Michael E Whalen
Biographic Data
| ID | 208369 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael E Whalen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael E |
| FAMILY NAME | Whalen |
| SIGNATURE | WHALEN M E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Tulsa |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 282 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Reframing Paquimé: Community Formation in Northwest Chihuahua
The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors
Chihuahuan Archaeology
Northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, and the U.S. Southwest share broadly similar pre-colonial cultures and sequences of change. In fact, the present-day international boundary artificially divides a single culture area. Even so, northwestern Chihuahua is not simply a southern extension of the U.S. Southwest. This chapter reviews the past of northwestern Chihuahua from the early pre-ceramic era through late pre-Hispanic times, showing how these cultur…
Obsidian in the Casas Grandes world: Procurement, exchange, and interaction in Chihuahua, Mexico, CE 1200–1450
Ancient Paquimé and the Casas Grandes World
Wealth, Status, Ritual, and Marine Shell at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
The center of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, long has been famous for the large quantities of imported and exotic materials found there. It contains the largest cache of marine shell ever found at an inland site in prehistoric North America or Mesoamerica. Several explanations have been offered for this phenomenon, including amassing of personal wealth, stockpiling for mercantile exchange, and accumulation for use in a…
Ceramics and Polity in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico
The Medio period (ca. A.D. 1150-1475) at the primate center of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, is characterized by polychrome pottery with elaborate, finely painted designs. This originally was presumed to be the peak of an evolutionary sequence that began with coarse, simple decoration. New research and dating show that this was not the case. Instead, fine painting and an elaborate set of design motifs are added to the older, simpler style at …
The First Prehispanic Chile ( Capsicum ) from the U.S. Southwest/Northwest Mexico and its Changing Use
Here we report on the first cultivated chile ( Capsicum annuum ) from the prehispanic United States Southwest and far northwest Mexico. A carbonized seed was recovered from a site near Casas Grandes, northwestern Chihuahua dating to the Medio period, A.D. 1200–1450. We then discuss the role of chile among prehispanic indigenous communities in the region and its transformation to a seemingly high profile foodstuff after Spanish contact. We suggest…
Reconsidering the Size and Structure of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
The site of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, originally was estimated to contain some 2,300 rooms, placing it at the top of known prehispanic pueblo sizes. Its rooms were seen as arranged in blocks of as many as five stories, forming a vast, U-shaped pueblo. This room count and configuration are cited often in the past and present literature. We contend that Casas Grandes originally was interpreted in the most liberal te…
Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest
Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest. Richard F. Townsend, ed. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2005. 208 pp. (Co‐published with Yale University Press
Fields of Power: Upland Farming in the Prehispanic Casas Grandes Polity, Chihuahua, Mexico
Analysis of nearly 200 prehispanic upland farming locations around Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua indicates that land modification was widespread and involved a range of farming strategies depending on microtopographic setting. Most significantly, some cultivation seems to have been organized or controlled by the leaders of the Casas Grandes polity. Unusually large fields associate with small sites that likely served special administrati…
Boundaries and Territories: Prehistory of the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico . M. Elisa Villalpando
The Local and the Distant in the Origin of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
Casas Grandes (or Paquimé), in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, is the largest and possibly the most complex community in the prehistoric Pueblo world. The literature is, and always has been, dominated by models that attribute the origin of this center to impulses coming from outside of the region. These arguments rest on the assumptions that the Casas Grandes area was underpopulated before the development of the center, and that there was little …
Casas Grandes and Its Hinterland: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico
Casas Grandes and Its Hinterlands: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico
The Casas Grandes Regional System: A Late Prehistoric Polity of Northwestern Mexico
Architecture and Authority in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico
