Archaeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes *
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Country	Mexico
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iii, iv
Reference	560
Region **	Latin America and the Caribbean
Inscription history
Inscription	1998 (22nd Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO

Casas Grandes (Spanish for Great Houses; also known as Paquimé) is the contemporary name given to a pre-Columbian archaeological zone and its central site, located in northwestern Mexico in the modern-day Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is one of the largest and most complex sites in the region. Developed as multi-storied dwellings about 1350 CE after earlier settlement beginning after 1130 CE, the community was abandoned approximately 1450 CE. Regarded as one of the most significant archaeological zones in the northwestern region,^[1] Casas Grandes is located in a wide, fertile valley on the Casas Grandes or San Miguel River, 35 miles (56 km) south of Janos and 150 miles (240 km) northwest of the state capital, the city of Chihuahua. The settlement relied on irrigation to support its agriculture. Casas Grandes has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The archaeological zone is contained within the eponymous modern municipio (municipality) of Casas Grandes.^[2] The valley and region have been inhabited by indigenous groups for thousands of years.

Pre-Columbian culture[link]

Map of major prehistoric Archaeological Cultures

Casas Grandes pot found in the ruins of Paquimé; held at Stanford University

Casas Grandes jar found in the ruins of Paquimé; now at Stanford University

Paquimé artifact

Casas Grandes artifact

Between CE 1130 and 1300, the area's inhabitants began to congregate in small settlements in this wide fertile valley. The largest identified settlement is known today as Paquimé or Casas Grandes. It began as a group of 20 or more house clusters, each with a plaza and enclosing wall. These single-story adobe dwellings shared a common water system. Evidence shows that Paquimé had a complex water control system that included underground drain systems, reservoirs, channels for water to get to the homes, and a sewage system.^[3]

After being burned about 1340, Casas Grandes was rebuilt with multi-story apartment buildings to replace the small buildings. Casas Grandes consisted of about 2,000 adjoining rooms built of adobe, I-shaped Mesoamerican ballcourts, stone-faced platforms, effigy mounds, a market area. About 350 other, smaller settlement sites have been found in the Casas Grandes area, some as far as 70 kilometers (39 miles) away. Archaeolgists believe that the area directly controlled by Casas Grandes was relatively small, extending out about 30 km (18 miles) from the city.^[4] The population may have been about 2,500 in Casas Grandes and perhaps 10,000 living within its area of control.^[5]

Specialized craft activities included the production of copper bells and ornaments, extensive pottery, and beads from marine molluscs. These crafts were probably distributed by an extensive trading network. Casas Grandes pottery has a white or reddish surface, with ornamentation in blue, red, brown or black. It is sometimes considered of better manufacture than the modern pottery in the area. Effigy bowls and vessels were often formed in the shape of a painted human figure. Casas Grandes pottery was traded among prehistoric peoples as far north as present-day New Mexico and Arizona and throughout northern Mexico.

The archeologist Stephen Lekson has noted that Paquimé is aligned on roughly the same longitudinal axis as Chaco Canyon and Aztec, with an error of only a few miles. Chaco reached its cultural peak first, then Aztec and Paquimé. The similarities among these sites may indicate that their ruling elites also had a ceremonial connection. They may have moved from one site to the next.^[6]

Archeological ruins[link]

At the time of the Spanish Conquest, the district of Casas Grandes was studded with artificial mounds, from which looters took numerous stone axes, metates or corn-grinders, and earthenware pottery vessels of various kinds.

Before significant archaeological investigation, sizable portions of buildings from pre-Columbian times were extant about half a mile from the modern community. The ruins were built of sun-dried blocks of mud and gravel, about 22 inches thick, and of irregular length, generally about 3 feet (0.91 m), probably formed and dried in place. The thick walls seem to have been plastered both inside and outside. A principal structure extended 800 feet (240 m) from north to south, and 250 feet (76 m) east to west. It was generally rectangular, and appears to have consisted of three separate units joined by galleries or lines of lower buildings.

The homes at Paquimé were circular and semi-circular pit houses and coursed-adobe room blocks built around plazas. The living spaces varied in size from closet-sized to extensive courtyards. Walls at many of the angles stand 40 to 50 feet (15 m) high, and indicate an original elevation of up to six or seven stories. Ruins about 450 feet (140 m) from the main grouping consist of a series of rooms ranged round a square court, seven rooms to each side with a larger apartment at each corner.

