Archaeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes

Earthen walls sculpted into multi-storey houses mark Paquimé, the desert city that once brokered exchange between the Pueblo world of the American Southwest and the civilizations of Mesoamerica. Macaw pens, ball courts and water channels attest to its cosmopolitan reach at its 14th- and 15th-century height, before the culture vanished abruptly around the era of the Spanish Conquest, leaving most of the site unexcavated. UNESCO inscribed Casas Grandes in 1998.