Daily Life

The climate of the region in which Chupícuaro is located is temperate with dry winters and summers (Board of Regents). In order to gather food throughout seasonal changes in weather and the availability of various plants and animals, the inhabitants would have adhered to a set of seasonal hunting, gathering, and planting activities (Weaver 6-7). The staple Mesoamerican crops of corn, squash, and beans were almost certainly grown at Chupícuaro (Weaver 8), an assessment partially based on the presence of manos and metates (Porter 522)used to grind corn into flour. Other common Mesoamerican crops that may have been cultivated at Chupícuaro included chili peppers (Weaver 6-7). Within the habitats surrounding Chupícuaro, deer and small game were available (7). Stone tools and other weapons were found among the Chupícuaro burials, including crescent shaped, ornamental finger loops for atlatls (spear throwers) (8). However, such tools are not frequent among the burials (8), suggesting that hunting was a relatively minor food source, most weapons were perishable, and/or hunting was not a strongly valued skill. Chupícuaro buildings were likely wattle and daub[1] houses with clay floors and stone lined drains (Weaver 8; Williams par. 1), with monumental architecture and platform houses in evidence at sites within the Darras and Faugère excavations (Darras and Faugère, “Proyecto” 4). These excavations also confirm the population’s roles as farmers, hunters, fishermen, and potters (Darras and Faugère, “Chupícuaro”, par. 21). 

The area’s architecture included square and circular spaces, including sunken patios and platforms forming monumental architecture and domestic spaces (Darras and Faugère, “Proyecto” 4). The sunken patios are composed of “platforms built of fill[2] encased by stone walls and with a room arranged in the center” (Bichet 32). Circular platforms are associated with the earlier period, 400 - 300 BC, while square platforms were found at 200 – 100 BC (32). Using geophysical survey to identify the sites with well-preserved architecture, the project found circular architecture, platforms, and shaft tombs with their associated funerary practices beginning in 500 BC (Darras and Faugère, “Proyecto” 4; Darras and Faugère, “Chupícuaro”, par. 14). These establish a direct link to the practices of West Mexico from this time (Darras and Faugère, “Proyecto” 4). Sunken patios, however, are unknown in Mesoamerica, associated instead with the American Southwest (Darras and Faugère, “Chupícuaro” par. 16). The project found no clear signs of contact with the Central Mexico prior to the second century BC (abstract). Alongside these features, magnetic survey revealed linear basalt walls, but could not detect housing structures, indicating that they were built of magnetically undetectable materials such as adobe of silt and clay (Bichet 32).

Chupícuaro ideology is more difficult to decipher. Many of the burials at Chupícuaro include trophy skulls, painted and perforated cut skulls, headless skeletons, and skull burials (“Appendix” 81-92), but their meaning is unclear. In various publications, Porter contradictorily  suggested that they signaled violence (Weaver 8) or rather that “since there is no evidence of large-scale warfare in Mesoamerica until post-Classic times, and there is nothing in Chupicuaro culture suggestive of a bellicose people, one wonders whether these practices did not deal with some religious concept, rather than treatment of an enemy” (Porter 534)..

Based on the similarities between the iconography found on Chupícuaro ceramics and those of the US Southwest, McBride posits that a northern outpost of Chupícuaro was “the source of the first painted wares introduced into the Hohokam and Mogollan, and in view of the ceremonial significance of the pottery layout … it may well be that the associated concepts of cosmology and ceremonialism were introduced at the same time” (McBride 41). The concept of inter-regional religious concepts would also explain the exchange of figurines and decorated ceramic vessels, which, especially in the case of figurines, are most often found in religious centers, ceremonial centers, and burials (McBride 34-37, 41, 43, 45). Chupícuaro and Chupícuaro-style ceramics and figurines were found throughout Central Mexico, in regions far beyond the immediate vicinity of the site, therefore providing evidence for common belief system components (likely with significant regional variation), as well as sophisticated systems of exchange, throughout Chupícuaro’s trans-Mesoamerican sphere of influence (33-44, 45).

The appearance of Chupícuaro-style artifacts in other regions also suggests the political system of the Chupícuaro interaction sphere. Such continuity of style between regions does not often stem from migration or idea diffusion (McBride 44). Identical artifacts seldom appear in areas of relocation of migrant populations, while copies by outside groups generally vary from their original ideals (44). Instead, such continuity is produced by a “cultural unit of some stability” (44) –either from a region that is culturally and perhaps ethnically homogenous in its iconography and technical knowledge, or else trade networks that disperse artifacts from a single source (44-45). Either scenario requires cultural stability and perhaps centralization (44-45). The source of shared identity across a politically unified area can be political, religious, ethnic, or cultural, leaving many possible routes for the creation of such a network (44-45).

The “amalgamation of ethnic groups” (McBride 45), most likely the “fusion between a foreign and an indigenous strain” (45) is one hypothesis. Another explanation for widespread identical pottery traditions is a single city of manufacture from which works are spread through trade networks (45). Such a system of trade for staples and luxury goods existed with the Aztecs (45). The presence of Valley of Mexico style figurines in Chupícuaro and vice versa suggests that a smaller scale network of this type did exist between the two areas (45). Such a system need only include a few potter families who specialized in figurine production (45). This would be enough to explain the number of ceramics found in known archaeological contexts. If we assume that one family makes 30 figurines per day, they would make 1 million per 100 years, or over three million in the time that Chupícuaro was at its height (45).