Casas Grandes or Paquimé was a major pre-Columbian city that flourished due to its extensive trading networks between c. 1150/1200-1450 CE in the northwest of present-day Chihuahua, Mexico. Casas Grandes is one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in the Oasisamerica region, and the city played a key role in the transmission of knowledge and goods between the cultures of the Pre-Columbian desert southwest and those of Mesoamerica. The construction of Casas Grandes is widely attributed to people who demonstrated the marked characteristics of the Mogollon culture, which existed from c. 200-1450 CE in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona as well as northern Mexico, but a lively scholarly debate continues as to the exact ethnicities and origins of the peoples who lived in and founded Casas Grandes. Although only 20% of the site has been excavated and surveyed, UNESCO designated Casas Grandes as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 CE.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/Casas_Grandes/.