Isotopic Evidence for the Presence of Immigrants at Casas Grandes

Summary

Casas Grandes is widely recognized as having cultural characteristics of both Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Although the presence of objects and ideas from surrounding areas clearly demonstrates some degree of regional interaction, the nature and extent of Casas Grandes’ relationship with neighbouring communities is largely unresolved. In particular, one of the key issues in Chihuahuan archaeology is whether Medio period complexity arose from internal developments or external stimuli, such as an influx of people from surrounding regions. In this study, we address this question by using strontium isotope analysis to determine the geographic origins of a subset of the individuals interred at Paquimé, the Convento site, and several sites from the southern zone of the Chihuahua culture area. Our results suggest that over twenty percent of the individuals sampled (N=83) were immigrants to Paquimé, while over 30% of the Viejo period individuals sampled (N=13) were classified as non-local. These findings are interpreted in relation to demographic variables and mortuary treatment to evaluate various scenarios for the presence of immigrants at the site, including post-marital residence, trade, pilgrimage, warfare, and captive taking.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Current Bioarchaeological Research in the Casas Grandes Region

Keywords

Spatial Coverage