New Insights into the Old Period in Casas Grandes: 10 Years of Viejo Period Research in Northern Mex

The Roots of Casas Grandes Project (RCG) began in 2013 with the goal of understanding more about the Viejo period people who lived in the well-watered valleys of the eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, for over 500 years.
This is also a time period that preceded the better known Medio period when the large city of Paquime was built and the Casas Grandes region underwent significant cultural transformations. The combination of surveys, excavations, archival research, and various analyses of Viejo period materials has brought to light many new discoveries regarding the Casas Grandes people who populated the same river valleys that gave way to a thirteenth-century cultural revolution and the construction of one of the largest city centers ever built in the U.S. Southwest/Northwest Mexico in precolonial times.
Michael Searcy is an associate professor of anthropology and archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at Brigham Young University. He is currently serving as the department chair and director of the New World Archaeological Foundation. For over fifteen years, he has worked in northern Mexico researching Casas Grandes cultural traditions with a focus on the Viejo Period (A.D. 700-1200).
Michael recently co-authored the book Hinterlands to Cities: The Archaeology of Northwest Mexico with Matthew Pailes, and his recent research includes an ancient DNA study as well as a reanalysis of chronology in the Casas Grandes region.
This lecture was recorded 4/29/2023

[@jeanettewaverly2590]

Excellent presentation!

[@AmerindFoundation]

Glad you liked it!