Paquimé

After the shopping expedition in Mata Ortiz, we headed back to Casas Grandes.  We were hungry and had a little time to kill, so we ducked into a little snack bar off the town’s plaza. The little town, established in the 15th century, has a bit of laid-back charm.

While ordering some burritos and tacos, the high-school-age girl behind the counter told us in unaccented English that we didn’t have to speak Spanish.  It turns out, she and her family recently moved to Mexico from Arizona, where she had grown up.  The Jan Brewer administration and the Arizona legislature had made it impossible for them to live in Arizona, so they were forced to move to Mexico.  These were kind people and it bothered me knowing that elements in my country had been so unwelcoming.

We made it over to Paquimé at 1:30 and I was able to talk at length with the director of the site, who was quite knowledgeable and helpful.  After a one-hour discussion, two architects toured me around the site, while explaining various aspects of preservation and operations.

I was assured that copies of the site’s management plan and data on visitation would be available to me the next morning.

Paquimé was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1998. It was admitted under critera III and IV, because it bears “a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared” and because it is “an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history.” It’s an impressive site, with carefully preserved ruins and minimal reconstruction.  Its visitors center has an impressive array of artifacts and interpretation, which apparently could be understood and appreciated by most ages.  All descriptions were in both Spanish and English.

Two Mexicos

Keyhole Doorway

My impression is that North Americans tend to regard Paquimé as an extension of the ancestors of contemporary Pueblo cultures to the north, in New Mexico and Arizona, while Mexicans tend to see it is a northern outpost of Mesoamerican civilization.  The displays at the Paquimé museum appeared oriented toward the former view, with numerous to Chaco, Snaketown, and Mesa Verde, for example, as well as to the Hopi, Navajo and Pueblo in the United States.

I’m not an archaeologist, nor do I aspire to becoming even an amateur archaeologist, so I’ll borrow some background information and interpretation from smarter people who have been immersed in those stuff for a long time.

Paquimé was the last of the great ceremonial and trading centers of the US Southwest or northwestern Mexico, perhaps enduring past the arrival of Columbus in San Salvador, Bahamas in 1492.  Stephen Lekson, at the University of Colorado, argues in his book The Chaco Meridian: Centers of Political Power in the Ancient Southwest ( Altamira Press, 1999) that this last center is linked by design and usage characteristics to earlier sites at Chaco,  and Aztec — all in New Mexico.  (One could also toss in Salmon Ruins, between Chaco and Aztec.) What’s more intriguing is that these three major centers are all located along the same meridian.

Here’s The Chaco Meridian‘s basic argument in one paragraph from pages 15-16 of that fascinating book.

“In Pueblo prehistory, there were three “capitals” — small ceremonial cities where low-grade political complexity encompassed and organized surrounding regions:  Chaco Canyon, Aztec Ruins, and Paquime (also called Casas Grandes). These centers were sequential, and historically related.  Each was by far the most important settlement of it stime and place, and each controlled the distirbuiton of exotic materials  — partots, copper bells, shells, and so forth.  Chaco, Aztec, and Paquime spanned in seuqnece five centuries, from abut A.D. 900 to A.D. 1450. (All dates are A.D. or C.E. and hereafter I dispense with those abbreviations.) A variety of symbols and architectural forms were used to signify historical continuity from each successor capital back to its predecessor.  Amont these symols was an interesting (but not unique) use of positional alignment: The capitals were al built on the same meridian. Pueblo traditional histories allude to places and events that may refer eto these sites and their sequence.  That’s all simple enough, I think.”

Keep this in mind.

That’s Lekson’s argument, and it persuaded me.  In a slightly different context which I cannot recall specifically, someone during this trip offered the observation: “The only coincidence would be if there was a coincidence.”  A space alien circling the earth, unaware of the boundary between the United States and Mexico, might look down and see these sites laid out at -108 degrees W, give or take a few seconds.  I’m tired of ripping off Lekson, so I won’t steal the map that appears on page 16 of The Chaco Meridian.  Instead, please take a look at this map cribbed from Google Maps.  Ignoring the slightly crooked route, and looking strictly at the LatLng Markers I learned how to drop in, you can see the three sites are in near-perfect alignment, just like the motels on Central Avenue in Albuquerque and the embassies on Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest Washington, DC.  The line between  Paquime and the predecessor sites is about as ramrod straight as the borders between Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona on the map below.  If the alignment of the sites is coincidental, then one would have to argue that the Four Corners are likewise.

When asked about the principal problem from tourists, I was told there are not enough.  A random look at the logbook for individual visitors revealed that as little as 16 visitors on a single day would show up at this, one of 936 examples of sites of “outstanding universal value.”

Influenza, a sagging economy, and narco violence are obviously to blame, but the H1N1 problem was three years ago.  It’s debatable whether the economy is bouncing back, but several conversations with local residents revealed that the region today is quite secure, although there were serious problems three years ago.

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