CHACO REGION
The highly influential Chaco Region occupies most of the far northwest corner of New Mexico. The eastern boundary is just west of the Río Grande Region pueblos. The southern boundary of the region runs along a line several miles south of Interstate 40.
(See the Chaco Region Map). Big game hunters visited the Chaco Canyon area as early as 7000 B.C. Migrating Puebloan peoples traveled through the area for centuries, often stopping to settle temporarily, gather wild plants and hunt small game, then move on.
The first evidence of agriculture at Chaco dates to about 1000 B.C. The early farmers built pithouses and grew mostly corn and squash. Later, beans were imported from Central America. An evolutionary change occurred about A.D. 500 with the development of the bow and arrow and
spindle whorl on which the Anasazi spun the newly introduced cotton. They had no pottery, but made fine baskets.
Chetro Ketl
From about A.D. 850 to 900, a massive construction project was undertaken. Circular and D-shaped above-ground pueblos supplanted most of the pithouse settlements. It is estimated that 215,000 logs were cut and dragged from forests at least 25 to 40 miles distant to build the structures in and around Chaco. The
Chetro Ketl pueblo was started in about 900. More than 20,000 logs were used in the construction. With evidence from
tree-ring dating, we know the pueblo was expanded and renovated between 1036 and 1053.
Commencing about 920 in what was apparently the first major affiliation of settlements anywhere in the Anasazi territories, a network of more than 70 villages, called outliers, grew up around the Chaco center. This interconnected, interrelated grid ultimately stretched for 250 miles from north to south. Along an eight-mile stretch of Chaco Wash fourteen planned towns with common architectural design and style -
Great Houses - anchored the Chaco hub.
Pueblo Bonito
The greatest of these Great Houses and one of the largest pueblos in the Southwest is
Pueblo Bonito. Considered the finest example of Anasazi masonry and architecture, it was constructed between 1075 and 1123. Shaped like the letter D, the 800-room village reaches four and five stories high in places. Though not a cliff dwelling, Pueblo Bonito snuggles next to sheer cliffs and covers more than 3 acres. Incorporated into the architecture are features that allow for precise astronomical observations.
Chaco construction boomed until about 1030. The cultural center probably peaked during the first three decades of the 12th century. After that, precipitation declined sharply, crops withered and wild animals moved away. According to oral histories, "Mother Earth was splitting apart" for lack of moisture. Construction ceased after 1132, and within twenty years the Chaco area was a ghost town, its inhabitants resettled in other villages and pueblos, including those along the Río Grande and in Hopiland.
Puzzling ancient roads
Though the Chaco center was the first to rise and the first to fall, it was, perhaps, the grandest of the Anasazi regions. Just in the last 25-30 years, archaeologists have discovered an interconnected system of more than 400 miles of roads radiating out straight as an arrow from Chaco Canyon to southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. These extraordinary thirty-foot-wide roads are perplexing to modern scientists, since their straight-line layout ignores the natural rise and fall of the land and, more importantly, they were built by a culture that had neither the wheel nor beasts of burden. Some believe that they were highways for the transport of cut timbers from forests to the Chaco cities or that they were pilgrimage routes from outlying areas to Chaco. Others believe that Anasazi armies used the roads for their movements.
Emergence of a new power structure?
Before the rise of Chaco, it appears that Anasazi villages were autonomous and self sufficient except for normal trade. There is almost no evidence that they had great leaders or even chieftains at that time. However, as Chaco grew,
egalitarianism may have given way to a more
hierarchical structure. In few other places have archaeologists found graves filled with precious stones, jewelry and other riches that suggest that powerful rulers and some kind of royalty may have existed.
During their heyday, Chacoans enjoyed trade with other tribes and cultures as far away as Mexico. Trade items included copper bells and macaw feathers from Mexico, seashells from the
Sea of Cortés, chipped stone from northeast Arizona, and turquoise from eastern New Mexico. It appears that they may have had some contact with the most advanced civilization in North America, the Toltecs, who ranged from central Mexico to the Yucatan and Guatemala. The Chaco culture undoubtedly influenced all of the Anasazi regions and other cultures, like the
Mogollon, as well.
Aztec Ruins
Fifty miles north of Chaco Canyon and connected by one of the well-engineered Anasazi roads, Aztec Ruins was built primarily between 1106 and 1125. The 161,000 square foot Great House boasts 450 rooms arranged three to five rooms deep and up to three stories high. In addition, there are 29 kivas and one great kiva. At the center of the plaza is a magnificent great kiva, 50 feet in diameter. It is estimated that the roof of this kiva weighed nearly 200,000 pounds. After the Chaco center collapsed, Aztec may have
been a temporary home for migrating Chacoans, but not for long. Soon, Aztec was abandoned, to be reoccupied for a while in the 13th century, then left to Nature.
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