Caránguirio. First approaches to a rock station Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán

Abstract

The site of our study has roughly 500 petroglyphs and is located in the vicinity of the ancient city of Uricho. The designs match two different periods; the first ones, very similar to the Tarascan style, must date to the Postclassic period (A.D. 1300-1500), while the second ones, associated with names and dates in the Roman alphabet, belong to the 20th and 21st centuries. Thanks to ethnological work, we collected several contemporary stories that relate the rock engravings to the era of the ancient giants. The site, “The Place of Writing,” is today regarded as a place where forest spirits might appear, where it is possible to adopt non-civilized behavior, and where past and present merge. In summary, this paper shows the existence of a certain degree of cultural continuity between the petroglyphs at Carángirio’s and stories relatedto it.