The settlement featured T-shaped doorways and stone disks at the bottom of ceiling support columns, both distinctive of Pueblan architecture. Casas Grandes had ballcourts, though they were relatively small compared to other major sites. ^[7]

A 5000-pound iron meteorite was found in one of the rooms, carefully wrapped in linen. The meteorite is displayed in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.^[8]

Excavations in one compound produced eggshell fragments, bird skeletons and traces of wooden perches. Archeologists concluded that the community raised scarlet macaws, which feathers were sacred and important in Mesoamerican rituals.

A major collection of Casas Grandes pottery is currently held by the Museum of Peoples and Cultures at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Stanford University in California also holds pottery artifacts from here.

Ruins similar to those of Casas Grandes exist near Gila and Salinas in New Mexico, and in Colorado. They may each represent cultural groups related to the Mogollon culture. The early ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft, in his The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (1874), related them to the modern-day Hopi, sometimes known as Moqui during his period. Contemporary scholars have not identified the descendants of the Casas Grandes people.

Birth and Death of Casas Grandes[link]

Casas Grandes was located hundreds of miles from the nearest city state of comparable size. Three theories compete to explain its existence. The archaeologist Charles C. Di Peso advanced the theory that Casas Grandes was a backwater until about 1200 CE when pochteca (traders) from the Aztec empire or other Mesoamerican states to the south turned it into a major trading center. A diametrically opposed theory is that Casas Grandes was established by the elites of the Anasazi from the north who were fleeing their homeland during its decline. The third theory is that Casas Grandes is purely a local creation, a community that grew over time to dominate its region and adopted some religious and social customs from the civilizations of Mesoamerica.^[9]

Casas Grandes was abandoned in about 1450. It is unclear whether it was abandoned slowly over a period of years or quickly. The Spanish explorer Francisco de Ibarra found the site of Casa Grandes in 1565. The Indians nearby, non-agricultural nomads, probably Suma or Jano, told him that a war with village dwellers, the Opata, four days journey west had caused the abandonment of Casas Grandes and that the inhabitants had moved six days journey north. That suggests the people of Casas Grandes joined the Pueblos on the Rio Grande River in New Mexico.^[10]

Other theories are that the Casas Grandes people migrated west to Sonora and joined or became the Opata whom the Spaniards found in the mid 16th century living in “statelets,” small but well-organized city states. It is also possible that Casas Grandes was abandoned because opportunities were greater elsewhere. Other communities in the Southwest are known to have been abandoned in favor of a new home.^[11]

The language the inhabitants of Casas Grandes spoke is unknown. Given the Mesoamerican influence on Casas Grandes Nahuatl was probably widely spoken but it was not the primary language of the people.

See also[link]

• Colonia Dublán
• Cueva de la Olla, Paquimé culture.
• Mata Ortiz
• Nuevo Casas Grandes

Notes[link]

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

• History and photos of Paquimé
• Paquimé declared a World Heritage Site

v t e World Heritage Sites in Mexico North West Archaeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California1 Rock Paintings of Sierra de San Francisco Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino North Central El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro Historic Centre of Zacatecas Historic Monuments Zone of Querétaro Historic Town of Guanajuato and Adjacent Mines Protected town of San Miguel and the Sanctuary of Jesús Nazareno de Atotonilco West Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila Historic Centre of Morelia Hospicio Cabañas, Guadalajara Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California1 Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve1 East Earliest 16th-century Monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl1 Pre-Hispanic City of El Tajín Historic Centre of Puebla Historic Monuments Zone of Tlacotalpan South West Historic Centre of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Albán Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque South Central Archaeological Monuments Zone of Xochicalco Central University City Campus of the UNAM Earliest 16th-century Monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl1 El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Historic Centres of Mexico City and Xochimilco Luis Barragán House and Studio Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve1 Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacán South East Ancient Maya City of Calakmul, Campeche Historic Fortified Town of Campeche Pre-Hispanic City of Chichén Itzá Sian Ka'an Pre-Hispanic Town of Uxmal 1 Shared by more than one region

v t e  State of Chihuahua Chihuahua (capital) Cities Ciudad Chihuahua Ciudad Cuauhtémoc Ciudad Juárez Delicias Parral Municipalities Municipalities of Chihuahua Sights Lake Arareco Basaseachic Falls Casas Grandes Copper Canyon Cuarenta Casas Cueva de la Ranchería Cueva de la Olla (archaeological site) Cumbres de Majalca National Park Peguis Canyon Piedra Volada Samalayuca Dunes Sierra Madre Occidental

Coordinates: 30°21′58.67″N 107°56′50.74″W / 30.3662972°N 107.9474278°W / 30.3662972; -107.9474278