Architecture both reflects and emphasizes the distinctions upon which social and political organization are based. In particular, an 'architecture of power' has been recognized in a number of hierarchical, prehistoric cultural contexts, from the Chacoans to the Mississippians. In these cases, the specific architectural style of a central place is replicated at points in the surrounding area, either as an imitative response by local populations or…
Ceramic Vessel Size Estimation from Sherds: An Experiment and a Case Study
Archaeologists who deal with highly fragmented ceramic assemblages face the challenging task of estimating the morphological characteristics of the parent vessels from their sherds. Container volume is especially difficult to estimate in the absence of whole vessels or major reconstructible sherds. Recent studies have proposed several approaches to vessel size estimation from sherds, ranging from trigonometric calculations to multidimensional mod…
Ceramic Technology and the Seriation of El Paso Plain Brown Pottery
El Paso Plain Brown pottery is found over a wide area and throughout many centuries in the U.S. Southwest and in parts of northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Archaeologists have made many unsuccessful attempts at fine-scale seriation by morphological attributes. This paper suggests that technology may be a better basis for seriation than style. A rapid method for ceramic temper analysis is introduced, and well-dated early and late El Paso Plain Brown col…
Ball Courts and Political Centralization in the Casas Grandes Region
Ball courts are well-known features of Mesoamerican societies and of the Hohokam culture of the American Southwest. In both cases, the courts are argued to have served a range of ritual, economic, and political purposes. Ball courts have long been known to exist in the northwestern Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora as well as in the adjacent portion of New Mexico, although they have never been extensively described or interpreted. This paper…
Turquoise Ridge and Late Prehistoric Residential Mobility in the Desert Mogollon Region
Based on findings from excavation projects that began in 1977 and ended in 1986 on lands at Fort Bliss, Texas, this study focuses on two particular sites: Turquoise Ridge and the Huesito site. One major topic of discussion is the role of residential mobility in late prehistoric adaptations. Residential mobility had always been assumed for the region's earliest populations, but the idea that it figured in later adaptive strategies was of more rece…
Moving out of the Archaic on the Edge of the Southwest
The transition from mobile foragers to sedentary farmers was not made to the same degree all over the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The deserts of the Jornada Mogollon region illustrate the persistence of some aspects of mobile adaptations through the first millennium A.D., as both Jornada Archaic peoples and their ceramic-using successors made use of a seasonal mobility pattern to cope with the region's arid conditions. Use of …
El Paso Plain Brown Rims as Chronological Markers? New Data on an Old Question
Archaeologists working in the Jornada Mogollon region must deal with a long-lasting sequence of undecorated brown ceramics. There has been great interest in the development of stylistic seriations of this ware, so that sites of different ages can be more readily identified. Seriation studies have focused on rim sherd morphology, and several approaches have been used. Progress has been made in establishing chronologically sensitive characteristics…
Prehistoric Macaw Breeding in the North American Southwest
The scarlet macaw (Ara macao) was an important prehistoric trade item in northern Mexico and southwestern United States. Paquimé (or Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua has been assumed to have dominated or even monopolized the macaw trade. This conclusion is a result of the fact that Paquimé is the only site with evidence of substantial macaw-breeding facilities. Two recent archaeological projects in Chihuahua indicate that macaw production…
Defining Buried Features Before Excavation: A Case from the American Southwest
Soil coring and augering techniques permit archaeologists to see beneath the surface of unexcavated sites. The most common applications of these techniques are to questions of site discovery, site boundary definition, and stratigraphy. Less common is use of subsurface soil probes for functional discrimination of different categories of buried features. This study focuses on this problem, describing how soil augering was used to locate numerous bu…
Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Southern Valley of Mexico: The Chalco-Xochimilco Region
Casas Grandes and Its Hinterlands: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico
Ball Courts and Political Centralization in the Casas Grandes Region
Ball courts are well-known features of Mesoamerican societies and of the Hohokam culture of the American Southwest. In both cases, the courts are argued to have served a range of ritual, economic, and political purposes. Ball courts have long been known to exist in the northwestern Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora as well as in the adjacent portion of New Mexico, although they have never been extensively described or interpreted. This paper…
