Upland–Lowland Corridors and Historic Jicarilla Apache Settlement in the Northern Rio Grande (original) (raw)

Spatial and Temporal Limits of the Casas Grandes Tradition: A View from the Fronteras Valley

Latin American Antiquity, 2023

This article revises the spatial and temporal boundaries of the Casas Grandes tradition associated with northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, based on new data collected in neighboring northeastern Sonora. The Casas Grandes tradition attained its greatest extent during the Medio period (AD 1200-1450/1500) followed by a dramatic demographic and political collapse. Huntergatherer groups subsequently occupied most of northwest Chihuahua. Data from the Fronteras Valley, Sonora, presents an alternative scenario, with a clear pattern of cultural continuity from the eleventh century to the colonial period in which sedentary farmers occupied the same landscapes and occasionally the same villages. These observations contribute to our understanding of the spread and subsequent demise of the Casas Grandes tradition in hinterland regions. For the Fronteras Valley, we infer that immigrant groups originally introduced Casas Grandes traditions and that uneven participation in a suite of shared religious beliefs and practices was common to all the hinterlands.

LAND, FOREST, AND PUEBLOS IN THE MESETA PURÉPECHA, 1869-1911

Mexico in Focus: Political, Environmental and Social Issues, 2014

This chapter studies a number of land and social changes occurring during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the meseta purépecha, a highland region of the state of Michoacán, Mexico. It examines, in particular, the land regime of a group of local indigenous communities. It pays special attention to how environmental conditions-a peculiar combination of forested mountains and flat terrains, annual patterns of rain, volcanic soils, and an imbalanced distribution of water sourcescontributed to shape the material life of these communities. It analyzes the events and compelling influences behind the reformation of old agrarian practices and land tenure systems. It argues that an unprecedented combination of political changes, land and fiscal policies, population growth, and commercial expansion resulted in one of the major transformations in the history of the region and its communities.