lekson chaco
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Chaco Canyon, in nor thwester n New Mexico, was a gr eat Pueblo
center of the eleventh and twelf th centur ies A.D. (figur es 1.1 and 1.2;
r ef er to plate 2). Its r uins r epr esent a decisive time and place in the his-
t
or
y of “Anasazi,” o
r
Ancestr al
P
uebl
o peopl
es.Even
t
s at
Chaco
tr ans
-
f or med the Pueblo wor ld, with philosophical and pr actical implications
f or Pueblo descendents and f or the r est of us. Moder n views of Chaco
var y: “a beautif ul, ser ene place wher e ever ything was pr ovided by the
spir it helper s” (S. Or tiz 1994:72), “a dazzling show of wealth and power
in a tr eeless deser t” (Fer nandez-Ar mesto 2001:61), “a self -inflicted eco-
logical disaster ” (Diamond 1992:332).
Chaco, today, is a national par k . Despite dif ficult access (20 miles of dir t r oads), mor e than seventy-f ive thousand people visit ever y
year . Chaco is f eatur ed in compendiums of must-see sights, f r om AAA
tour book s, to ar chaeology f ield guides such as Am e r i c a ’ s Anc i e nt
T r e a s ur e s (Folsom and Folsom 1993), to the E nc y c l o p e d i a of M y s t e r i o us
P l a c e s (Ingpen and Wilk inson 1990). In and beyond the Southwest,
Chaco’s f ame manif ests in mor e substantial, mater ial ways. In
Albuquer que, New Mexico, the str uctur e of the Pueblo Indian Cultur al
3COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
The A
r
cha
eol
ogy of Cha
co Can
yon
Chaco Matter s
An I ntr o d uc t i o n
Stephen H. Lek son
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Center mimics pr ecisely Pueblo Bonito, the most f amous Chaco r uin.
They sell Chaco (tr ademar k !) sandals in Paonia, Color ado, and br ew
Chaco Canyon Ale (also tr ademar k !) in Lincoln, Nebr ask a. The beer
bottle f eatur es the Sun Dagger solstice mar k er , with thr ee beams of
light str ik ing a spir al petr oglyph, pr esumably indicating that it is f ive
o’clock somewher e. Videos, book s, New Age pilgr images, décor in
high-end Santa Fe r estaur ants—Chaco is a f amous place, off icially
inscr ibed in the r oll of UNESCO Wor ld Her itage sites.
Chaco was also an impor tant place in the development of
Southwester n and Amer ican ar chaeology (Lister and Lister 1981; Mills2002; Wilshusen and Hamilton, chapter 11 of this volume). This book
is about Chaco’s ar chaeology: how it was done, what it tells us, how we
should think about it. We have, per haps, conducted mor e ar chaeology
per squar e k ilometer or per centur y of sequence at Chaco than at any
compar able distr ict in the United States—and f ar mor e, to be sur e,
than at many mor e impr essive and impor tant sites ar ound the wor ld.
The last, lar gest, and most expensive field campaign at Chaco Canyon
Stephen H. Lek son
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Figur e 1.1
T h e C h a c o r e g i o n.
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was the National Par k Ser vice’s Chaco Pr o ject in the 1970s and ear ly
1980s.
In this volume, you will f ind paper s f r om our r ecent eff or t to
synthesize the ar chaeology of Chaco Canyon, par ticular ly the fieldwor k
Chaco Mat ter s
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Figur e
1.
2 (a) C h a c o h a l o , o r c o r e ( r e d r a f t e d f r o m W i nd e s 1993 : fi g ur e 1.1) , (b) C h a c o C a n y o n
( r e d r a f t e d f r o m W i nd e s 1993 : fi g ur e 1.2) .
A
B
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of the Chaco Pr o ject (a list of par ticipants, conf er ences, and pr oducts
appear s in appendix A, “Chaco Synthesis meetings”). The Chaco
Synthesis—
the r esults of which you ar e r eading—was a ser ies of small
wor k ing conf er ences f r om Mar ch 1999 to October 2002, twenty year s
af ter fieldwor k ended at Chaco. In addition to chapter s f r om the Chaco
Synthesis (chapter s 2–6 and 12), chapter s 7–11 pr ovide tempor al and
spatial context f or Chaco Canyon and its ar chaeology.
In this intr oduction, I br ief ly explain Chaco (“What Is Chaco?”)
and its mar que ar chaeology (“The Bonito Phase”). I then descr ibe the
1970s r esear ch that gener ated the data (“The Chaco Pr o ject”) and our
tur n-of -the-millennium eff or ts to under stand those data (“The Chaco
Synthesis”). Finally, I addr ess two issues, one of gener al inter est and
one of per sonal inter est, r espectively, in “Wher e Ar e the Indians?” and
“Wher e Is Lek son?”
WHAT IS CHACO ?
Of the var ious phase or stage sequences pr oposed to descr ibe
Chaco’s histor y, we seem to use the Pecos System most widely (figur e
1.3). The ter m specific to Chaco Canyon at its height is the B o ni t o p h a s e ,
divided into thr ee subphases: Ear ly Bonito phase (850–1040), Classic
Bonito phase (1040–1100), and Late Bonito phase (1100–1140). The
Bonito phase is r oughly equivalent to the Pueblo II (PII) per iod of the
P
ecos Syst
em.In
thi
s vol
ume,P u
e b l o I ( P I )
of t
en
descr i
bes th
e ar
cha
eol-
ogy of Chaco Canyon bef or e the Bonito phase, and P ue b l o III ( P III ) , the
ar chaeology of the Four Cor ner s r egion af ter Chaco. (For mor e
extended tr eatments, see Lister and Lister 1981; Mathien 2005; Vivian
1990; f or shor ter , mor e accessible r eviews, see Fr azier 1999; Noble
2004; Vivian and Hilper t 2002. For an excellent r eview of r ecent
r esear ch, see Mills 2002.)
Ana s a z i is an ar chaeological ter m, anglicized f r om a Nava jo phr ase,f or the ancient peoples of the Four Cor ner s r egion in New Mexico,
Color ado, Utah, and Ar izona. For many decades, technical and popu -
lar wr iting has widely used the wor d Ana s a z i ; we use it her e in its ar chae-
ological sense. Many ar chaeologists and Natives pr ef er Anc e s tr a l P ue b l o ,
so that ter m appear s her e also.
A pr ime ob ject pr oduced by the Chaco Synthesis, specifically by its
leader Lynne Sebastian, was a chr onological char t dubbed “The Chaco
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Timeline” (f ollowing page 392). The timeline cover s Chacoan pr ehis-
tor y f r om 800 to 1300, but in this volume we pay par ticular attention to
the span f r om about 850 to 1140, the Bonito phase. Dur ing this phase,Chaco r eached its height with the constr uction of Pueblo Bonito and
the other Gr eat Houses and with its development as a center place.
Ar chaeologists have excavated at Chaco Canyon f or mor e than a
centur y (Fr azier 1999; Lister and Lister 1981; Mathien 2005). That
lar ge investment of time and money has r etur ned r emar k able r esults,
multiplied and compounded by sever al f actor s: ar id climate and conse-
quent good pr eser vation; visibility, with scant plant cover , minimal soil
development, and almost no later cultur al super imposition; tr ee-r ing
dating, mak ing Chaco the best dated pr ehistor ic site anywher e; and a
shor t, simple sequence (compar ed with Tr oy or Copán). Doing ar chae-
ology at Chaco is r elatively easy, and many excellent ar chaeologists
wor k ed ther e over a long time. With all that high-quality wor k at an
advantageous site, we should k now a l o t about Chaco. Thank s to those
ear ly ar chaeologists and Chaco’s r emote location and ar idity, we do.
Richar d Wether ill, the cowboy-ar chaeologist who discover ed Mesa
Ver de, initiated excavations at Chaco in 1896, at its mar quee site of
Pueblo Bonito. His was the f ir st of sever al ma jor f ield pr o jects spon-
sor ed by a var iety of institutions: the Amer ican Museum of Natur al
Histor y (with Wether ill) at Pueblo Bonito (1896–1900), the Smithson-
ian Institution and National Geogr aphic Society at Pueblo Bonito and
Pueblo del Arr oyo (1921–1927), the Museum of New Mexico and the
Univer sity of New Mexico at Chetr o Ketl (1920–1934), and the
National Par k Ser vice (NPS) at Kin Kletso (1950–1951). The last ma jor
field pr ogr am, the NPS’s Chaco Pr o ject, wor k ed at Chaco f r om 1971 to
1982. Subsequent analytical wor k ended about 1986, although r epor t
wr iting continues to this day.
Chaco Canyon is at appr oximate latitude 36 degr ees nor th, 108degr ees west, in the nor thwester n quar ter of New Mexico, a piece of
old Mexico acquir ed by the United States in 1848 (see figur es 1.1 and
1.2). At Pueblo Bonito, the elevation is about 1,865 m (6,125 f t) above
sea level. The canyon is near the center of the San Juan Basin (see fig-
ur e 1.1; r ef er to plate 1). Ar chaeology borr owed the canyon’s name
f r om geology and r ef ashioned it to indicate a r egion about 100 k m in
r adius ar ound Chaco, compr ising the Chaco River dr ainage and
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near by por tions of the San Juan River (into which the Chaco f lows,
when it flows at all). The San Juan Basin is center ed in the southeaster n
quar ter of the Color ado Plateau, a vast uplif ted r egion of canyons andmesas ar ound the Four Cor ner s.
The ver y lar gest Gr eat Houses wer e concentr ated in a 2-k m-diame-
ter “downtown” zone at the center of Chaco Canyon (see figur e 1.2b;
r ef er to plate 4). These include Pueblo Bonito (descr ibed be low),
Pueblo Alto (Windes 1987a, 1987b), Chetr o Ketl (Lek son, ed., 1983),
Pueblo del Arr oyo (Judd 1959), Kin Kletso (Vivian and Mathews 1965),
and many other monuments and smaller str uctur es (Stein, For d, andFr iedman 2003). Ar chitectur e extends beyond this centr al zone. Doyel,
Br eter nitz, and Mar shall (1984) have pr oposed the “Chaco Halo,” an
oval ar ea with a maximum r adius f r om Pueblo Bonito of about 8.5 k m,
f or the Chaco ar ea beyond the immediate conf ines of the canyon.
Many ar chaeologists extend the halo to encompass Gr eat Houses up to
15 k m or mor e f r om the par k boundar ies. Gwinn Vivian and other s, in
chapter 2 of this volume (r ef er to figur e 2.1), r ef er to this as the “Chaco
cor e.” For ty to fif ty k m beyond the Chaco halo, or cor e, lie the bound-
ar ies of the San Juan Basin (descr ibed above; see figur e 1.1), of ten con-
sider ed mor e or less coter minous with the Chaco r egion. The scale of
geogr aphic inter est f or the Chaco wor ld is per haps even lar ger , how-
ever , extending over much of the Four Cor ner s r egion (see figur e 1.1;
Kantner and Kintigh, chapter 5 of this volume).
Chaco Canyon’s envir onment was har sh—a descr iption over used
in Southwester n ar chaeology but singular ly applicable her e. Summer s
ar e blister ingly hot; winter s ar e wr etchedly cold. The gr owing season is
shor t, and r ainf all uncer tain. Indeed, water f or basic domestic needs is
(and was) a concer n. The canyon contained little wood f or building or
bur ning and no outstanding local r esour ces besides sandstone. At the
tur noff f r om paved to dir t r oad, miles away f r om the canyon, a par k ser -vice sign war ns, “No wood, no f ood, no ser vices at Chaco Canyon.”
Other necessities could be added to that list.
Why did the Bonito phase flour ish in this deser t canyon, when well-
water ed valleys lay to the nor th and south, closer to mountains and
f or ests? Chaco’s envir onment seems an unlik ely setting f or what hap-
pened ther e. Opinions on its impor t r ange widely: some ar chaeologists
f ee l that Chaco’s par ticular envir onment mor e or less explains the
Chaco Mat ter s
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Bonito phase, and other s think that the Bonito phase shaped that envi-
r onment to its needs. In any event, Chaco is a place wher e one cannot
ignor e natur e. The envir onment, descr ibed in this volume by Gwinn
Vivian and other s (chapter 2), is cr itically impor tant to our under -
standing of the Bonito phase.