Prehistoric Macaw Breeding in the North American Southwest
The scarlet macaw (Ara macao) was an important prehistoric trade item in northern Mexico and southwestern United States. Paquimé (or Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua has been assumed to have dominated or even monopolized the macaw trade. This conclusion is a result of the fact that Paquimé is the only site with evidence of substantial macaw-breeding facilities. Two recent archaeological projects in Chihuahua indicate that macaw production…
Architecture and Authority in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico
Architecture both reflects and emphasizes the distinctions upon which social and political organization are based. In particular, an 'architecture of power' has been recognized in a number of hierarchical, prehistoric cultural contexts, from the Chacoans to the Mississippians. In these cases, the specific architectural style of a central place is replicated at points in the surrounding area, either as an imitative response by local populations or…
The Local and the Distant in the Origin of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
Casas Grandes (or Paquimé), in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, is the largest and possibly the most complex community in the prehistoric Pueblo world. The literature is, and always has been, dominated by models that attribute the origin of this center to impulses coming from outside of the region. These arguments rest on the assumptions that the Casas Grandes area was underpopulated before the development of the center, and that there was little …
Cultural-Ecological Aspects of the Pithouse-to-Pueblo Transition in a Portion of the Southwest
Southwestern archaeologists have traditionally devoted much attention to inventory and description of material culture change between the Pithouse and Pueblo periods. Unfortunately, our understanding of the ecological, demographic, and organizational aspects of the Pithouse-to-Pueblo transition is much less advanced. The present study attempts to remedy this deficiency for at least one portion of the Southwest, relying largely on survey data from…
Fields of Power: Upland Farming in the Prehispanic Casas Grandes Polity, Chihuahua, Mexico
Analysis of nearly 200 prehispanic upland farming locations around Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua indicates that land modification was widespread and involved a range of farming strategies depending on microtopographic setting. Most significantly, some cultivation seems to have been organized or controlled by the leaders of the Casas Grandes polity. Unusually large fields associate with small sites that likely served special administrati…
Ceramics and Polity in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico
The Medio period (ca. A.D. 1150-1475) at the primate center of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, is characterized by polychrome pottery with elaborate, finely painted designs. This originally was presumed to be the peak of an evolutionary sequence that began with coarse, simple decoration. New research and dating show that this was not the case. Instead, fine painting and an elaborate set of design motifs are added to the older, simpler style at …
The Casas Grandes Regional System: A Late Prehistoric Polity of Northwestern Mexico
Obsidian in the Casas Grandes world: Procurement, exchange, and interaction in Chihuahua, Mexico, CE 1200–1450
Wealth, Status, Ritual, and Marine Shell at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
The center of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, long has been famous for the large quantities of imported and exotic materials found there. It contains the largest cache of marine shell ever found at an inland site in prehistoric North America or Mesoamerica. Several explanations have been offered for this phenomenon, including amassing of personal wealth, stockpiling for mercantile exchange, and accumulation for use in a…
Reconsidering the Size and Structure of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
The site of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, originally was estimated to contain some 2,300 rooms, placing it at the top of known prehispanic pueblo sizes. Its rooms were seen as arranged in blocks of as many as five stories, forming a vast, U-shaped pueblo. This room count and configuration are cited often in the past and present literature. We contend that Casas Grandes originally was interpreted in the most liberal te…
Reconstructing Early Formative Village Organization in Oaxaca, Mexico
Large-scale excavation data are used to reconstruct some of the organizational features of a small village of the Early Formative period (ca. 1500-850 B.C.) in the southern Mexican highlands. Data from the community's residential and cemetery zones are analyzed in consideration of (1) the nature and number of village components; and (2) methods used to integrate these components. It is argued that the community was organized around some form of l…
Small-Site Analysis in the Hueco Bolson of Western Texas
