Location: Chihuahua Map
Open: daily
Paquimé (often also referred to as Casas Grandes) is an
archaeological site located about 350 km northwest of the capital
Chihuahua of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and half a kilometer
away from the city of Casas Grandes. Only a part of the old
settlement has been excavated and (cautiously) restored. The visitor
center houses the small Museum of the Cultures of the North.
On March 30, 2015, the memorial was included in the International
Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection of the Hague
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed
Conflicts.
Paquimé was a pre-Hispanic settlement that influenced the northwest
of the Sierra Madre Occidental, most of the west of Chihuahua and some
areas in the east of Sonora. For its part, Paquimé is in the great
cultural context of the archaeological cultures of Mogollon and (a
little further away) of Anasazi, which existed in Arizona, Utah,
Colorado and New Mexico and are summarized under the name Pueblo
culture.
The site is known for its large Adobe and Tapia
buildings. They form extensive complexes of adjoining rooms, which in
all aspects resemble the large houses of the late Mogollon and Anasazi
culture and their T-shaped doors. Researchers have calculated that the
place had about 3500 inhabitants, but their linguistic and ethnic
assignment remains unknown. To the west of the place there are a number
of buildings made of stones and filling, which were probably covered
with lime paint; these were the ceremonial centers. The large building
complex to the east frames a long rectangular square, which is
interpreted as a market. Great importance was given to the irrigation
system. Brick channels run through the free areas, but also through
building complexes, which open into shallow, bowl-shaped water
reservoirs. A ritual function is attributed to various low artificial
mounds. A clear relationship with Mesoamerica is evidenced by the ball
playgrounds, which, however, also occur far into Arizona.
There
are some constructions in Paquimé that are not yet known in other sites
examined in this way: low mounds apparently took over the function of
Mesoamerican pyramids. They also appear in peculiar forms: in the form
of a snake or a short-armed cross with four small hills. The latter is
interpreted as a symbol for the present world because of the far-fetched
similarity with the Mesoamerican calendar sign 4 Olin.
Some
researchers believe that Paquimé developed independently from the Salado
culture. Others claim that the sudden cultural development at this point
was the result of the invasion of an elite from the Mexican plateau or
from Mediterranean Mexico. However, Paquimé is not the only large-scale
housing estate in this space. Others that have not been excavated so far
are located in a similar location in a narrow corridor running to the
southwest along the Sierra Madre and seem to indicate a trade route that
reached as far as the northwestern outskirts of Mesoamerica (important
places: Chalchihuites and La Quemada).
Thus, a trading post was
created, which, however, also specialized in the breeding of the macaw
birds for their precious feathers, the exchange of shells, ceramics,
copper, etc.
Around 700, the Paquimé culture in the region began with the
introduction of agriculture and the construction of small adobe houses
half-buried in the ground on the banks of the Piedras Verdes, San Pedro
and San Miguel rivers, all of which flow into the Casas Grandes River.
Charles Di Peso, a North American archaeologist who studied the area
and dug in Paquimé from 1958 to 1961, proposed six phases of the
development of the culture - the data are based mainly on the very
accurate tree-ring dating, supplemented by radiocarbon dating and
obsidian hydration:
I.- Preceramic horizon. Its beginning is
unknown and it ends between the 1st and 2nd century.
II.- Period
of unadorned ceramics, from about 150 to 700.
III.- Ancient
period, from 700 to 1060. The ancient period is divided into a) phase
Convento (monastery) until 900, b) the short phase Pilón (grain mortar)
until 950, c) phase Perros Bravos until 1060.
IV.- Middle period,
from 1060 to 1340. It was divided into a) phase Buena Fe until 1205, b)
phase Paquimé until 1261, c) Phase Diablo (devil) until 1340.
V.-
Late period. From 1340 to 1660. The period is divided into: a) phase
Robles (oaks) until 1519, b) phase of the first sporadic contacts with
the Spaniards until 1660.
VI.- Period of the Spaniards. From 1660
to 1821.
During the old period, the first villages were formed
and their population practiced rain-field farming, in addition, they
used the water draining from the mountains.
During the first two
phases of the Old Period, the construction of circular houses begins.
The houses were half submerged in the ground (less than 1 m), such
dwellings had an area of about 10 m2 and a round door; in the center of
the village a communal house was built, which was larger than the family
dwellings.
During the last phase of the Old Period, the size of
the houses increased; they began to be built abutting each other, and
instead of a circular one, they were given a square plan. During this
period, decorated ceramics appear, in addition, pieces of shells,
necklaces, "cuentecitas" (jewelry beads) made of turquoise and processed
copper.
During the middle Period, the social structure and
impression of the city changed. During the Buena Fe phase, the houses
had only one storey, the doors are T-shaped and the roofs are made of
wooden beams.
During the Paquimé phase, the place reaches its
highest splendor, trade relations with other peoples intensify, and
ceremonial earth mounds are built. The place is crossed by a system of
irrigation ditches, a ball playground is being built and the erection of
multi-storey houses begins, some buildings reach up to four floors.
During the Diablo phase, the settlement is partially abandoned, the
decline is triggered by attacks by hostile peoples. Around 1340 the
place succumbs to the enemy siege and many of the inhabitants are
killed, this can be concluded from the number of human remains found in
grotesque positions.
Objects of art: Jugs of the Casas Grandes
culture from the collection of the Museum of Stanford, USA.
After Paquimé was abandoned, nomadic indigenous peoples occupied the
area. An incipient desert culture had died.
in 1562, the Spanish
explorer Francisco de Ibarra reported that he had visited unexplored
areas inhabited by well-dressed indigenous people who lived in Adobe
houses, engaged in agriculture, irrigated canals and had food in
abundance. in 1566 he returned to the region and reached Paquimé or
Casas Grandes, a village inhabited by the Sumas, who did not practice
agriculture and lived by hunting and collecting fruits and roots.
Francisco de Ibarra wrote: [The village] is densely built up with
magnificent, high and fortified houses, six to seven on top of each
other, secured with towers and strong fences like fortresses for
protection and defense against the enemies (...) It has large and
beautiful courtyards, paved with beautiful, large jasper-like stones,
and knife stones supported the large and beautiful columns of thick wood
that had been brought from afar; the walls of the buildings were white
and colorful tinted and painted, made of very hard stone.
There
were wide channels from the river to the villages, with which water was
brought to the houses. They have large and wide stoves on the ground
floor of houses and buildings, which protect from the cold, which there
is a lot there, since it snows much of the year, and the north wind
brings a lot of cold from the plains and mountains, where it snows more
than usual. There were traces of metals that the natives used to use, as
well as millstones.
This large homestead and the cluster of
houses are not located in one place, but spread over eight miles
downstream (... Most of the houses were dilapidated, damaged and
destroyed by the water, they showed the number of years since their
owners had abandoned and depopulated them, although there are wild,
rustic and run-around people in their vicinity who no longer live in
such magnificent houses, but live in mud huts like wild animals, exposed
to the sun, wind and cold. They are hunters, eat everything they hunt,
as well as wild worms and acorns; running around naked; the women wear
loincloths made of deerskin as well as some made of cowhide (from
bison).