ABSTRACT
The slighting of a major high culture of West Mexico, the Tarascan, appears to be a result of mistakenly thinking that Mesoamerican studies are based on geography rather than theory. The complete number of settlements, their distribution, and their population were unknown for the Lake Patzcuaro Basin during the period of Tarascan florescence. Orange or beige bands and hatched lines were considered to be formal roads and dotted lines in black were considered trails or routes that were known from one settlement to another, even though they might not have been trafficked heavily. Guanimao is identified as Santiago Arameo, east of Coenembo and Huyramangaro is considered to be in the vicinity of the present-day settlement of Huirmangaro. Knowledge of Early Hispanic settlements' population size and function would enable comparison with population size and function of settlements of the two modern periods whose locations were all known.
