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The Political Economy of Prehispanic Tarascan Metallurgy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Helen Perlstein Pollard
Helen Perlstein Pollard*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1118
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Abstract

Tarascan metallurgy was not only a complex technology, but a significant marker of elite social status and a major source of wealth for the ruling dynasty. Reanalysis of ethnohistoric material, when coupled with new cartographic and archaeological data, provides insight into the structure and role of copper, silver, and gold production in the Protohistoric Tarascan State. The increasing political centralization of the Tarascan State in the last century before European contact resulted in the emergence of new forms of exploitation of mineral resources, tempered by the technological and transport constraints of a prehispanic civilization.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , October 1987 , pp. 741 - 752
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1987

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References

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