Although small campsites are common in the prehistoric archaeological record, they are usually under-analyzed because of low artifact and feature densities, shallow deposits, and consequent interpretive difficulties. The present study attempts to remedy this situation in the Hueco Bolson of western Texas. Samples of Archaic, Pithouse, and Pueblo camps are intensively examined and contrasted in consideration of (a) change and stability of camp cha…
An Investigation of Pithouse Village Structure in Western Texas
Archaeologists have long been aware that the Pithouse period, which occupies most of the 1st millennium A.C., established the village farming foundations for the subsequent Pueblo florescence in the southwestern United States. Nevertheless, we understand all too little of the organization of society during the Pithouse period, or of directions and processes of cultural evolution within the period. Stimulated by this situation, the present study i…
Ceramic Vessel Size Estimation from Sherds: An Experiment and a Case Study
Archaeologists who deal with highly fragmented ceramic assemblages face the challenging task of estimating the morphological characteristics of the parent vessels from their sherds. Container volume is especially difficult to estimate in the absence of whole vessels or major reconstructible sherds. Recent studies have proposed several approaches to vessel size estimation from sherds, ranging from trigonometric calculations to multidimensional mod…
Moving out of the Archaic on the Edge of the Southwest
The transition from mobile foragers to sedentary farmers was not made to the same degree all over the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The deserts of the Jornada Mogollon region illustrate the persistence of some aspects of mobile adaptations through the first millennium A.D., as both Jornada Archaic peoples and their ceramic-using successors made use of a seasonal mobility pattern to cope with the region's arid conditions. Use of …
El Paso Plain Brown Rims as Chronological Markers? New Data on an Old Question
Archaeologists working in the Jornada Mogollon region must deal with a long-lasting sequence of undecorated brown ceramics. There has been great interest in the development of stylistic seriations of this ware, so that sites of different ages can be more readily identified. Seriation studies have focused on rim sherd morphology, and several approaches have been used. Progress has been made in establishing chronologically sensitive characteristics…
Small Community Organization During the Late Formative Period in Oaxaca, Mexico
Late Formative (ca. 300–100 B.C.) cultural systems of highland Mesoamerica have been studied mostly at the regional level and at the tops of local settlement-system hierarchies. We know much less about the structure of small communities. Data from a minor Oaxacan site are used to identify two aspects of this community's internal and external organization: 1) a status-graded set of household units headed by an elite family, itself part of a valley…
Defining Buried Features Before Excavation: A Case from the American Southwest
Soil coring and augering techniques permit archaeologists to see beneath the surface of unexcavated sites. The most common applications of these techniques are to questions of site discovery, site boundary definition, and stratigraphy. Less common is use of subsurface soil probes for functional discrimination of different categories of buried features. This study focuses on this problem, describing how soil augering was used to locate numerous bu…
Ceramic Technology and the Seriation of El Paso Plain Brown Pottery
El Paso Plain Brown pottery is found over a wide area and throughout many centuries in the U.S. Southwest and in parts of northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Archaeologists have made many unsuccessful attempts at fine-scale seriation by morphological attributes. This paper suggests that technology may be a better basis for seriation than style. A rapid method for ceramic temper analysis is introduced, and well-dated early and late El Paso Plain Brown col…
A Rapid Technique for Three-Dimensional Site Mapping
Archaeological methodology contains a crucial gap between surficial reconnaissance and intensive excavation. Detailed, pre-excavation site testing is frequently essential to estimation of research potential, although our present techniques for carrying out this testing are often not very sophisticated. The usual approach is test pit excavation in an opportunistic, regular, or probabilistic pattern. Test pits, however, are dug slowly and relativel…
An Investigation of Pithouse Village Structure in Western Texas
Archaeologists have long been aware that the Pithouse period, which occupies most of the 1st millennium A.C., established the village farming foundations for the subsequent Pueblo florescence in the southwestern United States. Nevertheless, we understand all too little of the organization of society during the Pithouse period, or of directions and processes of cultural evolution within the period. Stimulated by this situation, the present study i…
Cultural-Ecological Aspects of the Pithouse-to-Pueblo Transition in a Portion of the Southwest