THE BON ITO PHASE
The ar chaeology of Chaco Canyon center s on a dozen r emar k able
buildings called “Gr eat Houses”—a motif of ever y chapter in this vol-
ume , but the par ticular theme of Lek son, Windes, and McKenna
(chapter 3). Gr eat Houses at Chaco (f igur es 1.4 and 3.1; see plates
5 and 6) began in the late ninth centur y as monumentally up -scaled
ver sions of r egular domestic str uctur es—the small, single-f amily unit
Stephen H. Lek son
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Figur e 1.4
P ue b l o B o ni t o a nd uni t p ue b l o s : ( a ) T h r ee C S i t e , e a r l y 1000 s , ( b ) B c 126 , l a t e 1000 s t o
m i dd l e 1100 s , a nd ( c ) G a ll o Cl i ff D w e ll i n gs , 1200 s . ( R e d r a w n f r o m p l a ns i n L e ks o n, e d .,
1984 a a nd M c K e nna a nd T r ue ll 1986 )
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pueblos (see figur e 1.4), also called “Pr udden units” (Lipe, chapter 8)
or “small sites” (McKenna, chapter 3), of the Pueblo I and Pueblo II
per iods. Shor tly af ter 1000, Gr eat Houses took a canonical tur n in f or mand f unction that distinguished them ther eaf ter f r om nor mal r esi-
dences. An entir e unit pueblo would f it in a single lar ge r oom at a
Chaco Gr eat House.
In appr oximately one centur y, f r om 1020 to about 1125, the people
at Chaco Canyon built the Gr eat Houses, but each Gr eat House has a
unique constr uction histor y and sever al star ted much ear lier . Pueblo
Bonito was one of these ear ly Gr eat Houses (Judd 1954, 1964; Neitzel,ed., 2003; Pepper 1920) and is typical, per haps ar chetypical, of Chaco
Canyon Gr eat Houses (see figur e 1.4 and plate 5).
Pueblo Bonito took almost thr ee centur ies (850 to 1125) to build
(Windes and For d 1996). The “r oads” of ancient Chaco (descr ibed
later in this chapter ) led viewer s to the edge of Chaco’s sheer sandstone
cliff s, wher e they could behold the D-shaped gr ound plan. The build-
ing began as a huge ver sion of Pueblo I unit pueblos, built thr ee stor ies
tall (nor mal unit pueblos wer e one shor t stor y). Pueblo I masonr y was
inadequate f or multiple stor ies, so, when the r ear wall of Pueblo Bonito
began to f ail in the ear ly eleventh centur y, Chaco ar chitects buttr essed
the old building by enveloping it in an exter ior cur tain wall of super ior
stonewor k . In many cases, they r azed existing sections of Gr eat Houses,
includ ing par ts of Pueblo Bonito, to mak e way f or new constr uction,
but “Old Bonito” r emained at the hear t of the str uctur e thr oughout its
long histor y.
Beginning about 1020, the ar chitects of Pueblo Bonito star ted a
ser ies of six ma jor additions, each of which was enor mously lar ger than
anything pr eviously built in the Pueblo wor ld. At the culmination,
about 1125, almost seven hundr ed r ooms, stack ed f our and per haps
five stor i
es tall
, cover
ed an ar
ea of about 0.8 ha. Only the oute
r
most of Pueblo Bonito’s r ooms had sunlight; most of the inter ior r ooms wer e
dar k and had limited access, suited (pr esumably) f or stor age. We now
believe that only a scor e of f amilies lived in this huge building
(Ber nar dini 1999; Windes 1987a:383–392). They wer e ver y impor tant
f amilies who contr olled, or at least had access to, enor mous number s of
lar ge stor age r ooms.
Lik e other Gr eat Houses, building Pueblo Bonito was expensive or
Chaco Mat ter s
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labor ious. That is, the labor -per -unit measur e of f loor ar ea or r oof ed
volume f ar exceeded that f or unit pueblos. What distinguished Pueblo
Bonito and the other Gr eat Houses wer e site pr epar ation (leveling andterr acing); extensive f oundations; massive, ar tf ully cour sed masonr y
walls; over timber ed r oof s and ceilings (hundr eds of thousands of lar ge
pine beams br ought f r om distant f or ests); sk illf ul car pentr y, which can
only be appr eciated today f r om masonr y r emnants of elabor ate wooden
stair ways, balconies, and por ticos; and other f eatur es and f ur nitur e
unique to these r emar k able buildings. Among these last wer e colon-
nades (a Mesoamer ican f or m, f ound at Chetr o Ketl), unique r aised plat-
f or ms (f or stor age? sleeping?) within r ooms at most Gr eat Houses, and
lar ge sandstone disk s (appr oximately 1 m diameter and 30 cm thick )
stack ed lik e pancak es as f oundations or dedicator y monuments
beneath ma jor posts of Gr eat Kivas (descr ibed later in this chapter ).
Constr uction r equir ed a much lar ger , f ar mor e complex or ganiza-
tion of labor than the f amily economy of unit pueblos. Lif e, too, was dif -
f er ent. At Pueblo Bonito and other Gr eat Houses, gangs of gr inder s
pr epar ed meals f or lar ger gr oups in r ooms devoted to batter ies of cor n-
gr inding m e t a t e s f ixed in bins. Ar chaeologists f ound huge ovens in
Gr eat House plazas wher e, pr esumably, people cook ed f or lar ger
gr oups. The f ew f amilies who actually lived in Pueblo Bonito could not
have built it themselves. Lik ely, other s built the huge str uctur e and did
much of the domestic wor k (gr inding cor n, cook ing).
Pueblo Bonito was only one of a dozen Gr eat Houses at Chaco.
Gr eat Houses wer e par t of a lar ge, spr awling, complex settlement.
These massive buildings wer e cluster ed in downtown Chaco, and the
cultur al landscape included many other elements, such as r oads,
mounds, Gr eat Kivas, and small sites.
Roads appear much as their name implies. Long, str aight, wide
(typ
icall
y 9 m) enginee
r
ed f eat
ur
es link ed s
ites
t
o othe
r
sit
es and
t
o nat-
ur al places, simpler in constr uction but not unlik e the causeways of La
Quemada (Nelson, chapter 10 of this volume) and the s a c b e of the
ancient Maya. The Chacoans designed the r oads f or f oot tr af fic. Wher e
r oads met cliff s, they constr ucted elabor ate r amps or car ved wide stair -
ways out of the living r ock . They valued the symbolic or monumental
aspects of r oads, however , as much as tr anspor tation. The dense net-
wor k of r oads in downtown Chaco, f or example, cr eated r edundant,
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par allel r outes clear ly unnecessar y f or ef ficient pedestr ian use. Roads
wer e meant f or something beyond simple tr anspor tation. This conclu-
sion is pr obably also valid f or r oads r unning out f r om the canyon.Sever al ar e k nown to r un many k ilometer s to the nor th, southwest, and
west, but these r oads may r un to symbo lically impor tant natur al f ea-
tur es r ather than to other sites (as Kantner and Kintigh note in chapter
5 of this volume; see plate 3). Other r oads may be f or mally constr ucted
only at their ter mini, wher e they appr oach or enter Gr eat House com-
plexes (Roney 1992).
Mounds encompassed a r ange of ear then str uctur es with (pr e-sumably) a var iety of pur poses (f igur e 3.14). Most mounds ar e oval,
sculpted accumulations of ear th, tr ash, and constr uction debr is. A f ew
mounds have ver y f or mal geometr ic shapes. In f r ont of Pueblo Bonito
wer e two lar ge, head-high, r ectangular , masonr y-walled, platf or m
mounds, each lar ger than a bask etball cour t. Stair s led up to their heav-
ily plaster ed sur f aces. We do not k now what str uctur es, if any, stood on
these platf or ms. Other ear thwor k s include lar ge ber ms r unning along-
side r oads and huge “tr ash mounds” at some (but, impor tantly, not all)
Gr eat Houses (Windes 1987a, 1987b; Wills 2001).
Gr eat Kivas wer e lar ge, r ound, subterr anean chamber s up to 20 m
or mor e in diameter ; each was a single lar ge r oom with an encir cling
bench, pr esumably to seat audiences f or r itual or other per f or mances
(f igur e 3.8). Gr eat Kivas had a ver y long histor y in Anasazi building,
both bef or e and af ter Chaco, but at Chaco Canyon and r elated sites
they wer e built with the monumental technologies and scales of Gr eat
Houses. Gr eat Kivas wer e not exclusive to Chaco, but Chacoan Gr eat
Kivas f or med a class apar t.
Small sites (unit pueblos, or Pr udden units, and aggr egates of sev-
er al such units) wer e the final ma jor element of Chaco Canyon ar chi-
t
ect
ur
e (see f igu
r
es 1.4and 3.11). Hund
r
eds of small
sit
es, clear l
yr esidential, line the canyon, par ticular ly along the south cliff s. As dis-
cussed by Peter J. McKenna in chapter 3, the ar chaeology of small
sites is cr itical to our under standing of the Bonito phase, and that
ar chaeology is complex.
The ar tif acts of Chaco Canyon, with some ver y notable exceptions,
r esembled other contempor ar y Anasazi potter y and lithic industr ies.
Chacoan ar tif acts and the or ganization of pr oduction ar e the themes of
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Toll’s chapter 4 in this volume. Many ar tif acts wer e actually manuf ac-
tur ed in other Anasazi distr icts; f or example, Chaco-r elated communi-
ties up to 50 to 60 k m distant made most of the potter y f ound at cer tainGr eat Houses in Chaco. Conver sely, at least one intr iguing class of
cer amic vessels existed almost exclusively at Chaco. Two r ooms in
Pueblo Bonito contained almost all of about two hundr ed k nown cylin-
der vases (r esembling Mesoamer ican f or ms; see Toll, chapter 4, and
Nelson, chapter 10, of this volume).
Chaco Canyon, par ticular ly Pueblo Bonito, is notable f or long-dis-
tance impor ts, f or example, about thir ty-f ive copper bells and about
thir ty-f ive scar let macaws, all pr esumably f r om wester n Mexico (Toll,
chapter 4, and Nelson, chapter 10, of this volume). Chaco contains
mor e of these “exotica” than any other eleventh-centur y Pueblo II site
and, indeed, mor e than all other excavated Pueblo II sites combined.
Tur quoise, too, is conspicuous at Chaco Canyon and at Pueblo Bonito.
Some estimates place the number of r ecover ed pieces at mor e than one
hundr ed thousand, mostly in the f or m of small discoidal beads. Many
small and lar ge sites at Chaco Canyon contained wor k shops f or the
manuf actur e of tur quoise beads, but the sour ce(s) of the stone was not
local. The huge Cerr illos tur quoise mines, 190 k m southeast of Chaco
near Santa Fe, New Mexico, ar e clear ly implicated in Chacoan pr oduc-
tion of tur quoise (Mathien 1986; Weigand and Har bottle 1993).
Whatever the natur e of the Bonito phase, the context f or our
under standing must extend beyond the conf ines of Chaco Canyon.
Chaco was the geogr aphic (if not geometr ic) center of a lar ge r egional
system mar k ed by about two hundr ed smaller Gr eat Houses (some-
times called “outlier s”) and r oads (see figur es 1.1 and 5.1). The natur e
of that r egional system (even its r eality) is a matter of much debate and
the f ocus of Kantner and Kintigh’s chapter 5 in this volume. The
buil
der
s app
lied
t
he same
t
echniques
and des
ign p
r inc
iples f o
r
t
hesesmaller Gr eat Houses, which ar e typically about one-twentieth the size
of Pueblo Bonito or Chetr o Ketl, as f or the Chaco Canyon Gr eat
Houses. Usually, scatter ed communities of unit pueblos or small sites
surr ound the Gr eat Houses in this r egion.
At many outlier Gr eat Houses, ther e ar e clear indications of r oads,
of ten pointing towar ds other Gr eat Houses or to Chaco Canyon.
Whether all r oad segments at outlier Gr eat Houses actually continue the
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many miles to Chaco Canyon (or other destinations) is not clear , how-
ever . Most r oads appear to be f or mally constr ucted only at their ends
and ar e either less f or mal or completely absent in the str etches betweenter mini (Roney 1992). Par alleling the r oads (r eal and pr o jected) was a
r emar k able networ k of fir e-signal or mirr or -signal stations, typically r ep-
r esented by lar ge, f or mal masonr y f ir eboxes placed on pinnacles or
high spots (f or example, Hayes and Windes 1975). This line-of -sight sig-
naling networ k r emains under studied but may extend (with one or two
“r epeater ” stations) to the most distant Gr eat Houses. The geogr aphic
distr ibution of Gr eat Houses, Gr eat House communities, r oad seg-ments, and signaling stations extends over 80,000 sq k m. Some ar chae-
ologists believe, however , that Chaco Canyon dur ing the Bonito phase
dir ectly influenced only the immediate San Juan Basin or a small r adius
immediately ar ound the canyon itself . Almost ever y chapter of this book
discusses the natur e of the Chacoan r egion and the canyon’s r ole ther e.
