Paquimé (sometimes also called “Casas Grandes”) is a large prehispanic archaeological site located in northern Chihuahua, Mexico. It was first excavated by the Joint Casas Grandes Expedition (JCGE) under the direction of Charles Di Peso. The site is known for spectacular massive adobe room blocks, public architecture, large amounts of Pacific coast shell, turquoise, and macaw pens. Paquimé was a regional center for commerce in the movement of goods around northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States. The JCGE, however, occurred when research focused on architecture, pottery, stone tools, and “exotic” goods. Animal bones, plants, and environmental data were not systematically collected.
Starting in the late 1980s, several teams of independent researchers began to work in northern Chihuahua. Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen and their team focused on Paquimé and surrounding settlements. Following systematic surveys, seven sites were partially excavated using modern data recovery techniques. The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors focuses exclusively on paleoethnobotanical information from charred seeds, fruits, and wood charcoal from those sites.
The book is arranged into seven chapters, which include an introduction, five numbered chapters, and a conclusion. These are followed by three appendices and a thoughtfully composed index.
The introduction briefly describes Paquimé and the seven sites excavated by Minnis and Whalen. Chapter 1 describes the ecological setting of the region, with reference to David Brown's (and colleagues’) biotic provinces of the US Southwest and northern Mexico. It is a brief but necessary technical chapter because it sets the stage for discussions of human–landscape interaction that follow.
Chapter 2 (“Foods”) identifies and quantifies charred food plant tissues in 556 flotation samples from excavated sites. Maize, beans, and squash were heavily represented. Cotton is mentioned as a source for both fiber and food, alongside a broad range of weedy plants that grow in and near agricultural fields. Domesticated chili seeds near Paquimé are the oldest ones in northern Chihuahua, and they are older than any found in Arizona or New Mexico. Agave tissues, in one case, associated with a large earth oven, are called out as special foods related to social feasting.
In the discussion of social production of food that continues in Chapter 3 (“Farming”), Minnis and Whalen leave readers with two major messages. First, the Rio Casas Grandes was an exceptionally fertile place for agriculture with a broad catchment area, and local precipitation and technologies made dry farming a reasonable enterprise on slopes located away from floodplains. Second, the ability for Paquimé to maintain itself as a large settlement, while supporting chiefs and functioning as a center in regionally expansive trade networks, was possible because of exceptional agricultural productivity.
Chapter 4 (“Wood Use”) identifies the kinds and amounts of woods used at different sites as identified in 9,000 charcoal fragments. In this chapter, Minnis and Whalen make a strong statement of the need to treat wood charcoal as a socially relevant artifact. They mention that fuel wood use at Paquimé must have been immense, and they speculate that floodplain sites may have had access to charcoal manufactured in upland settings.
Chapter 5 (“Anthropogenic Ecology”) considers evidence of changes in the amounts of different kinds of food and plant tissues within Medio period deposits and in comparison with older Viejo period deposits in northern Chihuahua. Minnis and Whalen find no evidence for substantial adverse anthropogenic effects. The wood catchment area for Paquimé and other floodplain sites must have been vast, owing to the abundance of pine—only available near upper piedmont sites. The last chapter (“Conclusion”) reviews the findings presented in the book.
The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors is an essential book that fills a void in knowledge of prehispanic food production and economy in northern Chihuahua. Paquimé reoccurs as a perennial subject of speculation regarding its economic ties to and social effects on people living in the more heavily investigated area of southern and central Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Minnis and Whalen's contribution provides the first significant look at prehispanic food production and consumption against which those other regions may be compared. The book establishes a baseline of information against which future studies of contemporaneous and older sites may reveal evidence of changes in subsistence practices, anthropogenic economy, and social organization.
