Casas Grandes: A Fallen Trading Center of the Gran Chichimeca, Volume 2, Medio Period
Creators: name: Di Peso, Charles C.
Publisher: name: Northland Press
Year: 1974
Subjects: subject: Hohokam
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/21/hohokam
subject: Casas Grandes
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-name/279/casas-grandes
subject: Funerary and Burial Structures or Features
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/301/funerary-and-burial-structures-or-features
subject: Burial Pit
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/307/burial-pit
subject: Archaeological Feature
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/339/archaeological-feature
subject: Artifact Scatter
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/340/artifact-scatter
subject: Hearth
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/343/hearth
subject: Commercial or Industrial Structures
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/280/commercial-or-industrial-structures
subject: Domestic Structure or Architectural Complex
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/251/domestic-structure-or-architectural-complex
subject: Midden
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/347/midden
subject: Settlements
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/252/settlements
subject: Town / City
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/255/town-city
subject: Domestic Structures
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/256/domestic-structures
subject: House
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/259/house
subject: Post Hole / Post Mold
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/359/post-hole-post-mold
subject: Rock Alignment
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/360/rock-alignment
subject: Rock Shelter
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/265/rock-shelter
subject: Platform Mound
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/site-type/268/platform-mound
subject: Ceramic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/1/ceramic
subject: Ground Stone
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/7/ground-stone
subject: Human Remains
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/9/human-remains
subject: Ethnographic Research
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/14/ethnographic-research
subject: Architectural Documentation
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/16/architectural-documentation
subject: Archaeological Overview
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/1/archaeological-overview
subject: Architectural Survey
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/2/architectural-survey
subject: Collections Research
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/3/collections-research
subject: Data Recovery / Excavation
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/5/data-recovery-excavation
subject: Methodology, Theory, or Synthesis
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/6/methodology-theory-or-synthesis
subject: Heritage Management
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/24/heritage-management
subject: Site Evaluation / Testing
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/10/site-evaluation-testing

description: It is believed that sometime around the year A.D. 1060 a group of sophisticated Mesoamerican merchants came into the valley of the Casas Grandes and inspired the indigenous Chichimecans to build the city of Paquime over portions of an older Viejo Period village. These foreign donors may have been drawn here by specific information supplied to them by their family-affiliated spying vanguards, who perhaps lived with the frontiersmen during the last phase of the Viejo Period. These organizers who may have come from somewhere along the Pacific coast of Mexico brought with them an aggregate of technological knowledge such as one might associate with an advanced hydraulic society. Specifically, these aliens should not be thought of as coming to the frontier as a flood of immigrants- men, women, and children carrying their personal belongings over hill and dale- but rather as few professionals who came either in flight from their homeland, by Chichimecan invitation, or perhaps as military conquerors motivated by a calculated business venture. In any event, they brought with them a certain expertise and soon assumed, by one method or another, the role of co-leaders or teachers.