Documenting Prehistoric Communication Networks: A Case Study in the Paquimé Polity

Abstract

Hilltop features reported around the site of Paquimé, the political center of a prehistoric complex polity in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, have been interpreted as a fire-signaling network by archaeologists. If these hilltop platform features functioned as such a communication system, it provides important information for our interpretation of regional integration and interaction for the Paquimé polity. This paper reports the results of a survey of hilltops in the area and a subsequent GIS-based intervisibility analysis, which determined that a series of hilltop platforms in the region were ideally situated for fire-signaling purposes. I discuss the need for implementing tests for intervisibility and tests for determining the significance of that intervisibility, and then consider some implications of the Paquimé fire-signaling system on sociopolitical organization and integration.