Reconsidering the Size and Structure of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

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 terms. We reexamine it with a more conservative approach, and a different characterization emerges. The U-shaped configuration cannot be supported. Instead, we see a central, linear room block, a small part of which contained three stories. It was flanked on the west by well-known ritual architecture and surrounded on all sides by small, scattered, contemporary, one-story room units. The original room count estimation is reduced by about 50 percent, as is the concomitant estimate of nearly 5,000 residents. This has implications for extant models of the internal and regional organization of Casas Grandes.