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PROVO — Mike Searcy and Scott Ure's mornings in the desert of northwest Mexico in 2022 started early and went long.
The days themselves were spent under the blistering sun and mainly consisted of digging, digging and more digging.
"We put in trench after trench," Ure said. "It's a lot of manual labor."
Although some of the days had a "Holes" feel to them, the team of BYU professors and students, led by Ure, an anthropology professor, and Searcy, an archaeology professor, wasn't digging holes for rehabilitation purposes.
Instead, they were looking for ancient artifacts, some of which had been buried for 1,000 years and consisted of pottery shards, hammer stones, maize kernels and — peculiar when considering it was found at a location 250 miles inland — a shell bead from the Pacific Ocean.
The archaeology team conducted its work in the state of Chihuahua just south of Casas Grandes, also known as Paquimé — a large, ancient city that had its heyday between 1200 and 1400 A.D — studying the Viejo period, which predates the main era of Casas Grandes.
The team recently spoke with KSL.com about its recent work in the Casas Grandes region of Chihuahua, Mexico.
"What makes it significant is that it's in this desert valley, yet these people found ways to harness the water, build this massive city and then also support the populations not only of the site itself of Paquimé, but also all the neighboring sites all around," Searcy said.
He added that the population at Paquimé itself was probably around 2,500 and 4,000 people, with thousands more in the areas around Paquimé.
It was in those areas around Paquimé that Searcy, Ure and their team put most of their work into. Namely, a small farming settlement to the south of Paquimé that they named "San Diego" where they did most of their excavation and digging.
To document its discoveries, the team used advanced technology, including robotic surveying instruments that map artifacts with millimeter-level precision, survey-grade GPS and unmanned aerial systems that take images of the site from the sky.
In 2019, they uncovered the floor of the largest known communal structure from the Viejo period, a 9-meter-diameter building big enough to house 30 to 40 people.
"One of the major goals for this project was to find the other structures around this communal structure," Ure said. "We surmised that there was a village connected to this kind of gathering structure or building where ... the community could get together in large groups."
Their hypothesis turned out to be correct and the team unearthed a 4- to 5-meter-diameter "pit house" near the larger communal structure.
This discovery was a big one for Searcy and Ure, who view archaeology as a way to quite literally dig up humanity's past and the diverse lifestyles led.
"We're really trying to get at what we call the roots of Casas Grandes," said Searcy. "There's a connection between the large city of Paquimé and the site we're excavating. For some reason, the people returned to build yet a bigger city. What brought about this rise of not only a larger population, but the largest city center in the deserts of northwest Mexico?"
These questions are what drive Searcy and Ure's research and why they've been so fascinated with Paquimé and its surrounding areas. The discoveries the team made, Searcy said, "feeds into this idea that they went from a rather more simple life to one that was urbanized."
Items discovered include remnants of scarlet macaws, copper bells and marine shells from Mexico's tropical coasts. These artifacts from different regions of the country suggest that people from all areas of Mexico may have traveled to Paquimé to engage in trade or even start new lives.
They also found evidence of hunting, gathering, construction and farming.
Supporting a city full of people in a desert ecosystem also points to valuable lessons, Searcy and Ure say.
"They really had to worry about sustainability and this is something that we are dealing with today, too," Ure said. "How do we survive in a drought condition or a drought environment? How do we use our resources wisely? This is something that archaeology can really contribute today, to modern society."
Despite their discoveries, there is still more work in store for Searcy and Ure.
And they wouldn't have it any other way.
"That's also what makes it fun. Every site we dig, every place we go, we're going to learn something new about these people," Searcy said.