What was the Bonito phase? How should we char acter ize it as a
society and polity? Ar chaeological inter pr etations of the Bonito phase
have alter ed gr eatly over the past hundr ed year s. Inter pr etations
change with new data, and we have indeed lear ned much about Chaco.
But evolving inter pr etations also r eflect the fluid natur e of Amer ican
ar chaeology. The intellectual f r amewor k of ar chaeology is not static;
ideas about the past r eflect the ar chaeological k nowledge and theor y of
their times. Chapter 6, by Judge and Cor dell, pr esents a r econstr uction
of Chaco that f avor s r itual over political (congr uent with many ar chae-
ologists’ curr ent ideas). Other chapter s in this volume off er views r ang-
ing f r om a centr alized political hier ar chy to a cer emonially based
pilgr image center , or even a hier ar chically or ganized r ituality.
In assessing our ar guments, the r eader should r ecall the histor y of
changing inter pr etations of the Bonito phase. The f ir st excavator s of
P
ueblo Bon
ito
and
Che
tr
o Ketl
, wor k i
nglong bef o
r
e t
he developmen
t
of tr ee-r ing dating, look ed on these sites as ear ly ver sions of moder n
pueblos, that is, as pr ehistor ic pueblos bef or e colonial impacts. Neil
Judd (at Pueblo Bonito) and Edgar Hewett (at Chetr o Ketl) tur ned fir st
and f or emost to Pueblo colleagues f or inter pr etive counsel. The equiv-
alence of past and pr esent was dir ect and unquestioned. Dur ing an er a
when ar chaeology was essentially cultur e histor y, the Bonito phase
seemed to fit in to a steady histor ical pr ogr ession of the Pecos System,
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within the “Gr eat Pueblo” (Pueblo III) per iod. Gr eat Houses compar ed
well with the lar ge sites of Pueblo III and Pueblo IV.
Tr ee-r ing dating, developed in the 1920s, r evealed that the Bonitophase dated instead to Pueblo II. That cr eated a quandar y. Compar ed
with unit pueblos, Gr eat Houses wer e r emar k ably, even distur bingly,
lar ge. Mor eover , tr ee-r ing dating demonstr ated that the Bonito-phase
Gr eat Houses wer e contempor ar y with much smaller sites in Chaco
Canyon. That is, at least two styles of ar chitectur e existed in Chaco
Canyon dur ing the Bonito phase: monumental Gr eat Houses and
smaller , less f or mal sites typical of Pueblo II thr oughout the Anasazir egion. Some inter pr eted Chaco as a multiethnic community, with Gr eat
Houses r epr esenting one ethnic gr oup (or mor e) and small houses,
another (Kluck hohn 1939; Vivian and Mathews 1965; Vivian 1990).
The ear ly dating of the Bonito phase (Pueblo II, not the expected
Pueblo III) pr ompted other ar chaeologists in the 1950s and 1960s to
question the Bonito phase’s place in the Anasazi (Ancestr al Pueblo)
sequence. Was the Bonito phase the r esult of influence or impor t f r om
the high civilizations of Mexico? Many ar chaeologists, includ ing k ey
Chaco Pr o ject ar chaeologists (Hayes 1981; Lister 1978), concluded
that the Bonito phase was the r esult of Mesoamer ican inf luences.
Opinion was shar ply divided, and James Judge (1989:233) could accu-
r ately summar ize Chacoan think ing of that time as either “Mexicanist”
or “indigenist.”
The New Ar chaeology of the 1970s and ear ly 1980s f avor ed local
adaptation over diff usion, migr ation, and extr ar egional influences. In
that intellectual atmospher e, r esear cher s r e jected Mesoamer ican
explanations in f avor of the evolution of the Bonito phase as a “com-
plex cultur al ecosystem” (Judge 1979). New Ar chaeology posited com-
plex political str uctur es, locally developed but still out of place in a
gr a
dual
cult
ur
e hist
or
y f r
om anc
i
ent
Anasazi
t
o moder
n P
uebl
o.Manager ial elites, chief s, and other complex political str uctur es went
f ar beyond conventional, egalitar ian Pueblo models. Again, opinion
was divided. The most heated debates center ed on sites in Ar izona;
Chaco was (gener ally but not univer sally) accepted without undue cavil
as a “complex” society, that is, a centr alized political hier ar chy (f or
example, pr o: Schelber g 1984; Wilcox 1993, 1999; Vivian 1990).
Postpr ocessual appr oaches of the 1990s and ear ly 2000s r econfig-ur ed Chaco to fit postmoder n tastes. Influenced by Eur opean r evision
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(and r e jection) of Neolithic chief doms, Southwester n ar chaeologists
began to explor e and extol cer emony at Chaco, f avor ing r ituality over
polit
y (Mills 2002; W
ills 2000, 2001;
Yoff ee 2001;
and Judge
and
Cor dell, chapter 6 of this volume). Postpr ocessual app r oaches also
r eestablished cultur e histor y and contingency as equally impor tant
as, or mor e impor tant than, the evolutionar y gener alities of New
Ar chaeology. As discussed in f ollowing sections of this intr oduction,
r egulator y r equir ements f or “cultur e aff iliation” r einf or ced histor ical
inter ests. The congr uence of postpr ocessual histor icity and legally
mandated af filiation studies encour aged an ar chaeology not unlik e cul-
tur e histor y of the 1940s and 1950s, but with gr eater methodological
sophistication (we hope).
Below, I discuss the curr ent division of opinion between r ituality
and polity at Chaco (see also Sebastian’s conclud ing chapter 12 and
sever al other chapter s in this volume). Unlik e the star k dichotomy of
Mexicanists and indigenists in the 1970s, both r itual and political ar e
impor tant in under standing the Bonito phase. Few r esear cher s would
claim one to the exclusion of the other ; it is a matter , r ather , of degr ee.
To view Chaco data with both r itual and political emphases is legitimate
and appr opr iate, f or the data sustains both inter ests.
We f ocus on the Bonito phase because the Chaco Cultur e National
Histor ical Par k was cr eated to pr eser ve and display the monumental
r uins of the Bonito phase and because the Bonito phase and its con-
texts lar gely str uctur ed the Chaco Pr o ject’s r esear ch. Ther e would be
no par k and no Chaco Pr o ject absent Bonito-phase r uins. People used
Chaco Canyon in the Ar chaic many centur ies bef or e Pueblo Bonito,
and people called Chaco home long af ter , evidenced by Nava jo homes
and Nava jo names f or Bonito-phase r uins: Kin Kletso, Tsin Kletzin,
Wi ji ji. The Chaco Pr o ject investigated ear lier and later per iods at
Cha
co but
sought
pr inc
i
pall
y t
o under
stand
Cha
co’s r ai
son d’etr
e,t
heBonito phase. And so do we, her e.
THE CHACO PRO JECT
The Chaco Pr o ject was almost cer tainly the last ma jor ar chaeologi-
cal r esear ch pr ogr am at Chaco of our lif etimes (or at least my lif e-
time—I am f eeling pr etty f eeble, so, younger scholar s, tak e hope). The
NPS continues to do exemplar y wor k at sites thr eatened by natur al or
human impacts, but the er a of lar ge-scale r esear ch pr ogr ams—and
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par ticular ly ma jor excavations—has passed. This mak es the Chaco
Pr o ject’s wor k all the mor e significant.
The
Chaco
Pr
o ject
spanned
in
t
er
esting
times
in Ame
r ican
ar
chae-
ology. It was conceived as cultur e histor y; the fieldwor k and labor ator y
analyses developed as New Ar chaeology. The r esear ch was lar gely com-
pleted bef or e the passage of the Native Amer ican Gr aves Pr otection
and Repatr iation Act (NAGPRA), but that law (discussed below) deeply
aff ected the pr esent volume. To var ying degr ees, the inter pr etations of
Chaco (and of the Chaco Pr o ject) pr esented her e r eflect postpr ocessual
sensibilities adapted to Southwester n pr actices (as exemplif ied byHegmon 2003).
Because the histor y of the Chaco Pr o ject is well told by Joan
Mathien (2005; see also Fr azier 2005) and summar ized by Wilshusen
and Hamilton (chapter 11 of this volume), I give a ver y br ief r eview of
that stor y her e. Dur ing the late 1960s, just as the huge Wether ill Mesa
Pr o ject was winding down at Mesa Ver de, NPS ar chaeologist John
Cor bett f ir st advanced the idea of a lar ge f ield pr o ject at Chaco.
Cor bett ask ed the School of Amer ican Resear ch in Santa Fe to host a
thr ee-day planning conf er ence, Januar y 8–11, 1969. Fr om that conf er -
ence, Wilf r ed Logan and Zorr o Br adley developed a r esear ch P r o s p e c t us
(National Par k Ser vice 1969) f or a multidisciplinar y par tner ship
between the Univer sity of New Mexico and the NPS. The P r o s p e c t us was
wide r anging, addr essing not only ar chaeological r esear ch but also NPS
needs (f or example, pr eser vation of str uctur es) and an admir able var i-
ety of natur al science studies. The pr o ject began in 1970, intended to
last ten year s. It of ficially ended in 1986, and, thir ty year s af ter its incep-
tion, sever al r epor ts ar e still in pr epar ation.
Fieldwor k began in 1971. Initially, Rober t Lister and Alden Hayes
dir ected the r esear ch. The pr o ject expanded significantly in scale with
the exc
avati
on
of P
uebl
o Alt
o (Win
des 1987a
, 1987b), whi
ch
coin
ci
dedr oughly with the r etir ement of Lister and the arr ival of W. James Judge
as dir ector . At one point (in 1977), mor e than thir ty people wer e wor k -
ing on Chaco Pr o ject f ield r esear ch, includ ing par t-time f ield labor .
Judge br ought New Ar chaeology cr edentials to the Chaco Pr o ject and
subsequently modified the r esear ch goals. Wor k at Pueblo Alto, the last
ma jor f ield pr o ject, ended in 1979. (Minor f ield pr o jects continued
spor adically and, even today, have not quite ceased.)
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Analyses and wr iting r eached a cr escendo about 1986, when
staff ing was cut and the off ice moved f r om the Univer sity of New
Mexico
in A
lbuque
r
que t
o San
ta Fe. Bu
t
wor k
still
continues. A sm
all
but dedicated team of NPS ar chaeologists is completing technical
r epor ting of the pr o ject. The cost of f ieldwor k , analysis, publication,
cur ation, and other matter s totaled mor e than six million dollar s.
The Chaco Pr o ject was a multif aceted aff air includ ing many nat-
ur al science studies, r emote sensing pr o jects, Nava jo ar chaeology and
histor y, and cultur al r esour ce management in and ar ound the par k .
We ar e concer ned her e with the ar chaeological pr ogr am. Af ter com-
pleting ar chaeological sur veys, the Chaco Pr o ject excavated mor e than
twenty pr ehistor ic sites f r om all time per iods, culminating in wor k at
Pueblo Alto (one of the lar gest Bonito-phase sites). Excavations r ecov-
er ed 1.5 million ar tif acts and pr oduced 150 linear f eet of field notes,
thousands of maps, and mor e than f or ty thousand photos. Twenty
technical monogr aphs wer e published in two ser ies and sent to
most univer sity and many city libr ar ies: R e p o rt s of t h e C h a c o C e nt e r
and NPS’s P ub l i c a t i o ns i n Ar c h a e o l o g y . (With the exception of two titles
r epr inted by the Univer sity of New Mexico Pr ess and widely available,
Chaco Pr o ject r epor ts ar e of r eadier access than conventional “gr ay
liter atur e” but less widely distr ibuted than r eal book s.) Jour nal ar ticles,
book chapter s, theses, disser tations, and other shor ter , “of ficial” Chaco
Pr o ject contr ibutions number ed mor e than sixty. Dur ing the Chaco
Pr o ject’s salad days, media cover age was heavy, includ ing PBS docu-
mentar ies and tr ade book s (Fr azier 1986, 1999). But ther e was never a
f inal synthesis to evaluate and discuss the manif old f indings of the
Chaco Pr o ject.
THE CHACO SYNTHES IS
In 1996 Robe
r t
P
ower
s of th
e NP
S a
sk
ed me t
o consi
der
h
ow a
final
synthesis might look . My cr edentials wer e a ten-year association with
the Chaco Pr o ject (1976–1986) and f amously poor judgment r egar ding
f oolish r isk s. I accepted Bob’s challenge, and the r esult is this book . A
complementar y eff or t was alr eady under way: Joan Mathien’s (2005)
volume on the histor y and r esults of the Chaco Pr o ject detailed site
excavations and what they pr oduced. Mathien’s book was to be volume
one of a two-volume set, of which the pr esent book is the second.
