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1. Geological map of Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Legend: Paquimé (star), comparative sites used in this study (filled circles), other archaeological sites (open circles), modern cities (open squares). Adapted from the U.S. Geological Survey (https://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2781/).
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Las ciudades actuales, sin duda, han sido el resultado de hechos históricos en los que la configuración urbana se ha visto afectada, alterando su identidad histórica propiciando una dinámica urbana distinta; un elemento que ha intervenido es la Iglesia, considerada como uno de los agentes fundadores y transformadores de las ciudades en México a con...
Citations
... That these patterns come from a mission, where the pressure for culture change is intense, makes this persistence more remarkable. At present, it is impossible to say how Suma ancestors fit into the Paquimé realm, which was multiethnic (Morales-Arce et al. 2017;Offenbecker 2018) and ranked (Rakita 2009;Ravesloot 1988;Whalen and Minnis 2001b). However, the evidence suggests that the Suma were knowledgeable about ancient construction techniques, rituals, and prestige goods. ...
... Another approach is to extend aDNA and bone chemistry studies from the Medio period to the Españoles to test for biological continuities, although technical and ethical hurdles exist. Interpretation must account for Paquimé as a multiethnic community, as demonstrated by aDNA (Morales-Arce et al. 2017) and bone chemistry (Offenbecker 2018). Furthermore, the small sample from the Mission may include nearby Indigenous people, central Mexicans, Africans, and Europeans. ...
In 1584, Baltasar de Obregón described the people he met in the Casas Grandes Valley (CGV), Northwest Chihuahua, Mexico. He juxtaposed these “rustic” people with the sophistication of the ancient builders of Paquimé who had lived in the CGV. Seventy years later, the Spanish missionaries called the people in the CGV “Suma” and enlisted them to build Mission San Antonio de Padua de Casas Grandes. Scholars have examined Obregón's and later administrators’ accounts to argue that the Suma were a small-scale society and unrelated to the ancient people of Paquimé (~AD 1200–1430). We reevaluate this interpretation. First, we contextualize the documentary evidence within contemporary frameworks. Second, using data from the 1958–1961 Joint Casas Grandes Expedition, we compare Paquimé and Suma material culture. We argue that the Suma were likely long-term residents of the Valley, organized into horticulture villages, and exhibiting cultural practices linked to Paquimé. After critiquing previous arguments about Suma origins, we consider how this criticism relates broadly to exploring Native Americans’ reactions to colonial settings.
... A consequence of Paquimé's establishment as the dominant Casas Grandes center was a seemingly rapid and substantial growth in population size, such that by 1350 C.E. it is likely that Paquimé's population may have reached nearly 5,000 individuals (Wilcox, 2016), or at least 2,500 , at any given moment. Underpinning the aggregation of thousands of new residents, including some from the Mimbres valley and along the contemporary U.S. -Mexico border as well as eastern Sonora (Offenbecker, 2018), was the elite investiture in the construction of a civic-ceremonial precinct to the west of the residential room blocks, as well as sizable agricultural fields and irrigation systems and a large mountaintop shrine complex with restricted access (Di Peso, 1974;Pitezel, 2011). ...
Research demonstrates the association between musical instruments and ritual practices and political complexity in the past. Musical instruments have been found at the Late Medio period regional polity of Paquimé in northern Mexico and in sites ancestral to Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest, but they have never been meaningfully compared. Paquimé’s occupation corresponds with the first half of the Pueblo IV period in the Southwest, a time when instruments were most numerous and diverse. Intriguingly, some instruments are found in both regions whereas others are not. We summarize the types known for both locations and compare them, considering the social and physical contexts of their use.
... We selected archaeological indicators for each category to assess the extent of insecurity in each culture area. Many of the indicators are threats that have been advanced in the scholarly literature of the SW/NW and elsewhere as social, demographic, and environmental causes of depopulation (e.g., , Nelson and Schachner 2002, Hegmon et al. 2008, 2018, Railey and Reycraft 2008. Thus, each indicator has a plausible causal relationship with the sustainability of places, human decisions to migrate, and declining population levels ( Table 2). ...
