West Mexico gets less archaeological attention than Central Mexico, the land of the Aztecs. Among other reasons to regret the deficit is that, during the last generations before the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs (1519–1521), the Tarascans, in the west, developed methods of centralised government and imperialism quite unlike those of the Aztecs. Forest argues that El Palacio was the predecessor to the Tarascans’ first capital. Following her helpful introduction, she and eight colleagues report on the history of research here, the historical topography and finds. El Palacio is a strictly technical but most rewarding state-of-the-art review.
‘The Palace’ first came to archaeologists’ attention in the 1890s, when Carl Lumholtz and Aleš Hrdlička, with reference to historical sources, interpreted the notched human long bones discovered there by Lumholtz as musical instruments. Later, Alfonso Caso cut test-pits, and further limited investigations began to indicate El Palacio's features and date. Led by Dominique Michelet, close study of the rough landscape to three sides began in 1983, and some other sites were excavated nearby. More detailed survey and sondages demonstrated that El Palacio was founded in the 800s, grew from about 1250 and then flourished for about 150 years.
El Palacio ignores the puzzle of the site's location. Although El Palacio overlooks a valley with a lake (largely drained c. 1900), it occupies the corner of a lava field (malpaís, badland). The surveys showed that El Palacio is one of four settlements there. Resort to the malpaís has been interpreted earlier as either a response to rising population density, perhaps a consequence of a rise in the lake, or else, in reference to a legend of migration, a matter of defence. El Palacio's lava dates from about the second century BC. Soil would have formed but malpaís remained. Forest and colleagues have shown that this was probably the longest occupied and most developed of the four sites, with platforms, pyramids and two of the ball courts typical of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica's ceremonial centres.
Following chapters on the history of research, including extensive but compactly presented detail of the more recent sondages, Forest assesses El Palacio's extent and describes the earthworks with compelling lidar plans. Extensive terracing was needed to make the ground habitable, but the eponymous platform or acropolis remains to be studied in detail. Almost 250 small mounds have been identified as housing. The first chapters on the finds are a tour de force led by Elsa Jadot on ceramics (pots, whorls, smoking pipes, probable flutes and ocarinas, figurines and personal ornaments) and a little metalwork. Seriation, sources of fabric and remarkably detailed revelation of chaînes opératoires are summed up with very efficient and effective drawings, photographs and tables. The same qualities distinguish Véronique Darras's report on the obsidian artefacts. Refining her previous deductions, she shows that, supplied increasingly from quarries in the district, output grew and that prismatic blades were produced from c. 1150. Aurélie Manin reports very clearly and concisely on the animal bones (hardly any fish) with revealing taphonomic assessments, and poses questions about the development and sociology of diet. Gregory Pereira, building, like Darras, on previous publications, describes most of Lumholtz's worked bones in detail, helped, again, by excellent charts and diagrams, with large drawings to aid comparison from elsewhere (but without scales). He too deduces chaînes opératoires for manufacture, playing and, with implications for the kinds of person that may have owned such distinctive instruments, curation. He assesses the various sounds that they could have made—recommending experimentation. Then, with Isaac Barrientos, he reports on cremated human bone: most of the older data on context are vague, but there was considerable variety of treatment. One well-preserved skeleton is illustrated and examined minutely to assess whether it was burnt by accident or in the kind of roasting alive attested for the Aztecs. Then, to address the legend of migration, C.S. Ragsdale counts 31 morphological traits of teeth from 54 of the human skulls collected by Lumholtz. He concludes that, with affinities to Central and southern Mexico, they were quite unlike those from Tingambato, 40km away, seven or eight centuries earlier.
Summing these discoveries up, Forest confirms colleagues’ prior deduction that El Palacio was a seat of aristocrats. The implication for further survey is obvious, especially in the valley; but, for the site itself, she rightly recommends that the putative housing should be investigated further. As reported more fully elsewhere, it forms distinct clusters or segments. That quality marks every aspect of Mesoamerican organisation and it always begs questions, in towns, as to how they cohered. It was in their management of large populations that the Tarascans seem to have broken the Mesoamerican mould. If that affected urban life directly, the sites most likely still to preserve the prior conditions are, on present evidence, first Ihuatzio and then El Palacio.
El Palacio is valuable for specialists on West Mexico, but such readable and well-illustrated examples of so many methods and techniques would be highly satisfying for others too. The balance of content and the chapters’ lengths and level of detail are very nicely judged. Be warned, however: newcomers to Mexico would find little on the broader context; much of the content depends on previous output of the same projects over the past 30 years (read on), including unpublished dissertations; and, while the introduction, conclusion and two other chapters are in English, the rest is Spanish. Then the text is so poorly edited that, in places, some prior grounding is needed to make sense of it. No doubt, Archaeopress's admirable Access Archaeology programme was chosen for easy dissemination (digital copies free of charge). El Palacio is number 53 (following three others on the same sequence of investigations) of the Paris Monographs in American Archaeology, published by Archaeopress and BAR. Flaws (and politics) regardless, it is another proof of France's very substantial contribution to research on Mesoamerica.
