Casas Grandes and the Chaco Canyon Cultures

Charles C. Di Peso

Casas Grandes and the Chaco Canyon Cultures

Year: 1975

Summary

As early as 1936, Edgar L. Hewett suggested that there might have been some sort of temporal relationship between Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, Mexico, and such Chaco settlements as Pueblo Bonito, del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl, in New Mexico. He recognized the obvious differences in terms of ceramics, architectonics, and historical background which marked these two entities, but still felt that there was some common time denominator. Most of his contemporaries, however, believed that the city of Casas Grandes was built some 300 years after the Chacoan demise and that there could not have been any physical contact between the two, as they were separated not only in time, but also by some 800 km. (500 mi.) of weary desert and mountain trails. Yet, it is now known that the Buena Fe Phase of the Casas Grandes sequence and the Bonito Phase of the Chaco Canyon lap one another in terms of the Christian calendar. Both time blocks span the dendro years bracketed by A.D. 1060 and 1130, and, strangely enough, there is a curious historical parallel between the two.