Southwestern archaeologists have traditionally devoted much attention to inventory and description of material culture change between the Pithouse and Pueblo periods. Unfortunately, our understanding of the ecological, demographic, and organizational aspects of the Pithouse-to-Pueblo transition is much less advanced. The present study attempts to remedy this deficiency for at least one portion of the Southwest, relying largely on survey data from…
Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Southern Valley of Mexico: The Chalco-Xochimilco Region
Reconstructing Early Formative Village Organization in Oaxaca, Mexico
Large-scale excavation data are used to reconstruct some of the organizational features of a small village of the Early Formative period (ca. 1500-850 B.C.) in the southern Mexican highlands. Data from the community's residential and cemetery zones are analyzed in consideration of (1) the nature and number of village components; and (2) methods used to integrate these components. It is argued that the community was organized around some form of l…
Indian Rock Art of the Southwest
This comprehensive view of carvings and paintings on stone by Native Americans from 200 B.C. through the nineteenth century surveys the rock art of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, northern Mexico, and west Texas, providing an incomparable visual record of Indian culture, religion, and society.Rock carvings and paintings are important sources in the archaeological and historical interpretation of Indians. Rock art reflects the cosmic and mythic orienta…
A Rapid Technique for Three-Dimensional Site Mapping
Archaeological methodology contains a crucial gap between surficial reconnaissance and intensive excavation. Detailed, pre-excavation site testing is frequently essential to estimation of research potential, although our present techniques for carrying out this testing are often not very sophisticated. The usual approach is test pit excavation in an opportunistic, regular, or probabilistic pattern. Test pits, however, are dug slowly and relativel…
Small-Site Analysis in the Hueco Bolson of Western Texas
Although small campsites are common in the prehistoric archaeological record, they are usually under-analyzed because of low artifact and feature densities, shallow deposits, and consequent interpretive difficulties. The present study attempts to remedy this situation in the Hueco Bolson of western Texas. Samples of Archaic, Pithouse, and Pueblo camps are intensively examined and contrasted in consideration of (a) change and stability of camp cha…
Small Community Organization During the Late Formative Period in Oaxaca, Mexico
Late Formative (ca. 300–100 B.C.) cultural systems of highland Mesoamerica have been studied mostly at the regional level and at the tops of local settlement-system hierarchies. We know much less about the structure of small communities. Data from a minor Oaxacan site are used to identify two aspects of this community's internal and external organization: 1) a status-graded set of household units headed by an elite family, itself part of a valley…
Defining Buried Features Before Excavation: A Case from the American Southwest
Soil coring and augering techniques permit archaeologists to see beneath the surface of unexcavated sites. The most common applications of these techniques are to questions of site discovery, site boundary definition, and stratigraphy. Less common is use of subsurface soil probes for functional discrimination of different categories of buried features. This study focuses on this problem, describing how soil augering was used to locate numerous bu…
El Paso Plain Brown Rims as Chronological Markers? New Data on an Old Question
Archaeologists working in the Jornada Mogollon region must deal with a long-lasting sequence of undecorated brown ceramics. There has been great interest in the development of stylistic seriations of this ware, so that sites of different ages can be more readily identified. Seriation studies have focused on rim sherd morphology, and several approaches have been used. Progress has been made in establishing chronologically sensitive characteristics…
Prehistoric Macaw Breeding in the North American Southwest
The scarlet macaw (Ara macao) was an important prehistoric trade item in northern Mexico and southwestern United States. Paquimé (or Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua has been assumed to have dominated or even monopolized the macaw trade. This conclusion is a result of the fact that Paquimé is the only site with evidence of substantial macaw-breeding facilities. Two recent archaeological projects in Chihuahua indicate that macaw production…
Turquoise Ridge and Late Prehistoric Residential Mobility in the Desert Mogollon Region
Based on findings from excavation projects that began in 1977 and ended in 1986 on lands at Fort Bliss, Texas, this study focuses on two particular sites: Turquoise Ridge and the Huesito site. One major topic of discussion is the role of residential mobility in late prehistoric adaptations. Residential mobility had always been assumed for the region's earliest populations, but the idea that it figured in later adaptive strategies was of more rece…
