THE ROLE OF LATE PRE-CONTACT COLONIAL ENCLAVES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POSTCLASSIC UCAREO VALLEY, MICHOACAN, MEXICO

According to ethnohistoric sources, northeastern Michoacan became incorporated into the eastern frontier of the Tarascan empire during the mid-1400s. At that time, the region was multiethnic in character, with enclaves of foreigners living within communities as well as making up whole communities. Recent investigation in the Ucareo-Zinapecuaro source area uncovered evidence of an earlier foreign enclave consisting of two settlements in the Ucareo Valley whose ceramics are distinct from those of neighboring sites while indistinguishable from those of Epiclassic Huamango in the Acambay region of the Toluca Basin. The implications of these data alongside Ucareo obsidian exploitation and its role in the construction of the Protohistoric Tarascan–Aztec frontier are considered along with the results of preliminary chronometric dating.