Handbook of North American Indians, Volume IX: The Southwest, Part 1: Regional Surveys A.D> 500-1540

Summary

During the course of the last decade, research in northern Mexico has produced a mass of explicit data that necessitates a redefinition of the southern boundary of the "North American Southwest" (Arizona and New Mexico) to include all of northern Mexico as far south as the Tropic of Cancer (23°27' north latitude). This additional expanse was once a very substantial portion of the Gran Chichimeca (Di Peso 1963, 1968a, 1968b), and was looked upon by the sophisticated Mosoamericans as the habitat of the northern barbarians; known as "Sons of the Dog" (Chichimecans), according to Wolf (1959) and Di Peso (Di Peso ct al. 1973), This vast, semi-arid region of over a million square kilometers has been defined both as the northern periphery of Mesoamerica (Kelley and Abbott 1966) and as the southern periphery of the American Southwest (Di Peso 1968a, 1968b). In a very real sense, it was both, as on the one hand, it was the homeland of Cochise-like desert dwellers, and on the other hand, it was an exploitable frontier to the Mesoamericans who from time to time sponsored various mercantile ventures into this northern borderland.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology (DAHA)   •
• Amerind DAHA Resources

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Amerind Museum

Submitted To(s): The Amerind Foundation, Inc.

Record Identifiers

MS(s): 413

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