Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at 12:00 noon, free!

Paquimé, also known as Casas Grandes, controlled the largest trade network ever known in the prehistoric Southwest. Beginning in the mid-1200s A.D., the town had Mesoamerican-like ball courts, ceremonial mounds, a water-delivery system, reservoirs, large public roasting ovens, and apartment buildings of three to four stories. Exotic commodities, such as scarlet macaws and 1-½ tons of marine shell, came from hundreds of miles away. Nearby, the forbidding Sierra Madre mountains held hundreds of cliff dwellings. When Spanish explorers arrived in the 1560s, Paquimé was deserted and the fate of its residents is still unclear. Surviving Indian tribes, such as the Tarahumara, were eventually brought under Spanish control. In 1910, as the Mexican revolution began, the Casas Grandes region played an important role as Pancho Villa raised a regional army that defeated the federal Mexican government and, at one point, attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. This background history is presented in advance of the Friends of Archaeology trip to northern Chihuahua, September 15-19.

The Brown Bag talks will take place at the Center for New Mexico Archaeology at 12:00 noon in the CNMA library. Seating is limited. Admission is free.

The Center for New Mexico Archaeology (7 Old Cochiti Road) is located off of Caja del Rio Road, across from Challenge New Mexico on the way to the Santa Fe Municipal Golf Course. Take 599 to South Meadows Road, continue through the traffic circle west along the Frontage Road to Caja del Rio Road. CNMA is on the left-hand side of the road and is the large building with white sail-like skylights on the roof.