[Aztlan] An answer to Lennert on Casas Grandes dates

[michael ruggeri]

Lennert,

The latest defined dates appear to give a date in the 1430's for the  
abandonment of Paquime/Casas Grandes. North of Paquime, the great  
Puebloan collapse was still taking place and the cultures and  
civilizations that had built large population centers were dispersing  
in all directions. When the collapse began, many in the southwest  
diaspora came to Casas Grandes giving that site a huge boost and then  
a rapid collapse ending in conflict and dispersal. The site of Casas  
Grandes began around 1100. The Toltec collapse was taking place  
although there could have been some trade involving long distance  
exchange with the Toltecs right before their collapse. But trade with  
Mesoamerica picked up in the next post-Toltec centuries reaching into  
the southwest. By the time of the Spanish intrusion, there was pueblo  
settlement but on a much smaller scale and more widely dispersed with  
the great artistic elements of the past dying out. Below is a good  
article on the end of Casas Grandes.

http://www.unm.edu/~dap/End-of-Casas-Grandes.pdf

Mike Ruggeri