NO. 1 CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 11 
smallpox and measles. These diseases may have spread from native 
to native as epidemics through the north frontier country long before 
the first Spanish slavers entered the area, depleting the trading cen- 
ters and allowing ascendency to the older desert cultures. Living in 
smaller groups and in comparative isolation, their bearers may have 
been spared the devastating effects visited upon the urban centers. 
SPANISH CONTACTS 
To the Spanish, northern Mexico was first a source of slaves and 
later thought of as that "horrible" frontier that had to be crossed in 
searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola. Then it became a field where 
various Catholic orders went in search of souls, hand in hand with 
conquistadores who searched for gold and silver. Slowly the Spanish 
frontiersmen pushed northward and the native cultures in their path 
were either Christianized and absorbed or destroyed. Only a few 
groups such as the Tarahumar, Seri, and Yaqui have escaped complete 
acculturation. 
CONCLUSION 
This paper does little more than to express the urgent need for 
study in northern Mexico. It has attempted to note only a few of the 
highlights in the long historical continuum of northern Mexico, an area 
that will stand in both time and space as an interesting archeological 
zone. It would behoove scholars to turn their curiosity here in the 
future. 
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Amsden, Monroe. 
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Arguedas R. de la Borbolla, Sol, and Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda, Luis. 
1953. A Plainview point from northern Tamaulipas. Amer. Antiquity, vol. 
18, pp. 392-393. 
Ascher, Robert, and Clune, Francis J., Jr. 
1960. Waterfall Cave, Southern Chihuahua, Mexico. Amer. Antiquity, vol. 
26, pp. 270-274. 
Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda, Luis. 
1962. Antiguedad del hombre en Mexico y Centro- America : Catalogo 
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Aveleyra Arroyo de Anda, Luis; Maldonado-Koerdell, Manuel; Mar- 
tinez DEL Rio, Pablo ; Bernal, Ignacio ; and Saucedo, Federico Elizondo. 
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