With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Michael E. Whalen will conduct three seasons of archaeological excavation and data analysis in the Casas Grandes area of Chihuahua, Mexico. This continues more than 20 years of research into the origin, operation, and collapse of the great north Mexican center of Casas Grandes. Casas Grandes long has been famous among archaeologists for its blend of domestic architecture from the southwestern US and such ceremonial constructions as flat-topped temple mounds and ball courts from farther south in Mexico. Nothing else like it is known on either side of the border. Regional reconnaissance shows that the neighbors of Casas Grandes consisted of a few large communities and many small ones. The small neighbors of Casas Grandes, however, are estimated to contain at least half of the region's total count of residential buildings. This means that most of the population lived in small sites at some point(s) in the prehistory of the region.
There are several possibilities for explaining the interaction between small "outliers" and major centers. One is that small site residents were too insignificant to have played a role in regional political and economic life. This is doubtful, however, as a large fraction of the regional population thus would have been ignored by the center. A second possibility is that people once lived in small, scattered villages and then were absorbed into the growing center, resulting in the abandonment of most small villages. In a third scenario the center grew rapidly, flourished for several centuries, and finally collapsed. Collapses like this usually are accompanied by two processes: population reduction and population dispersal into smaller, more scattered communities as the central authority fails. Here, the small villages largely are post-Casas Grandes.
Small site chronology is the key selecting among alternates. The present project will excavate a sample of small residential sites in the Casas Grandes river valley, the region's best environmental zone. Radiocarbon dating will be used to establish site occupational histories, and these data will be used to consider the three alternatives presented above. Other data from architecture, facilities and artifacts will be used to model how these small communities were connected to each other and to the center of Casas Grandes. Whatever the outcome of this dating and analytical work, the project has the potential to provide important new insights on questions of the origin, operation, and collapse of Casas Grandes from a heretofore unexplored perspective: the region's many small residential sites.
The proposed project and others like it significantly enhance the infrastructure for research in northwest Mexico by increasing contact and collaboration between North American and Mexican archaeologists. Project personnel participate annually in Mexican archaeology conferences, give interviews and presentations for local radio, television, newspapers, and civic groups, and conduct site tours for a range of people, from school children to government officials. NSF funded projects have been a major presence in Chihuahua, and all of the related activity significantly raises the visibility of the national patrimony for the citizens of this part of Mexico.