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I suspect that Bob Power s anticipated my off er ing to author that
second volume alone, much as Mathien author ed volume one. But I
f elt
str
ongly
t
hat
I f ee
l t
oo str
ongly
abou
t
Chaco.
Lek son’s
Chaco
(despite the f act that it is gospel tr uth) is not widely accepted. The
Chaco Pr o ject’s wor k was too impor tant f or me to contr ol, intellectu-
ally, a f inal synthetic eff or t. Instead, I pr oposed a ser ies of small the-
matic conf er ences mixing Chaco Pr o ject staff and other Chaco
“insider s” with inter esting and / or inf luential “outsider s.” Fr om the
beginning, I insisted that the conf er ences f ocus i ns i d e t h e c a n y o n
(because that is wher e the Chaco Pr o ject spent your money and did itswor k ) and on the Bonito phase (the centr al matter of both par k and
pr o ject).
The Chaco Synthesis, as it ultimately evolved, was complex and
moder ately elabor ate (r ef er to appendix A). Af ter many meetings with
Bob Power s, Dabney For d, and NPS staff , af ter long conver sations
with Chaco specialists, and af ter planning palaver s with sever al
Distinguished Conf er ence Or ganizer s, we settled on str uctur es andthemes f or the conf er ences: “Economy and Ecology” would deal with
envir onment and subsistence; “Or ganization of Pr oduction” would
cover ar tif acts; “Ar chitectur e” would go beyond the Bonito-phase build-
ings to consider the landscape; and “Society and Polity” would aim at
these aspects of the Bonito phase. (Ther e wer e other , ancillar y conf er -
ences and activities, too, discussed below.) We added one mor e wor k -
ing conf er ence, “Chaco Wor ld,” addr essing the Chaco beyond the
canyon. Despite our f ocus inside the canyon, synthesizing Chaco with-
out some f or mal r ef er ence to its r egion seemed r eck less. The Chaco
Pr o ject did a bit of wor k outside the canyon (and we wish that we had
done mor e). Mor e impor tant, young scholar s ar e curr ently paying
much attention to the Chaco r egional system and outlier s, and those
f r
esh
voic
es sh
oul
d be h
ear
d (f o
r
exa
mpl
e, Kantn
er
an
d Mah
on
ey
2000). Ther ef or e, we decided to have a Chaco Wor ld conf er ence, or ga-
nized not by Chaco Pr o ject staff or senior Chaco scholar s but by
younger r esear cher s conducting fieldwor k on outlier s.
For each conf er ence, I r ecr uited two insider or ganizer s: Chaco spe-
cialists, usually but not always Chaco Pr o ject staff . To wor k , I thought,
each conf er ence should be small, six or seven people at most, ideally
with thr ee or f our insider s and thr ee outsider s (discussed be low). I
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r ecused myself on the question of who would be invited, but in pr actice
I was of ten consulted. I would then wor k with the or ganizer s to suppor t
t
he log
isti
cs of t
heir
conf er
ence and
t
he publi
cati
on of t
he r
esults.Ea
chconf er ence would pr oduce a half -dozen paper s, which we would finan-
cially suppor t and assist into appr opr iate jour nals or book s. Each con-
f er ence would pr oduce insights that wer e to be tr anslated, somehow,
up to a f inal capstone conf er ence. The f or m of that tr anslation and,
indeed, the natur e of the final conf er ence itself (which gener ated this
book ) developed over many months. I will discuss the capstone af ter
br iefly evaluating the six wor k ing meetings that led up to the capstone,as well as the ancillar y activities that par alleled those meetings.
The plan had political and geogr aphic dimensions. I wanted to
involve most or all ma jor ar chaeological institutions in the Southwest as
host institutions. We held sessions at Ar izona State Univer sity, the
Univer sity of Ar izona, the Univer sity of New Mexico, For t Lewis
College, the Univer sity of Color ado, and the School of Amer ican
Resear ch (and, of cour se, at Chaco Canyon). I had hoped to have a ses-
sion at the Museum of Nor ther n Ar izona, but that did not wor k out.
Although this volume f ocuses on the Chaco Pr o ject, it borr ows
heavily f r om other , ear lier pr o jects. Despite our pr ogr am’s name, C h a c o
S y nt h e s i s , we cannot synthesize (in a compr ehensive sense) the Chaco
Pr o ject, much less the enor mous contr ibutions of other Chaco
r esear ch pr ogr ams. Gr atef ully and humbly, we do ack nowledge past
r esear ch and the ongoing wor k of r esear cher s not dir ectly involved in
this volume . A glance at our r ef er ences will indicate the depth and
br eadth of our debt to other ar chaeologists.
I tr ied to include all the ma jor think er s on Chaco, in one capacity or
another . The insider s wer e supposed to be Chaco Center staff (and, alas,
only selected member s of that staff , to k eep things small), but we
enlar ged that list to include a f ew people who wer e obviously essential,
such as Gwinn Vivian, Lynne Sebastian, and other s who co-author ed
chapter s her e. A f ew ver y impor tant Chaco scholar s did not par ticipate in
the pr o ject; off er s of var ious r oles wer e made and (f or var ious r easons)
declined. Still, I k new that hur t f eelings and annoyance wer e inevitable
r eactions, so I told conf er ence or ganizer s to blame exclusions on me and
my insistence on small meetings. That avoided, I hoped, undue blame
and calumny f or har d-pr essed conf er ence or ganizer s.
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Outsider s wer e the k ey par t of the pr ogr am. I did not envision the
customar y discussant r ole; I wanted outsider s to r eally engage the data.
Ins
i
der
or
ganize
r
s woul
d,i
deall
y,l
ea
d our
guest
s t
hr
ough t
he r
el
evan
t
publications long bef or e the meeting. I wanted f r esh eyes and f r esh
ideas to br eak us out of inter nal bick er ings.
Also, I was quite open about using the pr o ject to adver tise Chaco
data to a lar ger wor ld via outsider s. I hoped that they would br oadcast
the potential of these data to their per sonal cir cles and networ k s.
Southwester n ar chaeology is chok ing on its own over abundant data
(compar ed with other r egions of the wor ld) and is per haps too pr ovin-
cial (we seldom compar e our sites with other r egions of the wor ld). To
me, expor ting data or r umor s of data via outsider s seemed to be one
solution.
Outsider s cer tainly made things inter esting f or insider s. Many
insider s wer e tir ed of Chaco (mor e accur ately, bor ed to tear s)—includ -
ing me, per haps par ticular ly. The chance to wor k with inter esting out-
sider s, though, r evved up r ecalcitr ant or ganizer s f or yet another r oundof Chaco.
Almost ever y wor k ing conf er ence included open sessions or public
pr esentations, which wer e well attended. For two r easons, I was also
inter ested in extending the scope of the synthesis to the ar ts and human-
ities: f ir st, this might move Chaco out of anthr opology and Native
Amer ican stud ies and into other disciplines, and, second, this might
addr ess humanistic year nings so evident in contempor ar y Amer ican
ar chaeology. I pr oposed two events, one f ocusing on wor ds and another
on ar ts. The f or mer , titled (f or political r easons) “Chaco, Mesa Ver de
and the Conf r ontation with Time,” was or ganized by Patr icia Limer ick
and me. It br ought together essayists, histor ians, poets, and jour nalists.
The session was gr eat f un, but no pr oduct has appear ed. A par allel
event, tentatively titled “Seeing Chaco,” would display and discuss fine
ar t (photogr aphy, easel ar t, computer gr aphics, sculptur e). I planned it
as an ad junct activity f or the capstone conf er ence, but I r an out of time
and ener gy. “Seeing Chaco” never happened, but it should.
Public r epr esentation of the Chaco Pr o ject was an impor tant goal
of the pr ogr am f r om its ver y inception. Indeed, Power s and his NPS
colleagues envisioned a single book that would simultaneously appeal
to pr of essional and public aud iences. I disagr eed, and in the end we
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pr oduced this book , which (I hope) will have a lar ge pr of essional r ead-
er ship and per haps appeal to Chaco f ans of ever y str ipe. But this is not
a
coff ee ta
bl
e book
. My att
empt
s t
o enti
ce sever al
nota
bl
e sci
ence wr it-
er s to attend all the conf er ences came to naught (our schedu le was
unr ealistic f or high-caliber wr iter s). We wer e extr emely f or tunate in
having thr ee par allel, collabor ative pr o jects that will pr ovide excellent
pr int pr oducts f or lar ger aud iences: book s by David Noble, Kendr ick
Fr azier , and Br ian Fagan. Noble (1984), ser endipitously, was consider -
ing a r evision of his highly successf ul N e w L i g h t o n C h a c o C a n y o n, a well
illustr ated, well edited collection of chapter s by var ious Chaco scholar s.Noble’s inter est coincided exactly with our capstone conf er ence, f r om
which he r ecr uited many author s f or his r evision. Under Noble’s excel-
lent editor ial guidance, these author s summar ized their ar eas of inter -
est in the Chaco Synthesis. (This was doubly happy in that Noble’s
publisher is the School of Amer ican Resear ch, a par ty to the ver y begin-
nings of the Chaco Pr o ject and publisher of the pr esent volume.) The
r esulting volume, I n S e a r c h of C h a c o (Noble 2004), is a super b blend of up -to-date ar chaeology and Native Amer ican insights. Ken Fr azier
(2005) was pr epar ing a thir d edition of his excellent P e o p l e of C h a c o and
included a new chapter on the Chaco Synthesis Pr o ject (Fr azier 2005).
At our invitation and with f ull suppor t of our pr o ject, Br ian Fagan has
wr itten an excellent book titled C h a c o C a n y o n: Ar c h a e o l o g i s t s Ex p l o r e t h e
L i v e s of a n Anc i e nt S o c i e t y (2005).
Ear ly in the pr o ject, Kim Malville (Univer sity of Color ado) and
Dan Yank of sk y began a web page, a “Chaco Vir tual Conf er ence.” The
aim was to engage br oader ar chaeological and nonar chaeological audi-
ences in the synthesis via the web; in the end, that did not happen to
the extent we had hoped. Malville’s web page r emains a usef ul com-
pendium of pr econf er ence and conf er ence data. Another web
r esour ce r esulted f r om the Chaco Wor ld conf er ence, a web-accessible
database of Gr eat Houses (see Kantner and Kintigh, chapter 5 of this
volume). Also, ser endipitously, Steve Plog (Univer sity of Vir ginia)
launched a Chaco Digital Ar chive pr o ject just as the synthesis was wind-
ing down. Although the synthesis is not dir ectly involved, we anticipate
tr ansf er of our r ecor ds to Plog’s digital ar chive.
Lynne Sebastian or ganized the capstone conf er ence. Lik e the ses-
sions leading up to it, the capstone conf er ence was intended to be
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small (f ewer than a dozen par ticipants), but, lik e those ear lier sessions,
it gr ew lik e Topsy. To k eep any of the meetings as small as I had wanted
wa
s si
mply i
mpossi
bl
e. Wh
en
th
e ca
pst
on
e finall
y conve
ned
in Oc
t
ober
2002, ther e wer e at least f or ty people in the r oom, not including a lar ge
video team captur ing it all on tape. With an audience so lar ge, ther e
was, inevitably, as much pr esentation as conver sation. Sebastian man-
aged it ver y well, however , and they accomplished much good wor k (as
demonstr ated by her chapter 12 in this volume). Under standably, as
newly elected pr esident of the Society of Amer ican Ar chaeology,
Sebastian demurr ed f r om editing the pr esent volume. At the capstone,I was char ged to under tak e that task .
When I appr oached the School of Amer ican Resear ch about pub-
lishing this book , the idea ar ose of a smaller post-capstone conf er ence
at the school. The pr incipals f r om the fir st capstone wer e under stand-
ably dubious—what m o r e could we say about Chaco? With only one
exception, they did agr ee to r econvene at the school and continue dis-
cussions cur tailed or constr ained by time and tide at the capstone. TheSchool of Amer ican Resear ch session—small, r elaxed, conver sa-
tional—was a delightf ul and extr emely wor thwhile coda to the long
Chaco Synthesis.
