The Northern Cultures Gallery is organized by levels of social and cultural complexity rather than strict chronology. It begins with hunter-gatherer societies that lived from the 10th to 17th centuries and ends with intensive agricultural communities from Northern Mexico and the American Southwest.

This region includes modern-day Guanajuato, Querétaro, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila, Nuevo León, northern Tamaulipas, Baja California, northern Sinaloa, and borderlands of Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.

In the 16th century, the Mexica called this vast territory "Chichimecatlalli", “land of the Chichimeca,” from whom they believed they descended. Spanish colonizers later referred to it as "La Gran Chichimeca". Here, diverse cultures thrived—some nomadic, others sedentary—and the region developed distinct cultural traits that set it apart from Mesoamerica.