Casas Grandes

Casas Grandes, or Paquimé, is a major prehistoric settlement in northern Chihuahua and one of the largest and most complex sites in the Mogollon world. Beginning after about 1130 A.D. as smaller farming communities supported by irrigation, it developed into a planned adobe city with plazas, enclosing walls, waterworks, and, after a fire around 1340, large multi-story apartment blocks. At its height it had about 2,000 adjoining rooms, ceremonial and market spaces, and features showing both Mesoamerican and Puebloan influence. A center of craft production and exchange, it linked northern Mexico with Arizona and New Mexico before being abandoned around 1450.

Chihuahua · Mexico