Trifter

The Lake Patzcuaro Basin was the geopolitical centre of their territory with a dense population, centralized settlement systems, engineered environment and a socially stratified society. 

Aerial view of Apúpato.  Source

According to Christopher Fisher, lead investigator and archaeologist at Colorado State University, because of the relatively unsettled nature of the location, it provides a glimpse at how the Lake Patzcuaro Basin looked in the past.  The villages would have contained a number of buildings and a small population of specialized people from the elite class such as priests.

The island provides evidence of 2,000 years of continuous occupation, climate change and a highly engineered environment.  Sixteen settlements were found and the whole island was covered in agricultural terraces, sections of land two metres wide with an earthen wall and a ditch on ether side, possibly used predominantly for growing agave. 

View of Pre-Hispanic terraces on Apúpato.  Source

The earliest settlement period on the island known as the Classic-Middle Potclassic period is  dated from around 300 – 1350 AD and had a population of about 100 – 200 people distributed over five settlements.  The next settlement period, the late Potclassic period from 1350 – 1520 saw the population rise to between 300 – 420 people within eight settlements.  For the third period, the Early Colonial period, population estimates are not possible due to a low density of cultural materials such as ceramics and a limited understanding of land use and settlement habits from the period.    

Among the ruins of the island was a square structure believed to have been a treasury.  Next to that, a small pyramid was found with large open rooms that archaeologists believe would have been ideal for ritualistic activities.

Small pyramid associated with the Purepecha ritual house.  Source

Pipe fragments were also found in the pyramid that resemble those previously found depicted on Spanish scrolls that show people smoking pipes and drinking pulque, a drink made from agave, a crop used for alcoholic beverages such as tequila and syrup. 

The scrolls also show ritual treasury caches dedicated to specific gods, and used according to Fisher to finance activities like warfare.  A colonial church built in the early sixteenth century and within the first twenty years of the arrival of the Spanish was also discovered on the island.

As Apupato was an island, and therefore had limited access, it can give a more preserved example of the pre-Hispanic landscape compared to other parts of the lake basin district and give a clearer view of the function of he land before European settlement.  The team of archaeologists intend to return in the summer of 2009 to conduct further investigation of the area.