Architecture and Authority in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

Architecture both reflects and emphasizes the distinctions upon which social and political organization are based. In particular, an "architecture of power" has been recognized in a number of hierarchical, prehistoric cultural contexts, from the Chacoans to the Mississippians. In these cases, the specific architectural style of a central place is replicated at points in the surrounding area, either as an imitative response by local populations or as a tangible reflection of control exerted from the major political center. The latter situation seems the most likely in the area close around the primate center of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. Here, architectural data from the authors' recent survey and excavation projects are used to recognize a local architecture of power, to trace its distribution, and to postulate several different types of control nodes in the area lying around the primate center. These nodes vary in type and level of elaboration, and it is argued that this variation reflects the nodes" different roles in the organization of Casas Grandes" hinterland.