, in the vast plains of the Altiplano that helped colonize the lands. Yet, there is a lack of material evidence to understand better the husbandry practices and the reactions of the local populations toward these new animals. So far, most of the archaeological evidence has been obtained from urban centers, which tend to concentrate the Spanish population. But a recent archaeological project on the rural settlements of Northern Michoacán has allowed us to obtain new zooarchaeological data combined with fine-tuned cultural, social, and historical contexts. Here we compare two sites, only distant of ca. 50 km: Cuarum, an Indigenous village built on the northern shore of the lake of Zacapu, and an isolated Spanish building on the southern bank of the Lerma river registered as site PA1. Radiocarbon dating and ceramic typo-chronology indicate that both sites were occupied between 1560 and 1650. In Cuarum, local and introduced European fauna have been consumed in small quantities. In PA1, several thousands of bone remains suggest the large-scale processing of animal bodies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39925.0