Home is where the Hearths are: Architectural Stratigraphy, Ritual, and Social Memory in Viejo Period Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

The Viejo period (600–1250 CE) represents a major chronological horizon of the Casas Grandes culture area in northwest Mexico. Little is still known about Viejo period society, especially when compared to contemporaneous communities in the American Southwest or the later Medio Period urban and ceremonial centers such as Paquimé. Such Viejo period settlements are characterized by agglomerations of semi-subterranean circular pithouses, only a few of which were explored in any detail. This paper adopts a diachronic perspective to the architectural stratigraphy and depositional practices manifested below, within, and outside of Structure 5, a unique multi-phase pithouse excavated at the Calderón site (Ch-254). These patterned and repetitive activities argue in turn for a special-purpose function of this space through time, one related to ritual, rainmaking, and ancestral memory.