Moving out of the Archaic on the Edge of the Southwest
The transition from mobile foragers to sedentary farmers was not made to the same degree all over the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The deserts of the Jornada Mogollon region illustrate the persistence of some aspects of mobile adaptations through the first millennium A.D., as both Jornada Archaic peoples and their ceramic-using successors made use of a seasonal mobility pattern to cope with the region's arid conditions. Use of …
Ceramic Technology and the Seriation of El Paso Plain Brown Pottery
El Paso Plain Brown pottery is found over a wide area and throughout many centuries in the U.S. Southwest and in parts of northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Archaeologists have made many unsuccessful attempts at fine-scale seriation by morphological attributes. This paper suggests that technology may be a better basis for seriation than style. A rapid method for ceramic temper analysis is introduced, and well-dated early and late El Paso Plain Brown col…
Ball Courts and Political Centralization in the Casas Grandes Region
Ball courts are well-known features of Mesoamerican societies and of the Hohokam culture of the American Southwest. In both cases, the courts are argued to have served a range of ritual, economic, and political purposes. Ball courts have long been known to exist in the northwestern Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora as well as in the adjacent portion of New Mexico, although they have never been extensively described or interpreted. This paper…
Ceramic Vessel Size Estimation from Sherds: An Experiment and a Case Study
Archaeologists who deal with highly fragmented ceramic assemblages face the challenging task of estimating the morphological characteristics of the parent vessels from their sherds. Container volume is especially difficult to estimate in the absence of whole vessels or major reconstructible sherds. Recent studies have proposed several approaches to vessel size estimation from sherds, ranging from trigonometric calculations to multidimensional mod…
Casas Grandes and Its Hinterland: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico
Casas Grandes and Its Hinterlands: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico
The Casas Grandes Regional System: A Late Prehistoric Polity of Northwestern Mexico
Architecture and Authority in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico
Architecture both reflects and emphasizes the distinctions upon which social and political organization are based. In particular, an 'architecture of power' has been recognized in a number of hierarchical, prehistoric cultural contexts, from the Chacoans to the Mississippians. In these cases, the specific architectural style of a central place is replicated at points in the surrounding area, either as an imitative response by local populations or…
The Local and the Distant in the Origin of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico
Casas Grandes (or Paquimé), in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, is the largest and possibly the most complex community in the prehistoric Pueblo world. The literature is, and always has been, dominated by models that attribute the origin of this center to impulses coming from outside of the region. These arguments rest on the assumptions that the Casas Grandes area was underpopulated before the development of the center, and that there was little …
Boundaries and Territories: Prehistory of the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico . M. Elisa Villalpando
Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest
Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest. Richard F. Townsend, ed. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2005. 208 pp. (Co‐published with Yale University Press
Fields of Power: Upland Farming in the Prehispanic Casas Grandes Polity, Chihuahua, Mexico
Analysis of nearly 200 prehispanic upland farming locations around Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua indicates that land modification was widespread and involved a range of farming strategies depending on microtopographic setting. Most significantly, some cultivation seems to have been organized or controlled by the leaders of the Casas Grandes polity. Unusually large fields associate with small sites that likely served special administrati…
The First Prehispanic Chile ( Capsicum ) from the U.S. Southwest/Northwest Mexico and its Changing Use
Here we report on the first cultivated chile ( Capsicum annuum ) from the prehispanic United States Southwest and far northwest Mexico. A carbonized seed was recovered from a site near Casas Grandes, northwestern Chihuahua dating to the Medio period, A.D. 1200–1450. We then discuss the role of chile among prehispanic indigenous communities in the region and its transformation to a seemingly high profile foodstuff after Spanish contact. We suggest…
Geography (30 works) · Archaeology (29 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (24 works) · Archaeology and Natural History (23 works) · History (15 works) · Latin American history and culture (10 works) · Prehistory (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (6 works)