The Chaco Synthesis was gr eat f un and (I think ) f r uitf ul in its many
activities and pr oducts. It cost a bit of money. The NPS suppor ted the
synthesis gener ously, to a total of about $216,000. That f igur e r epr e-
sents less than 4 per cent of the six-million-dollar Chaco Pr o ject budget
f or fieldwor k , analysis, and cur ation. If ad justed f or inflation, that f r ac-
tion would be much lower (dollar s in 2000 wer e wor th less than half
their 1980 value). We mor e than doubled the NPS f unding thr ough
contr ibutions in cash and k ind f r om the institutions that hosted ses-
sions and f r om Univer sity of Color ado gr ants. Our total expenditur es
f or the synthesis, NPS and contr ibuted, pr obably r epr esent about 3 per -
cent, or less, of the total f unds expended f or the Chaco Pr o ject,
ad justed f or inflation.
The Chaco Synthesis’s scholar ly ar chaeological conf er ences wer e
tr aditional in f or mat and conduct. A new gener ation would do it diff er -
ently, per haps with gr eater use of the web. I believe that each conf er -
ence wor k ed ver y well in its own way; the r eader must judge f or himself .
The paper s r epr esenting the wor k ing conf er ences (chapter s 2–
6) and
Stephen H. Lek son
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Lynne Sebastian’s “synthesis of the synthesis” (chapter 12) constitute the
cor e of this volume. I solicited additional chapter s on contexts of ancient
Cha
co (cha
pt
er
s 8–
10) an
d th
e Cha
co Pr
o ject
it
sel
f (cha
pt
er
11).
WHERE ARE THE IND IANS ?
None of the author s ar e Native Amer ican. Why not?
The Chaco Pr o ject began in the late 1960s. Ar chaeologists and
Indians stood in a ver y diff er ent r elationship then than they do today.
Many Native Amer icans wor k ed f or the Chaco Pr o ject as labor er s. Many
wer e valued colleagues, and mor e than a f ew became good f r iends. But
no Native Amer icans wer e involved in the development and dir ection
of Chaco Pr o ject r esear ch. This is not a condemnation of the Chaco
Pr o ject. Few, if any, ar chaeological pr ogr ams incor por ated Native
Amer icans in the late 1960s and ear ly 1970s. Today, that has changed,
and ar chaeology is better f or it.
To r edr ess the past in the pr esent was agonizingly dif ficult, and, in
the end, impossible. Many Native Amer icans wer e involved in the synthe-sis, but I had hoped to have a Native Amer ican wr iter attend all the con-
f er ences and “r epor t out” in a chapter or a separ ate book . That did not
happen. I also planned to have a wor k ing conf er ence of Native Amer ican
tr ibal r epr esentatives, scholar s, wr iter s, and ar tists that would addr ess two
questions: what do you want the public to k now about Chaco? and why?
(“Nothing” and “None of your business” would have been acceptable
answer s, but I had higher hopes.) That did not happen either .
Native Amer ican involvement, or under involvement, was the single
biggest flaw in the pr o ject, and the r eason was this: a ver y dif ficult NAG-
PRA dispute over Chaco br ok e out r ight at the star t of the synthesis pr o-
ject. This is not the place to r ecount specifics; in br ief , Hopis and other
Pueblos ob jected to NPS’s inclusion of the Nava jo Nation in NAGPRA
agr eements. (My impr ession is that all concer ned ar e doing the r ight
thing, but the “r ight thing” is seen diff er ently by the var ious gr oups and
agencies.)
Because of the significant NPS f unds and f ull NPS back ing f or the
synthesis, our actions wer e ( justifiably) seen as indicative, but not of fi-
cial. If I included Nava jos, the Pueblos wer e alar med at an evident
exper t opinion. If I excluded Nava jos, the Nava jos wer e under standably
dist
ur
bed.
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I pr oposed sever al individual wr iter s f or par ticipation; all wer e
Pueblo. The NPS was war y. I appr oached sever al excellent Native
Amer ican histor ians f r om tr ibes not Southwester n. They wer e war y. I
went sever al times bef or e Chaco’s lar ge Native Amer ican Advisor y
Boar d, begging guidance. The boar d was war y. I spok e to individual
tr ibes. The tr ibes wer e war y. No solution appear ed that would not
entangle the NAGPRA situation. Af ter two year s, I gave up tr ying.
In the end, the NAGPRA situation (unr esolved even as I wr ite)
made it impossible to or ganize “off icial” Native Amer ican sessions or
pr oducts. To near ly ever y conf er ence, we invited Native Amer icans asindividuals (botanists, poets, histor ians), not as tr ibal r epr esentatives.
These people would have been invited in any event because their
k nowledge and intelligence would have added immeasur ably to our
wor k . All of us, though, would have welcomed mor e f or mal collabor a-
tion with the tr ibes, Pueblo and Nava jo.
Finally, a solution mater ialized. In a happy coincidence (over thr ee
year s of oppor tunistic planning, ther e wer e sever al happy coinci-dences!), Chaco National Par k had collabor ated with Gar y Warr iner of
Camer a One to cr eate a new eponymous video about the canyon, C h a c o
(Warr iner 2000). Pr oduction pr eceded the NAGPRA situation, and
Warr iner pr oceeded with a f r eedom we did not have. The voices on the
video ar e almost entir ely Native Amer ican. (Ar chaeology is conspicu-
ous by its absence.) Member s of Chaco’s Native Amer ican Advisor y
Boar d appear , and appear ver y well indeed. C h a c o is a super b pr esenta-
tion of Indian per spectives on the canyon. Per haps this is the pr oduct
my thwar ted Native Amer ican conf er ence would have pr oduced. I lik e
to think so. The video near ly f ills the hole so evident in the synthesis
pr o ject but was not af filiated in any way with our wor k . David Noble’s
(2004) I n S e a r c h of C h a c o includes excellent essays by Pueblo and Nava jo
wr iter s, in addition to chapter s by many Chaco Synthesis par ticipants.
Again, a happy coincidence.
WHERE IS LEKSON ?
A question f ar less impor tant than par ticipation of Native
Amer icans, I admit, but still of some inter est to your author . My r ole in
the Chaco Synthesis was to r aise and spend money, or ganize the or ga-
nize
r
s,and (f o
r
the
ar
chit
ect
ur
e conf er
ence) st
ep in when
a p
r
oposed
Stephen H. Lek son
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or ganizer became unavailable. I consider ed r unning the capstone con-
f er ence (a carr ot at the end of my per sonal stick ), but I came to my
senses and convinced a ver y busy Lynne Sebastian to do it (and she did
a f ar better job than ever I would). I or ganized the post-capstone ses-
sion at the School of Amer ican Resear ch because I did not dar e ask any
of the pr incipals to do that. I had solemnly pr omised that Sebastian’s cap-
stone was our last and final act. Also, I wr ote two-thir ds of “Ar chitectur e”
(chapter 3) and a quar ter of “Notes f r om the South” (chapter 9) in this
book —the latter , again, af ter a planned contr ibutor withdr ew.1
Other wise, I avoided (as f ar as possible) planning or staging indi-vidual meetings and conf er ences. Given my str ong opinions about
Chaco, I f elt honor -bound not to load deck s, r ig jur ies, pull wir es, and
self -f ulfill pr ophecies. While I helped to shape f or m, I tr ied not to med-
dle with content.
Consequently, I disagr ee with many statements, conclusions, and
inter pr etations in the excellent chapter s that f ollow (while I ver y much
r espect the author s of those opinions). Her e is my chance, at last. Thesessions ar e done, the chapter s ar e finished, and what I say cannot bias
the outcome. I conclude this intr oduction with a f ew calm, dispassion-
ate obser vations on a Chacoan matter that seems, to me, impor tant.
Matter s
What is impor tant is this: Chaco had r uler s, leader s, centr alized
hier ar chical decision mak er s. Why flog that dead hor se? Complexity is
so seventies. Pr of essor s today wer e bor ed with complexity bef or e their
curr ent students wer e even bor n. I dr ag this shibboleth out f r om under
the car pet wher e it was swept, because it is impor tant. Explaining why
will tak e some exposition.
Recall Gr egor y Johnson’s (1989) f amous pr onouncement that
“Chaco data can suppor t a basically egalitar ian inter pr etation.” I have
always wonder ed what data Johnson was shown, but no matter ; his was
cer tainly not the last author itative def lation of Chacoan hier ar chy.
Essays r eaching similar ly nonhier ar chical conclusions include those by
r espected ar biter s such as Nor man Yoff ee (2001; Yoff ee , Fish, and
Milner 1999; to be f air , Yoff ee sees hier ar chal str uctur e at Chaco, but
not the political hier ar chy her e ter med “complexity”) and Collin
Renf r
ew (2001). Warr
en D
eBoer
(2001:24),a tr
enchan
t
and
ins
igh
t
f ul
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cr itic, mock ed Southwester n pr etensions: “Ar e Southwester n ar chaeol-
ogists still r ecover ing f r om Johnson’s devastating cr itique, tr ying to
r einvent their own br and of home-gr own complexity? Why does a
r egional ar chaeology wish to find complexity? Is complexity a positively
valued polar ity? Does it get gr ants?”
In the f ace of such f or midable opposition, it would seem pr udent
now f or pr o-complexity Southwester nists to str ik e their tents. But I
ar gue, below, that Southwester n complexity is not an empty exer cise, a
pr of essional br ass r ing. Claims f or complexity at Chaco have conse-
quences f or moder n political philosophy and, in a small but r eal way,f or the histor y of the twentieth centur y—gone these five year s, but not
f or gotten.
Complexity has become unf ashionable, out of step with our times.
It def initely does not get gr ants. Many (most?) contempor ar y South-
wester nists ar e not in sympathy with political hier ar chy at Chaco (f or
example, Mills 2002; Saitta 1997; and Wills 2000, among other s). Many
f avor r econstr uctions of Chaco that ar e nonhier ar chical, decentr alized,pleasantly un-complex. In an impor tant volume on “alter native leader -
ship str ategies in the pr ehispanic Southwest” (Mills 2000), the lead essay
is a new r eading of Chaco by Chaco Pr o ject alumnus Chip Wills. He con-
cludes that, while Chaco “involved leader s,” its glor y days wer e shaped
and dr iven by “communitas or anti-str uctur e” (Wills 2000:41, 43).
Is it that Gr eat Houses happened, happ ily, communally? Have
we come f ull cir cle, back to Edgar Hewett’s “ants heaping up gr eat
mounds f ar in excess of actual needs”? No. Wills and other r ecent
author s allow leader s to dir ect the f or mic heaping. Chaco was too big
to just happen. It is the natur e of leader ship that is at issue: something
political, per manent, and hier ar chical or something r itual and cer emo-
nial, spir itual, situational, and evanescent?
Ritual inter ests ar e, in par t, homegr own (witness the 1980s discov-
er y of a plethor a of Southwester n cults) and, in par t, an impor t f r om
Eur opean and par ticular ly Br itish ar chaeologies that, in their Ber g
and Routledge manif estations, eschew hier ar chy in f avor of cer emony
(witness the r ise of Southwester n alter native leader ship str ategies in
the 1990s). The appeal of r itual also owes something, un- or under -
r ecognized, to the r elentless, seemingly unstoppable teleology f r om
t
he ar
chaeo
log
ical
past
t
owar
d t
he P
ueblo p
r
esent
.T
o simp
lif y (eno
r -
Stephen H. Lek son
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mously), Pueblos in the pr esent, we think , ar e r itual and not political;
ther ef or e, the past—and Chaco—should also be r itual and not political.
If moder n Pueblos f avor r itual and cer emony over political power ,
that is r eally inter esting. How did that come about, histor ically? I think
that Chaco played a r ole—a k ey r ole—but it was not a step or stage
along a gr adual r oad to an egalitar ian Pueblo ethos. Pueblos did not
d e v e l o p f r o m Chaco; r ather , they r epr esent a r e a c t i o n a g a i ns t Chaco. To
compr ess Pueblo accounts, Chaco was a wonder f ul, awf ul place wher e
“people got power over people” (accor ding to Paul Pino, in Sof aer
1999). What happened at Chaco was not r ight f or Pueblo people(today), and Chaco is r emember ed that way (today). The r emar k able
shif ts in Pueblo ar chitectur e, settlement, iconogr aphy, and society
ar ound 1300, when sites begin to look lik e moder n pueblos, r epr esent
Pueblo peoples’ conscious, deliber ate r eaction to and r e jection of
Chaco, distancing themselves f r om that bad exper ience. Pueblos devel-
oped new ways and means to avoid anything lik e Chaco, ever again.
These social and philosophical “leveling mechanisms” ar e r emar k able,almost unique, in the anthr opology of agr icultur al societies.