... Qualitative and quantitative indicators are used to determine the extent of insecurities in each culture area ( Table 2). Qualitative indicators rely on the published judgment of scholars active in each culture area, an approach applied in synthetic studies of broad geographic scope where comparable data do not exist (Hegmon et al. 2008, 2018, Nelson et al. 2016. For example, As trade and exchange networks declined, opportunities to engage social strategies for buffering risks decrease (e. g., alliances, reciprocity) and economic insecurity increased (Braun and Plog 1982). ...
In the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest region, arid-lands agriculturalists practiced sedentary agriculture for at least four thousand years. People developed diverse lifeways and a repertoire of successful dryland strategies that resemble those of some small-scale agriculturalists today. A multi-millennial trajectory of variable population growth ended during the early 1300s CE and by the late 1400s population levels in the region declined by about one-half. Here we show, through a meta-analysis of sub-regional archaeological studies, the spatial distribution, intensity, and variation in social and environmental conditions throughout the region prior to depopulation. We also find that as these conditions, identified as human insecurities by the UN Development Programme, worsened, the speed of depopulation increased. Although these conditions have been documented within some sub-regions, the aggregate weight and distribution of these insecurities throughout the Southwest/Northwest region were previously unrecognized. Population decline was not the result of a single disturbance, such as drought, to the regional system; it was a spatially patterned, multi-generational decline in human security. Results support the UN’s emphasis on increasing human security as a pathway toward sustainable development and lessening forced migration. Through these results and the approach demonstrated here, we aim to stimulate collaborations between archaeologists and others in service of modern sustainability planning.
Full text available here: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art9/
... The local 87 Sr/ 86 Sr baseline for this study is based on Offenbecker's (2018) research at Paquimé and the Casas Grandes region. In addition to analyzing 82 human burials from Paquimé for 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values, she analyzed a series of small mammals, including archaeologically recovered kangaroo rats (Dipodomys sp., n = 8) and jackrabbits (Lepus californicus, n = 2) from Paquimé as well as faunal specimens from surrounding settlements. ...
... If scarlet macaws at Paquimé were primarily bred and/or raised locally as is suggested in a local raising model, we expect that 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values for macaw bones would fall within Paquimé's local range of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr = 0.7068-0.7075 or within the local ranges presented for the Casas Grandes region by Offenbecker (2018). Conversely, if scarlet macaws were actively transported from Mesoamerica, as is posited by a long-distance acquisition model, we would expect that scarlet macaw bone 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values would fall outside of the local range defined above and exhibit a different distribution of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values than the Paquimé human and faunal distributions. ...
... When comparing the strontium isotope results of the macaws against the local range of Paquimé as defined by Offenbecker (2018), the majority (n = 19) of sampled scarlet macaws demonstrate 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values indicative of a local origin (Fig. 4). The distribution of macaw strontium isotope values largely overlaps with the distributions of both the human and small mammal values from Paquimé (Figs. 4 and 5), and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) finds no significant differences between them (F[2, 146] = 2.045, P = 0.133). ...
The pre-Hispanic settlement of Paquime (1150/1200–1450 CE) in northwestern Chihuahua exhibits extensive evidence of exchange connections with distant communities, including the remains of over 300 scarlet macaws (Ara macao), brilliantly plumed birds whose geographic origins lie at least 1000 km southeast in the humid lowlands of Mexico. Archaeological and historic records indicate that these birds were prized for their many cosmological associations, the multi-colored feathers which were widely traded and used in ceremonial attire, and their ability to mimic human speech. We use archaeological and isotopic investigations to infer the diet and geographic origin(s) of Paquime’s scarlet macaw population. We examine 29 scarlet macaw bone samples from Paquime using radiogenic strontium isotope analysis. Our results demonstrate that Paquime’s scarlet macaw population was primarily raised locally, though Paquime’s inhabitants also acquired scarlet macaws from nearby Casas Grandes region settlements in Chihuahua and extra-regional locales that may have been as far away as their endemic homeland in Veracruz in eastern Mexico. Ultimately, our findings indicate that macaw aviculture at Paquime was complex and not congruent with any single previously proposed model.
