Paquime, el confín de Mesoamérica (S)

The northwestern portion of what was New Spain, was one of the regions that presented the greatest challenge to the conquerors. This territory, vast and inhospitable, and the untamed peoples who lived here, presented a barrier that could not be overcome until the late nineteenth century when both, the American and Mexican armies launched the last crusade against the Apaches. It was only then when the vestiges of the ancient cultures that inhabited this region started to be known. In the river canyons that come down from the Sierra Madre, in the actual state of Chihuahua, there are several cliff-dwellings known as Las cuarenta Casas (the forty houses). The constructions found there are very similar to those of a large ancient city located northward, in the valley of Casas Grandes. The city, known as Paquime, includes the remains of houses of several floors, ceremonial monuments, plazas and complex aqueducts. The history of the city is a mystery, but it shares many resemblance's with the constructions of the Anazasi culture of the American southwest. Nonetheless, the presence of typically Mesoamerican features suggests that Paquime may have been a point of convergence between these two cultures, or the Mesoamerican frontier.