To par aphr ase, with apologies, what I have lear ned f r om Pueblo
people, Chaco was wr ong. Moder n Pueblos do not do it that way. Yet,
many ar chaeologists look to moder n Pueblos and histor ic accounts of
Pueblos f or insights, tr anspor table models of how Chaco wor k ed (f or
example, Stuar t 2000; Vivian 1990; War e 2001; and var ious chapter s in
this volume). My question, which comes f r om my fir st days of think ing
about Chaco, is this: whatever ar chaeological inspir ation may be f ound
in moder n Pueblos, east or west, w h y d i d t h e y ne v e r b ui l d a n y t h i n g
l i k e C h a c o ? I think that they did not want to; they had been ther e and
done that.
Af ter 1300, Pueblos tur ned their ener gies to other matter s and
never again r aised up a city. Later villages wer e lar ger than individual
Gr eat Houses—a point I made (gr aphically, two decades ago) by fitting
Pueblo Bonito into Taos’s plaza with r oom to spar e—but the peoples of
Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, and the Rio Gr ande chose not to build another
Chaco. Chaco may have continued in city-size Aztec Ruins and
Paquimé—a long stor y I will not r etell her e (Lek son 1999)—but that
histor y is tangent or par allel to the path Pueblo peoples chose. Why
seek mode
ls f o
r
Chaco
a
mong moder
n P
ueblos? H
ist
or i
es, memor i
es,
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lessons—yes, to be sur e, all of those and mor e. But Pueblo people
r e jected the incorr ect actions and institutions of their err ant ancestor s
at Chaco Canyon and cr eated new, deliber ately diff er ent societies.
Pueblos do not have political leader s (at least, as we r ecognize political
leader s), b ut C h a c o d i d . I now look at thr ee lines of evidence that sup -
por t this asser tion: high-status bur ials, elite r esidences, and r egional
pr imacy.
We have seen Chaco’s r uler s, ar chaeologically, in the high-status
bur ials f r om Pueblo Bonito and, par ticular ly, the ver y r ich cr ypt bur ials
of two midd
le-a
ged men (Ak ins 2001, 2003; Ak
ins
and Sche
lbe
r
g 1984).I inter pr et scor es of add itional bodies piled above these bur ials as
“r etainer s.” These two men wer e bur ied in the mid-eleventh centur y
(in my opinion), deep in the much ear lier r ooms of the or iginal, ear ly
tenth-centur y Old Bonito. Watch them closely; these bur ials tend to
vanish in Chacoan debates. Bar bar a Mill’s excellent summar y of
“Recent Resear ch on Chaco” dismisses them as “a f ew unusual bur ials”
(Mills 2002:66). Wer e ther e only two such r uler s? Per haps, over a cen-
tur y’s span (Chaco’s glor y days, f r om 1020 to 1125) two “k ings” might
be all that wer e r equir ed. Mor e high-status bur ials might exist in other ,
par tially excavated Gr eat Houses.
These two men may well have been the r uler s r emember ed as “our
k ings”—a ter m used by a tr aditional Native Amer ican man f r om the
Chaco ar ea. They may have been pr incipals among those “people at
Chaco who gained power over people”—impr oper ly, disastr ously, in
pr esent Pueblo wor ldview—alluded to by Paul Pino f r om the Pueblo of
Laguna. Pino said, “In our histor y we talk of things that occurr ed a long
time ago [at Chaco], of people who had enor mous amounts of power :
spir itual power and power over people.…These people wer e causing
changes that wer e never meant to occur ” (in Sof aer 1999). Other
Pueblo accounts similar ly descr ibe ster n political leader s and their
city, which r ose and f ell in ancient times (summar ized in Lek son
1999:143–150).
Pueblo people tell us that Chaco had political r uler s, and Nava jos
concur . Ar chaeologists, however , demur . Found anywher e else in the
wor ld, the high-status bur ials of Pueblo Bonito would str ongly suggest
political power . High-status bur ials ar e r ipe evidence of elites and lead-
er
s. At
t
he ca
pst
one conf er
ence,I
r
ef err
ed t
o t
hese men as k ings
p
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because a Native Amer ican colleague (at the Ar chitectur e wor k ing
meeting) told me to call them k ings. His point? Eur opeans have k ings,
but Indians ar e allowed only chief s. I thought about medieval Ir ish
k ings and Mississipp ian chief s and agr eed; c h i e f is iniquitous (and, in
any event, anthr opologically dubious). Let us call them k ings and see
wher e that leads. To r iot. My use of k i n g deeply annoyed my capstone
colleagues. Why? We have to call these men something. C h i e f is not a
Native Amer ican wor d, nor is r ul e r , l e a d e r , or c e ntr a l i z e d , h i e r a r c h i c a l d e c i -
s i o n m a k e r , or s h a m a n or p r i e s t , f or that matter . If we ar e to use Eur opean
t
er
ms, why not k i n g ?
If it
loo
k s lik
e a duc
k , w
alk s lik
e a duc
k ,and qu
ack s
lik e a duck .…
They had r uler s. Not only have we exhumed their bodies, but also
we have tur ned their stately homes into a national par k . My second set
of evidence consists of Gr eat Houses. The single, centr al f act of Chaco
is Gr eat H o us e s , not Gr eat Temples. (Recall that the Gr eat Kivas ar e not
specific to Chaco; Lek son, Windes, and McKenna, chapter 3 of this vol-
ume.) Gr eat Houses ar e among the most r emar k able, unambiguousexamples of pr e-state str atified housing that I have f ound in the liter a-
tur es of anthr opology, geogr aphy, and ar chitectur e. Gr eat Houses wer e
fir st (tenth centur y) and f or emost (thr ough the eleventh centur y) elite
r esidences (see also Neitzel 2003). That much of the Chacoan building
was r itual and cer emonial I do not doubt (r oads, platf or m mounds,
Gr eat Kivas, per haps water wor k s), but monumental elite r esidences
dominated the landscape then (and do now). The same r eview that dis-
missed the k ingly bur ials as “unusual” also disposed of Gr eat Houses:
“The constr uction of Gr eat Houses was not accompanied by obvious
signs of status and hier ar chy, such as social r ank ing [or ] palaces” (Mills
2002:66). Umm, excuse me, Gr eat Houses a r e palaces. Gr eat Houses—
elite r esidences—ar e monumentally obvious signs of hier ar chy, hidden
in plain sight. As long as we ar e getting into tr ouble with k i n gs , let us see
what happens when we call them palaces (Lek son, McKenna, and
Windes, chapter 3 of this volume). Outr age! P a l a c e s imply states, and
Native states ar e not allowed nor th of Mexico.
I will not f ight that f ight her e. Fine (f or now), no states nor th of
Mexico. Per haps palaces can exist without the state (cities can exist
without the state; McIntosh and McIntosh 2003!) The 1980s and 1990s
have seen
t
he r
e jecti
on of conventi
onal
,l
ock -st
ep politi
cal
ta
xonomi
es.
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The old or der of band, tr ibe , chief dom , and state is conf ounded,
deconstr ucted. Per haps the var ious elements we have used in defining
political stages can have lives and histor ies of their own. Per haps
palaces have a tr a jector y disentangled f r om sur pluses or ar mies or wr it-
ing. That happened, it seems, at Chaco: monumental elite r esidences,
palaces without the state.
The thir d and final categor y of data that seems, to me, str ong evi-
dence f or hier ar chy is the r egional system—Chaco’s place in a r egion
of Gr eat Houses. (Please note that my views contr ast in many r egar ds
with
those of K
an
tne
r
and K
in
tigh, ch
ap
t
er
5,and o
the
r
chap
t
er
s in
this
volume.) Chaco sits at the center of a r egion of r emar k able clar ity. I use
c l a r i t y in two senses: ar chaeological obser vation and pr ehistor ic vision.
The Chacoan r egion is as clear an ar chaeological signatur e as we may
hope to find in pr e-state societies. Chacoan Gr eat Houses ar e r ecogniz-
able f r om Cedar Mesa in Utah to Quemado in New Mexico, f r om Hopi
in Ar izona to Guadalupe in New Mexico. It took a decade of har d ar gu-
ment to convince stubbor nly local ar chaeologists that their “unusuallylar ge site” was, in f act, one of 150 Gr eat Houses. Most ar chaeologists
agr eed, if gr udgingly, that ther e was a patter n in the Pueblo r egion dur -
ing the eleventh and twelf th centur ies: Gr eat House, mounds, r oads,
and associated communities of unit pueblos and Gr eat Kivas. I called
this patter n Chacoan (Lek son 1991), but it could be called anything if
Chacoan off ends (should we say duck y? or , mor e f or mally, anatidoid?).
Mor e impor tant than the name is the r eality, the empir ical patter n of
hundr eds of small Gr eat Houses, with Chaco at the center .
Roads ar e a f amous par t of the Chacoan r egional patter n. Initially,
we thought that r oads f or med a networ k , an inf r astr uctur e f or the
Chaco r egion; that does not seem to be the case. Much about the r oads
r emains uncer tain; their physical continuity and their f unctions have
come into question (f or example, Roney 1992). Some r oads appar ently
ar e discontinuous; other s r un visibly f or miles. As noted above, most
r oads wer e monuments, not solely (or even pr incipally) tr anspor tation
corr idor s. The Gr eat Nor th Road is tr otted out (and tr otted on) as an
example of a r itual, nonf unctional r oad. It r eputedly goes nowher e (at
least in this wor ld); it is said to end with a stair way into a deep canyon
that r epr esents a s h i p a p or place of emer gence (Mar shall 1997). Chaco
r it
uali
st
s r
epeat
thi
s intr i
guin
gly symbo
li
c int
er
pr
etati
on
a
s gospel
. But
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it is a canar d (speak ing, as we wer e, of duck s). It is simply not tr ue. The
Gr eat Nor th Road continues beyond its legendar y ter mination at the
lip of Kutz Canyon. Twin Angels Pueblo is obviously a r oad-r elated
Gr eat House, on the alignment of the Gr eat Nor th Road as it doglegs
down Kutz Canyon, mor e than a mile beyond its descent into the puta-
tive symbolic shipap.
Real, tangible evidence in the f or m of a Gr eat House (with r oad
f eatur es galor e) demonstr ates (as well as any evidence used to substan-
tiate r oads) that the Nor th Road continues down Kutz Canyon beyond
its f
amous bu
t
f alse
t
er
minati
on at
a pu
r
ely symbo
lic sh
ipap. Bec
ause
Salmon Ruins sits a f ew miles f ar ther down Kutz Canyon, it seems r ea-
sonable to pr o ject the r oad beyond Twin Angels to Salmon. For now,
the impor tant point is that the Nor th Road does not end at “nowher e.”
Ritualists may pr ef er a r oad to nowher e, but the Nor th Road’s continu-
ance down thr ough Kutz Canyon is as much an ar chaeological f act as
the Nor th Road itself . I do not doubt that the Nor th Road and all r oads
wer e heavily, even pr imar ily symbolic, but the Nor th Road, at least,went somewher e. Maybe other r oads did too.
Now I will br ief ly r evisit the histor y of r oad r esear ch (see Vivian
1997a and 1997b f or details). Nava jos r epor ted r oads to ear ly ar chaeol-
ogists, who scoff ed. Roads wer e then ignor ed f or sever al decades. In the
1960s, a f ew intr acanyon r oads wer e mistak enly inter pr eted as canals
and subsequently r ecognized as r oads, spar k ing r enewed inter est
in intr acanyon r oads. In the 1970s, wor k by the San Juan Valley
Ar chaeological Pr o ject on the Nor th Road, between Salmon and Chaco,
dr ew attention to extr acanyon r oads. Resear ch by the Remote Sensing
Division of the Chaco Pr o ject and other s put many possible (but unver i-
f ied) r oads on the map. Again, ar chaeologists scoff ed, denouncing
r oads as pipelines, f ence lines, wagon tr ails, and so on (impor tantly,
some pr o jected r oads wer e later deter mined to be histor ic linear ities).
NPS r esear ch at Pueblo Alto confir med the complex networ k of intr a-
canyon r oads within downtown Chaco and r estor ed conf idence in
r oads. In the 1980s, r esear ch by the Bur eau of Land Management
(BLM) and the Solstice Pr o ject confir med the r eality of the nor th and
southwest r egional r oads. Notably, car ef ul study by the BLM also f ailed
to conf ir m sever al other pr o jected r oads (Nials, Stein, and Roney
1987);
that
i
s,th
e r
esult
s wer
e n
egati
ve f or
sever al
pr
oposed r
oa
ds.
