The Greater Chaco Landscape

The Greater Chaco Landscape
Author: Ruth M. Van Dyke
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2021-05-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1646421701

Since the mid-1970s, government agencies, scholars, tribes, and private industries have attempted to navigate potential conflicts involving energy development, Chacoan archaeological study, and preservation across the San Juan Basin. The Greater Chaco Landscape examines both the imminent threat posed by energy extraction and new ways of understanding Chaco Canyon⁠ and Chaco-era great houses and associated communities from southeast Utah to west-central New Mexico in the context of landscape archaeology. Contributors analyze many different dimensions of the Chacoan landscape and present the most effective, innovative, and respectful means of studying them, focusing on the significance of thousand-year-old farming practices; connections between early great houses outside the canyon and the rise of power inside it; changes to Chaco’s roads over time as observed in aerial imagery; rock art throughout the greater Chaco area; respectful methods of examining shrines, crescents, herraduras, stone circles, cairns, and other landscape features in collaboration with Indigenous colleagues; sensory experiences of ancient Chacoans via study of the sightlines and soundscapes of several outlier communities; and current legal, technical, and administrative challenges and options concerning preservation of the landscape. An unusually innovative and timely volume that will be available both in print and online, with the online edition incorporating video chapters presented by Acoma, Diné, Zuni, and Hopi cultural experts filmed on location in Chaco Canyon, The Greater Chaco Landscape is a creative collaboration with Native voices that will be a case study for archaeologists and others working on heritage management issues across the globe. It will be of interest to archaeologists specializing in Chaco and the Southwest, interested in remote sensing and geophysical landscape-level investigations, and working on landscape preservation and phenomenological investigations such as viewscapes and soundscapes. Contributors: R. Kyle Bocinsky, G. B. Cornucopia, Timothy de Smet, Sean Field, Richard A. Friedman, Dennis Gilpin, Presley Haskie, Tristan Joe, Stephen H. Lekson, Thomas Lincoln, Michael P. Marshall, Terrance Outah, Georgiana Pongyesva, Curtis Quam, Paul F. Reed, Octavius Seowtewa, Anna Sofaer, Julian Thomas, William B. Tsosie Jr., Phillip Tuwaletstiwa, Ernest M. Vallo Jr., Carla R. Van West, Ronald Wadsworth, Robert S. Weiner, Thomas C. Windes, Denise Yazzie, Eurick Yazzie

Chaco Canyon

Chaco Canyon
Author: Robert Hill Lister
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1981
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780826307569

The first complete account of Chacoan archaeology, from the discovery of the ruins by Spanish soldiers in the seventeenth century, through the scientific analyses of the 1970s.

People of Chaco

People of Chaco
Author: Kendrick Frazier
Publisher:
Total Pages: 261
Release: 1999
Genre: Chaco Canyon (N.M.)
ISBN: 9780393318258

The Chaco Experience

The Chaco Experience
Author: Ruth M. Van Dyke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2008
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

In a remote canyon in northwest New Mexico, thousand-year-old sandstone walls waver in the sunlight, stretching like ancient vertebrae against a turquoise sky. This storied place--Chaco Canyon--carries multiple layers of meaning for Native Americans and archaeologists, writers and tourists, explorers and artists. Here, isolation, the arid climate, and dry-laid construction have preserved ruins that are monuments to prehistoric creativity and perseverance. Chaco Canyon draws its power not only from the ancient architecture sheltering beneath its walls, but from the ever-changing light and the far-flung vistas of the Colorado Plateau. Light and shadow, stone and sky come together in the canyon. At the heart of this sky-filled landscape lie twelve massive great houses. The Chacoan landscape, with its formally constructed, carefully situated architectural features, is charged with symbolism. In this volume, Ruth Van Dyke analyzes the meanings and experience of moving through this landscape to illuminate Chacoan beliefs and social relationships.

Pueblo Peoples on the Pajarito Plateau

Pueblo Peoples on the Pajarito Plateau
Author: David E. Stuart
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2011-02-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0826349129

This lively overview of the archaeology of northern New Mexico's Pajarito Plateau argues that Bandelier National Monument and the Pajarito Plateau became the Southwest's most densely populated and important upland ecological preserve when the great regional society centered on Chaco Canyon collapsed in the twelfth century. Some of Chaco's survivors moved southeast to the then thinly populated Pajarito Plateau, where they were able to survive by fundamentally refashioning their society. David E. Stuart, an anthropologist/archaeologist known for his stimulating overviews of prehistoric settlement and subsistence data, argues here that this re-creation of ancestral Puebloan society required a fundamental rebalancing of the Chacoan model. Where Chaco was based on growth, grandeur, and stratification, the socioeconomic structure of Bandelier was characterized by efficiency, moderation, and practicality. Although Stuart's focus is on the archaeology of Bandelier and the surrounding area, his attention to events that predate those sites by several centuries and at substantial distances from the modern monument is instructive. Beginning with Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers and ending with the large villages and great craftsmen of the mid-sixteenth century, Stuart presents Bandelier as a society that, in crisis, relearned from its pre-Chacoan predecessors how to survive through creative efficiencies. Illustrated with previously unpublished maps supported by the most recent survey data, this book is indispensable for anyone interested in southwestern archaeology.

The Chaco Handbook

The Chaco Handbook
Author: R. Gwinn Vivian
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002
Genre: Chaco Canyon (N.M.)
ISBN: 9780874807059

An encyclopedia presents information on the site of prehistoric habitation in northwestern New Mexico, accompanied by a history of Chaco, an account of exploration and investigation, and an annotated bibliography.

Hiking New Mexico's Chaco Canyon

Hiking New Mexico's Chaco Canyon
Author: James C. Wilson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-08-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9781632933966

A comprehensive guide to hiking and camping at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico including detailed information about the campground, the trails, the ruins, and the history of the Chaco culture with maps and over 50 of the author's photographs.