Curtis F. Schaafsma and Carroll L. Riley. 1999. The Casas Grandes World. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. 249 pages, plus 29 pages of references, and an index.
In the Mexican state of Chihuahua lies Paquimé, the capital city of what is considered the third great regional state of prehistory in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries of the American Southwest. The first is Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico; the second the Hohokam of the southern Arizona desert; and the third and lesser known is that of Casas Grandes, or Paquimé. http://erclk.about.com/?zi=12/%5b8rbr]http://erclk.about.com/?zi=12/%5b8sbr] This book is a collection of articles, resulting from a 1995 symposium of 25 or more researchers, under the theme "The Casas Grandes Interaction Sphere: Origins, Nature, contacts, and Legacy." The majority of the book reproduces these papers, organized in three packets: the Core Area, the Outer Sphere, and the Larger View. Each chapter presents the research of an author or group of authors. Topics discussed include studies of the various sites determined to have been part of the Casas Grandes hegemony; descriptions of Mimbres sites that may have had interaction with Casas Grandes, and special studies of structural features, artifact types and symbols.
The oversized volume allows for plenty of black and white drawings and photographs; a few maps assist the reader in placing Casas Grandes in its geographic sphere. The intricacies of the Casas Grandes region are no less interesting than Hohokam or Chaco Canyon, and the volume goes a long way toward expanding the data base for those of us who don't normally work in the American southwest.