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The BLM’s field r esear ch showed that, when the BLM used a var i-
ety of techniques (save excavation), some pr o jected r oads wer e not vis-
ible on the gr ound, so those pr o jected r oads wer e judged to be f alse. Of
cour se, that same r esear ch showed that some r oads wer e both visible
and r eal (Nials, Stein, and Roney 1987). In an impor tant paper , Roney
(1992:130) concluded that not all pr o jected r oads wer e r eal and that
many “r eal” r oads wer e discontinuous and ther ef or e not tr anspor tation
corr idor s: “Some of the r oads, such as the Nor th Road and the
South[west] Road, ar e r egional in scale and ar e clear ly associated with
t
he r
egion
al cen
t
er
at
Chaco
Canyon. Howeve
r
,I be
lieve
t
hat
it
is
entir ely possible that many other Chacoan r oads ar e pur ely local phe-
nomena. The ‘r oads,’ if that is what we choose to call them, may be
seen as but one mor e embellishment of the local integr ative str uctur es,
complementing ear thwor k s, Gr eat Kivas, and the other tr app ings of
these buildings [Gr eat Houses].…They might have f or malized pr eex-
isting r outes of tr anspor tation and communication, but it is equally
possible that they wer e r aceways, avenues f or cer emonial pr ocessions,or even cosmological expr essions.” Roney per ceptively suggested ma jor
symbolic r oles f or r oad monuments, and his ideas f ell on good gr ound.
The 1990s wer e a happy time f or symbolism.
I honor Roney’s insights, but I worr y that his conclusions, as inter -
pr eted by other s, ar e used to deny the r oad networ k thr ough f a l s um i n
uno , f a l s um i n o m ni b us logic. Roney’s car ef ul obser vation that some pr o-
jected r oads ar e pr obably f alse has been elevated to a gener al asser tion,
negative to r egional networ k s. We could not conf ir m a f ew r egional
r oads; ther ef or e, we r egar d all ma jor r egional r oads as f alse—with the
constant exception of the Nor th and Southwest r oads (the only
r egional r oads intensively stud ied thr ough their entir e lengths). The
or thodoxy today r uns something lik e this: a r egional r oad networ k does
not exist, r oads ar e almost pur ely symbo lic, all r oads (save two!) ar e
f r agmentar y and local, and even the two “r eal” r egional r oads go to
landscape f eatur es, not to settlements (f or example, Kantner and
Kintigh, chapter 5 in this volume). That seems a heavy penalty f or two
unconfir med, pr o jected r oads, when, in f act, two other pr o jected r oads
w e r e confir med (Nor th and South) and sever al other extr acanyon r oads
ar e widely accepted (f or example, the Coyote Canyon or Southwest
Road, and the Mud Spr ings or West Road.)2
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It is cr itical to note that, since the BLM studies, no one has r eally
look ed at other r egional r oads. Full-scale r esear ch on r egional r oads is
labor intensive and ver y costly; no one has mounted r esear ch necessar y
to evaluate ma jor extr acanyon r oads compar able to ear lier eff or ts on
the Nor th and Southwest r oads. We have f ound and confir med many
new r oads undr eamt of in initial r oad r esear ch of the 1970s and ear ly
1980s, but r ecent r esear ch on r oads has been almost exclusively local in
scale. Small scales inexor ably lead to local inter pr etations. Ther ef or e, I
think it is saf e to say of pr o jected r egional r oads that (1) we k now that
some ar
e r
eal
, (2) we t
hink
t
hat
at
l
east
a f ew
ar
e f alse,
and (3) we need
to r esear ch the r est. For most ma jor r oads, ther e is evidence, usually
indir ect, that they exist, and no solid k nowledge that they do not. That
is, we do not actually k now that they ar e f alse. Given that at least two
r egional r oads ar e almost univer sally accepted as tr ue, it seems pr udent
to assume that at least some of the other r egional r oads ar e or may
be r eal.
Outlying Gr eat Houses themselves also have r eceived welcome cr it-
ical r eevaluation. One r esult of r ecent r esear ch is that they do not all
look alik e. I applaud r ecent r esear ch, but, at the r isk of cur mudgeon-
dom (a f air char ge, to be sur e), I note that f r om the ear liest days of
“outlier hunts” we r ecognized var iability within those sites (f or exam-
ple, Lek son 1991:figur es 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5, showing highly var iable site
plans compiled by many ar chaeologists). We could r ead maps and r ec-
ognize that not all Gr eat Houses look ed exactly alik e. We wer eimpr essed, however , that a str ong patter n encompassed that significant
var iability, as any pr eindu str ial ar chaeological patter n sur ely must.
Today, the simple f act of var iability is used to ar gue that the patter n is
weak , the system insubstantial (Mills 2002:82–83; Kantner 1996, 2003a;
paper s in Kantner and Mahoney 2000; Neitzel 1989, 2000; Vivian
1996; Kantner and Kintigh, chapter 5 of this volume). Recognition of
Gr eat Houses is r elative and r elational, even within Chaco Canyon
(Lek son, Windes, and McKenna, chapter 3 of this volume). Few ar chae-
ologists, however , who visit Gr eat Houses in var ious quar ter s of the
Chaco r egion doubt the r eality of the patter n. Why hold Gr eat Houses
to an undefined but appar ently quite high standar d of standar dization?
Af ter decades spent beating down barr ier s of antiquated “cultur e”
ar eas, state lines, and per sonal r esear ch domains, I f ear a r etur n of
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pr ovincialism to Chacoan stud ies, f r actur ing the r egion into small
units, study ar eas per ceived (as they must be) as wholly or lar gely inde-
pendent.
In ar chaeology, ther e ar e (at least) seven sins.3 In the r ole of angr y
elder , I pr each now against two in par ticular : M o no - Ar bo r o l a tr y , wor ship-
ing one par ticular tr ee above the f or est, and T h e S i n of O c k h a m , misap-
plication of the Razor to the question of inter est, r ather than the logic
of its answer . I ad jur e r eader s and r esear cher s to see the f or est, not the
tr ees (and especially not their par ticular tr ee), and to cleave to the f un-
da
mental
tr
ut
h t
hat
human beh
avi
or
s wer
e always necess
ar ily mo
r
ecomplicated than the simplest account we can wr ite f r om f r agmentar y
ar chaeological r emains. Tr ust, lik e your hope of heaven, that the past
was (almost) always bigger than we think and mor e complicated than
we will ever k now.
Tr ust, but ver if y. One question of ten (and r ightly) ask ed of the
Chacoan r egional system is, how could it possibly wor k ? How could
Chaco possibly aff ect, much less contr ol, a Gr eat House 240 k m (eight
days’ walk ) distant? This br ings us to the second issue of r egional clar -
ity: the r emar k able clear ness of Southwester n sk ies, its open landscape
and br oad vistas, and a lar ge, complex line-of -sight communications
system postulated thr oughout the Chacoan r egion. Since the 1970s we
have k nown about the existence of an elabor ate line-of -sight system
spanning lar ge por tions of the Chaco r egion (Hayes and Windes 1975);
subsequent wor k has expanded our k nowledge of this system to encom-
pass most of the nor ther n San Juan Basin and beyond (Thomas
Windes, per sonal communication 2002). For example, Far view House,
a Gr eat House on Mesa Ver de, is aptly named; f r om Far View, they
could see Chaco, and Chaco could see them. Chimney Rock , at Pagosa
Spr ings, is another excellent example. We k now that the line-of -sight
system extends over much of the nor ther n San Juan Basin; I f ir mly
believe that similar link ages existed between Chaco and the most dis-
tant outlier Gr eat Houses in all dir ections. A thoughtf ul (and ver y
smar t) senior ar chaeologist, when consider ing this claim, r eplied,
“This communication system would be easier to believe if it was link ed
to r itual.” Why? Why this insistence on r itual over pr actical?
Many things moved into Chaco; communications moved out, and
maybe that is how the r egional system wor k ed. I do not specif y her e
w h a t the r egional system did, or w h y ; those ar e r esear ch issues f or the
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next sever al gener ations of ar chaeologists. We can r esear ch those issues
i f we can r ecognize the natur e and scale of the questions. Still, some
things ar e clear , at least to me. Chaco was the centr al place in a lar ge,
well-def ined r egion. Mor eover , it was a pr imar y center , unmistak ably
lar ger , notably mor e elabor ate, and incompar ably mor e monumental
than any other place in its terr itor y. Ar chitectur al monuments, (pr oba-
bly) r oads, and (per haps) constant contact via a complex communica-
tion system integr ated the r egion.
Alter native leader ship str ategies of ever y str ipe and nuance
un
doubt
edly c
har a
ct
er i
zed man
y South
west
er n
soci
eti
es bef or
e an
dcer tainly af ter Chaco. In the r ush to embr ace r itualities and communi-
tas, however , we r isk losing one of the Pueblo wor ld’s f ew gar den-var iety
chief doms or petty k ingdoms or c a c i c a z g o s or whatever we want to call a
centr alized political hier ar chy. And that is a big loss. My ar gument is
not that all the ancient Southwest was politically complex but r ather
that, at least once (and per haps sever al times, Lek son 1999), social f or -
mations developed in the Pueblo Southwest that mirr or ed or tr anslatedinto Southwester n ter ms the political hier ar chies so per vasive in Nor th
Amer ica. Dur ing Chaco’s er a, the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast
wer e r if e with chief doms (f or example, Ander son 1999; Pauk etat
2004), and Postclassic Mesoamer ica was a complex patchwor k of petty
k ingdoms, states, and empir es (f or example, Smith and Ber dan 2003).
Metaphor ically, states and polities surr ounded the Southwest. Is it so
unthink able that, at Chaco, Southwester n people exper imented with
centr alized political hier ar chy? The baby we just thr ew out with the
bathwater might be the Lost Dauphin.
Tak en together , k ingly bur ials, palatial Gr eat Houses, and a lar ge (if
gossamer ) r egion in which Chaco was a city among villages suggest that
Chaco was neither a Pueblo (in the “ethnogr aphic par allel” sense) nor
an egalitar ian commune. Chaco was the center of a complex polity, suf -
f used with r itual and cer emony but f undamentally political and hier ar -
chical: a chief dom, a petty k ingdom, a cacicazgo.4 Why har p on this?
Because it matter s. Chaco plays a r ole, both dir ect and diff use, in moder n
thought and moder n times. Eleventh-centur y Chaco impacts the twenty-
f ir st centur y (and our lives today) thr ough the nineteenth-centur y
wor k s of Lewis Henr y Mor gan. Mor gan anticipated our curr ent dehier -
ar chizing when he leveled New Wor ld monuments in his 1881 H o us e s
a nd H o us e - L i f e of t h e Am e r i c a n Abo r i g i ne s . As an anthr opologist, Mor gan
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corr ected what he per ceived as err or s made by histor ians who impr op-
er ly used Eur opean ter ms f or Native f or mations. Their k i n g d o m became
his c o nf e d e r a c y , k i n g became s a c h e m , and p a l a c e became c o mm una l h o us e .
Newar k , Chaco, and Palenque wer e communal var iations on a theme:
“A common pr inciple r uns thr ough all this ar chitectur e, f r om the
Columbia River to the Saint Lawr ence, to the Isthmus of Panama,
namely, that of adaptation to communism in living” (Mor gan
[1881]1965:309).
Mor gan made the Southwest and, in par ticular , Chaco Canyon
the p
r i
me ur -
commun
e,th
e sour
ce of “pr i
miti
ve communi
sm” f r
omwhence came all other communes in ancient Nor th Amer ica (Mor gan
[1881]1965). With r egar d to the monumental buildings of Chaco,
Mor gan (310) wr ote, “It is evident that they wer e the wor k of the peo-
ple, constr ucted f or their own en joyment and pr otection. Enf or ced
labor never cr eated them.…they wer e r aised by the Indians f or their
own use, with willing hands, and occupied by them on ter ms of entir e
equality. Liber ty, equality, and f r ater nity ar e emphatically the thr eegr eat pr inciples of the gens [clans], and this ar chitectur e r esponds to
these sentiments.”
Ancient “pr imitive communism” was impor tant (f or a br ief r eview
of pr imitive communism in contempor ar y ar chaeology, see McGuir e
1992:181–182). Mor gan, of cour se, pr of oundly inf luenced Mar x and
Engels and the theor etical development of Mar xism (Bloch 1983;
Kr ader 1972; among other s). In Mor gan’s ancient Amer ica, pr imitivecommunism pr oved that human be ings could do gr eat things and
build gr eat monuments (Chaco, Newar k , Palenque) without k ings.
Alas, Mor gan’s pr imitive Amer ican communes—Aztec, Ir oquois, and
the r est—have not sur vived the scr utiny of mor e car ef ul, later scholar -
ship. Of all Mor gan’s pr imitive communes—f r om the Columbia, to the
Saint Lawr ence, to Panama—only the Pueblo Southwest sur vives. The
(ar chaeologically) past and (ethnogr aphically) pr esent Pueblos r emain
astonishingly r esistant to intimations of political power . Within both
anthr opology and the lar ger wor ld of ideas, the per vasive view of
Pueblo societies, past and pr esent, is egalitar ian, gover nmentless, and
communal.
