Tres Cerritos

Tres Cerritos, "three little hills," is an archaeological site on the lakeshore plain just east of Cuitzeo, named for its three main mounds. It is one of the few sites in the Lake Cuitzeo basin that has been dug systematically, in nine field seasons between 1984 and 1994 led by archaeologist Angelina Macías Goytia, and much of what is known about the region's past comes from it.

Archaeologists found two main periods. First it was a ceremonial center of the local Cuitzeo culture, with low platforms of earth and stone arranged around plazas; some walls and pottery copy Teotihuacan styles, probably as a status symbol of the local elite. Long after it was abandoned, groups tied to the Purépecha (Tarascan) empire came back and used the ruins as a cemetery, burying their dead in the fallen walls.

The tombs are the highlight: chambers set toward the four cardinal directions around a central hall. One held thousands of beads of shell, jade, turquoise and rock crystal. Excavations recovered the remains of more than 120 people in total.