... Conversely, the relative paucity of non-local δ 18 O values could also indicate that the established Non-Grid 4 δ 18 O local range, necessarily expanded by the MMD of 3.1‰ to account for interlaboratory variability in sample treatment, is too broad to capture meaningful variation in distinct environments within ancient Mesoamerica, which (Hodell et al., 2004;Price et al., 2008). Similarly, sacrificed individuals with 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values falling above the expected Basin of Mexico range coincide with local 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ranges from the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley and the Xochicalco Formation within central Mexico, as well as with further regions, including northern Mexico, the southern Maya lowlands, and the Oaxaca Valley (Hodell et al., 2004;Offenbecker, 2018;Pacheco-Forés et al., 2020). Countless other regions throughout Mesoamerica have yet to be characterized biogeochemically. ...
Bioarchaeological studies are highly successful in accessing multivalent past social identities. This study applies social identity theory to contexts of violence, developing a theoretical framework to investigate identity-based violence at the Epiclassic (600-900 CE) central Mexican shrine site of Non-Grid 4, where at least 180 individuals were ritually sacrificed and interred. Ethnohistoric and archaeological data indicate that geographic origin was a culturally significant indicator of social difference in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. This study therefore reconstructs the residential histories of sacrificed individuals (n = 73), analyzing radiogenic strontium (87 Sr/ 86 Sr) and stable oxygen (δ 18 O) isotopes to consider how the perception of social difference, inferred from geographic origins, contributed to the selection of victims of ritual violence. Biogeochemical results demonstrate that 70% of sampled sacrificed individuals were born and lived their early lives outside of the Basin of Mexico, migrating into the region later in life. In contrast, only 22% of individuals were born and lived in the Basin their entire lives. Observed paleomobility patterns among sacrificial victims thus suggest that they were targeted for identity-based violence based on their divergent geographic origins in the volatile socio-political landscape of the Epiclassic Basin of Mexico.
This article revises the spatial and temporal boundaries of the Casas Grandes tradition associated with northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, based on new data collected in neighboring northeastern Sonora. The Casas Grandes tradition attained its greatest extent during the Medio period (AD 1200–1450/1500) followed by a dramatic demographic and political collapse. Hunter-gatherer groups subsequently occupied most of northwest Chihuahua. Data from the Fronteras Valley, Sonora, presents an alternative scenario, with a clear pattern of cultural continuity from the eleventh century to the colonial period in which sedentary farmers occupied the same landscapes and occasionally the same villages. These observations contribute to our understanding of the spread and subsequent demise of the Casas Grandes tradition in hinterland regions. For the Fronteras Valley, we infer that immigrant groups originally introduced Casas Grandes traditions and that uneven participation in a suite of shared religious beliefs and practices was common to all the hinterlands.
The analysis of pattern design on ceramics, textiles, tile and other plane surfaces remains dominated by typological, design element and stylistic approaches. In this paper, I compare these approaches with a classification system that describes patterns by the geometric symmetries that combine and repeat the pattern parts. I argue that these standard plane pattern symmetry classes enable systematic, objective descriptions of decorated material. I use an analysis of the symmetric structures and colors of designs on whole and partial Chihuahuan polychrome vessels from the Pueblo IV period site of Paquimé (Casas Grandes), Chihuahua, Mexico, to illustrate how a standardized classification system that focuses on the structure of pattern parts rather than on the pattern parts themselves reveals a number of new insights on a body of well-studied material.
Spirit Eye Cave, located on private land in west Texas near the US/Mexico border, contains as many as four human interments removed by pay-to-dig collectors in the 1950–60 s. The relocated remains provide initial DNA results from a region peripheral to both the Southwest and Plains, and the bone collagen 14C dates are coeval with a period of presumed multiethnic migration. The mitochondrial DNA results from two individuals indicate a maternal relationship between each interment. Considered together, these data indicate both a familiarity with the region and a stability of land use by foraging groups during a period of reputed instability. The identification of the B2a4a1 haplogroup in both individuals ties the region to indigenous groups in present-day Mexico, Texas, and the prehistoric site of Paquimé, in Chihuahua, Mexico. These results demonstrate the utility of a collaborative collection based aDNA approach for looted and heavily collected sheltered sites.
Significance statement
Two rediscovered human remains from at Spirit Eye cave in west Texas situated on the US/Mexico border were radiocarbon dated and sampled for mitochondrial DNA. Both burials belong to the same B2a4a1 mitochondrial haplogroup and were dated to a period of dramatic cultural change in the region. Our results indicate a group of related foraging groups repeatedly used the cave as a mortuary site over several generations. This study also illustrates the utility of pursuing collection-based research from heavily impacted archaeological sites.