Chaco and the Pueblos wer e exceptions that pr oved the r ule.
Chaco justif ied our hopes f or communal utopia, despite disaster s in
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Russia and China. I do not say that Mor gan’s mistak es (or Chaco) wer e
r esponsible f or Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung, but I do say that, when
think ing people ponder the r ehabilitation and per f ectibility of
Mar xism, one thing that gives them hope is Mor gan’s Chaco and its
extension into the Pueblos. Chacoan communes—liber ty, equality, f r a-
ter nity—ar e the answer to a Br ave New Wor ld that unf or tunately was
not. (Indeed, in Huxley’s novel of that name, a bar ely disguised Zuni
was the antidote, albeit savage, to totalitar ian moder nity.)
These ar e simple statements about Mar xism, as manif old an admix-
tur e of co
mplex and con
f licting belie
f s as the
Bible.
Mar xist scholar -
ship is densely theor etical, pr of oundly academic, and stagger ingly
var ious. Let us hop the br iar patch: engaging that vast liter atur e is
impossible and unnecessar y. Instead of analysis, I off er anecdote.
Edmund Wilson was a sympathetic cr itic of Mar xism and a f an of its
eponymous f ounder . In his influential study of r evolutionar y commu-
nism, T o t h e F i nl a nd S t a t i o n, Wilson ([1940]2003:298) discusses Engels’s
r eliance on Mor gan and other ethnogr apher s and mak es the point
clear ly: “Cer tainly, ther e is some plausibility in the assumption that a
pr imitive community of equals is sounder within its limits than moder n
society—as the Pueblo Indian villages of the Amer ican Southwest have
sur vived with their communist economy in the teeth of their mor e
pr edator y nomad neighbor s and of the massacr es and bank r uptcies of
the white man; and that any society of the f utur e which is to be stable
must have gr avitated to some such equilibr ium.”If we ar e to cr edit Mar xism as a political pr ogr am, we must believe
that human natur e will allow communism. The r ecor d of moder n
Mar xist states is not good. Pr imitive communism is the pr oof , the war -
r ant, that the pr ogr am is still possible. Coff ee shop conver sations with
colleagues in political science, philosophy, liter atur e, and the fine ar ts
suggest that Pueblo pr imitive communism (emer ging, unbek nownst to
them, f r om Chaco) r emains an inspir ation. Mor gan’s communal Chaco
—given new lif e by r ecent nonhier ar chical, “alter native leader ship”
inter pr etations—f loats as ar chetype above the hur ly-bur ly of political
philosophy. Whatever went wr ong in Russia, we still hope f or Hopi.
But a commune did not build Chaco; a complex, hier ar chical
gover nment (however unsteady or shor t-lived) dir ected the constr uc-
tion of its monuments. Chaco had r uler s—we have seen their bur ials
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(Stuar t 2000:119, or iginal emphasis). It is possible to consider a society
with r itual but no political (some models of Chaco appr oach that pole),
but it is har der to conceive (outside science fiction) a society with polit-
ical but no r itual. Neither Stuar t nor I think that r itual and political ar e
mutually exclusive. Chaco was a mix of both, entir ely inter mixed, but
Stuar t sees r itual f ar higher in the mix, subor dinating the political, and
he sees that as Chaco’s str ength—and its weak ness. Chaco f ell, in par t,
because its elites became gr eedy (Stuar t r ecognizes Chacoan elites):
“On Wall Str eet, veter ans of the business cycle k now that ‘bulls get r ich,
bear s get r ich, pigs get slaughter ed.’ As Chacoans, too , discover ed
near ly a millennium ago, gr eed is not a badge of honor . It is the signa-
tur e of a dying society” (Stuar t 2000:201). Per haps Stuar t and I ar e not
so f ar apar t af ter all. I will not f ur ther summar ize his excellent book .
Buy it and r ead it. I hope that his book r eaches its intended, wider audi-
ence, but I r ecommend it her e f or ar chaeologists.
I have hear d Ana s a z i Am e r i c a cr iticized as under theor ized; Stuar t
does not cite our f avor ite Fr enchman or the sociologist-du - jour . Whentheor y hits the pavement, though, it is har d to ar gue with the idea of
bear s, bulls, and pigs. Ana s a z i Am e r i c a demonstr ates what appeals to
Bour dieu and Giddens and what Hodder and Binf or d cannot demon-
str ate: why ar chaeology should be suff er ed to live, why we should be
allowed to pr actice on other people’s pasts, why ar chaeology matter s.
This is how we should wr ite ar chaeology, how we should use our
wor k —not to r eplace site r epor ts or ar ticles in scholar ly jour nals but to demonstr ate that ar chaeology matter s, beyond the narr ow halls
of peer r eview.
At the beginning of this chapter , I quoted Simon Or tiz, Felipe
Fer nandez-Ar mesto, and Jar ed Diamond. Chaco Canyon is mor e than
the ar cane f ocus of ar chaeologists or even the ancestr al homeland of
Native Amer icans. Chaco is a pr of oundly public place, a histor ical
event incr easingly k nown to poets and policy mak er s, a place of Wor ld
Her itage. Chaco matter s. It matter s, of cour se, to Pueblo people, f or
it is their past. But Chaco also matter s as a national par k , a tour ist
destination, a New Age har monic conver gence, a setting f or histor ical
novels, an inspir ation f or fine ar t and essay. Chaco matter s in the gr eat
wide wor ld as a k ey episode in political histor y, a place wher e people
achieved monumental things—with, or without, gover nment. What
was the natur e of the Bonito phase?
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Notes
This was a long, complicated pr o ject and the wor k of many, many people.
My thank s to all those named above and in Appendix A! I have not tr ied to count
ever yone involved in the Chaco Synthesis, but I always counted on their exper tise,
ener gies, and enthusiasm: thank s to you all, indeed! I par ticular ly r ecognize and
thank the f ollowing people and or ganizations: the National Par k Ser vice; the
Chaco Cultur e National Histor ical Par k , especially super intendents Butch Wilson
and Stephanie Dubois, ar chaeologist Dabney For d, and the wonder f ul people of
the Par k staff ; and the National Par k Ser vice, Santa Fe, especially F. Joan Mathien
and Rober t Power s.
For financial and logistical suppor t: the Chaco Cultur e National Histor ical
Par k ; the Univer sity of Color ado, Boulder ; Ar izona State Univer sity; the Univer sity
of Ar izona; the Univer sity of New Mexico; and For t Lewis College.
At the School of Amer ican Resear ch, Richar d Leventhal, James Br ook s,
Cather ine Cock s, and Kate Talbot.
Thank s to Kar en Bur d Lar k in and Gail Bleak ney, gr aduate assistants at the
Univer sity of Color ado. David Under wood at the Univer sity of Color ado dr af tedall illustr ations unless other wise indicated. And Mar jor ie Leggitt f or last minute
gr aphics! Thank s also to John R. Stein, Richar d Fr iedman, and the Nava jo Nation
Chaco Sites Pr otection Pr ogr am f or per mission to use color plate 8. Bluth
Enter pr ises filmed the capstone conf er ence.
For the Chaco Timeline (in this volume and also available on the web):
Lynne Sebastian (SRI Foundation), R. Gwinn Vivian (Ar izona State Museum),
Car la R. Van West (Statistical Resear ch, Inc., and SRI Foundation), and Cindy
Elsner Haywar d (Statistical Resear ch, Inc.).
Cather ine M. Camer on, f or mater ial and spir itual suppor t.
And finally, to all the gr eat people who wor k ed with, f or , and ar ound the
or iginal Chaco Pr o ject: thank s!
1. My opinions and notions, as per centages of the total number of wor ds in
the text of the book , br eak down as f ollows: chapter 1, “Chaco Matter s: An
Intr oduction,” about 4 per cent; chapter 3, “Ar chitectur e,” about 7 per cent; and
chapter 9, “Notes f r om the South,” about 2 per cent, f or a total of about one-sev-
enth of the book . This f r action could be ad justed downwar d, I suppose, because I
use twice as many wor ds to expr ess a simple idea than do my mor e concise col-
leagues. Sorr y.
2. Another , pr actical consider ation suggests clemency f or r egional r oads,
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dismissed because they could not be seen. Ar chaeological sites ar e supposed to be
dif ficult to see. That is why we dig. Should we despair if we cannot see pr o jected
r oads f r om the sur f ace? Most ar chaeologists ar ound the wor ld do not have high
expectations f or sur f ace visibility of any f eatur e. (If we r elied on sur f ace obser va-
tion only, the ar chaeology of Nor th Amer ica would be r ather diff er ent than we
think it to be.) And it is lik ely, to the point of cer tainty, that many r oads or r oad
segments, lik e r oof s on Pueblo r uins, ar e gone. By the same logic, we might note
how r emar k able that almost no Gr eat House was ever finished, because f r om the
sur f ace we can see no evidence of r oof s. Or iginally, missing r oads and r oad seg-
ments wer e r elatively insubstantial (ear then, even subtle, but still monumental).
The Nor th Road is f ar f r om continuous a s i t a pp e a r s a r c h a e o l o g i c a ll y . Ther e ar e big
gaps in the Nor th Road as it appear s f r om sur f ace indications, yet we accept its
r eality. I have stood r ight in the middle of (many) r oad alignments, between
k nown segments, and have seen nothing. Other s, f ar better than I at this business,
have had identical exper iences. Af ter a thousand year s of er osion and aggr ada-
tion, two centur ies of livestock ’s tender mer cies and myr iad obliter ating “f or ma-
ti
on pr
ocesses,” r
oa
ds may no
t
be all
t
hat
easy
t
o see as we w
altz acr
oss T
otah,
mar ch thr ough Chinle, and beat our f eet on the San Juan Basin mud.
3. The Seven Sins of Ar chaeology: (1) M o no - Ar bo r o l a tr y : Wor shiping one
par ticular tr ee above the f or est. (2) T i m i d i t y : Mistak ing pr of essional saf ety f or
good pr actice. (3) S o l e m ni t y : Conf using dour ness with r igor , f r om which comes
mor tis. (4) T h e S i n of O c k h a m : Misapplication of the Razor to the question of
inter est, r ather than the logic of its answer . To err cautiously in ar chaeology is to
err egr egiously. (5) J a r g o n: Babel, speak ing in tongues, cabalistic ver biage. (6)V e r b l e ss ne ss : Undue passivity in the pr edicate. (7) B a d G r a p h i c s . The A p o c r y p h a
Ar c h a e o l o g i c a lists two mor e: x e no - i d o l a tr y , pr aising pr ophets who speak Fr ench,
Br itish English, or Ger man over pr ophets in one's own land, and h um ani s t
e rr o r , the pr actice of ar t histor y without tr aining or initiation into its myster ies.
Gener ally, we consider xeno-idolatr y and humanist err or s to be mer ely annoying
and not f ully or danger ously sinf ul.
Catechizing on this list, I see that I dar e not toss the fir st stone (or any
stones). Mea culpa.
4. In contempor ar y Southwester n ar chaeology, e s p e c i a ll y a t C h a c o , novel
political and social f or mations spr ing up lik e weeds, welcomed lik e flower s i f t h ey
a r e no nh i e r a r c h i c a l . Anti-str uctur e? Embedded communal hier ar chies? Ritualities?
Sur ely this gar den of sociological delights has r oom f or a f ew new hier ar chies.
Gr eat Houses and r ich bur ials suggest that Chaco was, at least in par t, a political
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system perhaps fledgling perhaps weak perhaps not very successful and
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system—per haps fledgling, per haps weak , per haps not ver y successf ul, and
per haps even something new under our sun (doubtf ul), but a centr alized, hier ar -
chical decision-mak ing str uctur e all the same. What to call it, k inda-k ings? quasi-
caciques? distended political pathologies? a gg r a nd i s e m e nt s ? Something, s o m e o ne
r uled Chaco, lived in gr and r esidences, and won f r iends and influenced people
over a vast r egion.
Excer pt f r om
T h e Ar c h a e o l o g y of C h a c o C a n y o n: An E l e v e nt h - C e nt ur y P ue b l o R e g i o na l C e nt e r
Edited by Stephen H. Lek son
© 2006 School of Amer ican Resear ch. All r ights r eser ved. Copying and / or distr ib-
uting this excer pt is str ictly pr ohibited without wr itten per mission f r om SAR Pr ess.
www.sar pr ess.sar web.or g
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