Cartographic reflections on the nomads of the north

Abstract

This paper presents the ideas and conceptions of the nomads of northern central Mexico that were represented in the cartography of the sixteenth century, its subsequent extension into the nineteenth century and the permanence of an imaginary construction that has permeated the academic discourse in several anthropological disciplines. We argue that it is important to stop qualifying under the same terms that were imposed to define the cultural developments of the septentrion. We propose, from a historical perspective, the revision of the meanings of the nomad from the cartography of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and its conceptual integration in the development of the archaeology of northern Mexico, which has assumed divergent ideas in the pre-Hispanic cultural development.