The Spanish Conquest in the Petatlán Region, Sinaloa: Landscape Use and Social Reorganization

This study analyzes 92 Contact and Proto-Colonial period sites (a.d. 1536–1700), documented between 2011 and 2013 in the Petatlán region of northern Sinaloa, to evaluate how Indigenous communities reorganized under 16th and 17th century a.d. Spanish colonization. Ethnohistorical accounts indicate that Spanish and Jesuit administration meant a complex reorganization process for Indigenous populations, one that was actively negotiated and contested by communities resettling marginal landscapes. Monte Carlo spatial modeling and rank-size correlation analysis show that post-Contact settlement patterns were multi-causally driven, prioritizing both subsistence and security within a decentralized organizational structure. This configuration reflects a resilience-based strategy through which Indigenous communities absorbed and contested colonial pressures. The widespread presence of San Miguel ceramics, characterized by organic temper, provides a chronological and technological marker linking these settlement patterns to early missionization contexts.