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THE “LAND OF FISH”: RECONSTRUCTING THE ANCIENT AQUATIC LIFEWAY IN MICHOACÁN, WESTERN MEXICO

Abstract This article deals with the cultural activities linked to subsistence in aquatic environments (fishing, hunting, gathering, and manufacture) in Michoacán from ca. a.d. 1540 to the present. First, I present an ethnohistorical account of aquatic landscapes and resources based on the major written sources from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Second, I discuss the extant ethnographic information about subsistence activities in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (Michoacán) during the twentieth century. Finally, I discuss the archaeological implications of all the information presented here, through an ethnoarchaeological analysis of the subsistence strategies and the material culture associated with the aquatic lifeway in the study area. The main goal of this study is to provide bridging arguments for the reconstruction and interpretation (through analogy) of the archaeological assemblages associated with production and consumption activities in aquatic landscapes within the Tarascan region and elsewhere in Mesoamerica.