Chaco Road System Chaco Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the m…Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Full Answer
What were the Chaco known for?
Chaco Canyon served as a major center of ancestral Puebloan culture. Remarkable for its monu mental buildings, distinctive architecture, astronomy, artistic achievements, it served as a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the Four Corners Area unlike anything before or since.
What was the Chacoan system?
Chacoans developed ritual-ceremonial system that quickly spread across a large portion of the ancient Puebloan landscape. Chacoan leaders managed this society through a sophisticated sociopolitical organization, yet they were not coercive or oppressive.
What happened to the Chaco people?
As the 14th century drew to a close, the entire Chaco population abandoned the canyon, never to return. For archaeologists, the Chaco phenomenon offers a chance to understand the rise and fall of a cultural ideal. Though this ideal may have originated between the walls of Chaco Canyon, its power reached far beyond.
What tribes were chacos?
Planning a Visit? The Chacoan sites are part of the homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest. Chaco Canyon was a major center of Puebloan culture between AD 850 and 1250.
Why was the Chaco phenomenon important?
Pueblo descendants say that Chaco was a special gathering place where many peoples and clans converged to share their ceremonies, traditions, and knowledge. Chaco is central to the origins of several Navajo clans and ceremonies.
What does the name Chaco mean?
Chaco–A map drawn in 1778 by Spanish cartographer Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco identified the Chaco Canyon area as “Chaca”; a Spanish colonial word commonly used during that era meaning “a large expanse of open and unexplored land, desert, plain, or prairie.” “Chaca” is believed to be the origin of both “Chacra” and “ ...
Why did the Chaco fall?
But by the end of the 12th century, Chaco Canyon had been abandoned. No one knows why for sure, but the thinking among archaeologists has been that excessive logging for firewood and construction caused deforestation, which caused erosion, which made the land unable to sustain a large population.
Why did the people of Chaco Canyon leave?
It's not completely clear why the people left Chaco Canyon, but prolonged drought is one possible explanation. It was around this time that communities in other places in the region, such as Mesa Verde and the Chuska Mountains, grew in size and importance.
Why is Chaco Canyon sacred?
This history is of deep importance to the living ancestors of the ancient Pueblo people who live in communities in New Mexico and Arizona. Chaco Canyon is a sacred pilgrimage site for those who believe their ancestors still dwell in the ancient city.
Where is Chaco and what is it like?
The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas in the United States.
Who were the Chaco Canyon people?
For over 2,000 years, Pueblo peoples occupied a vast region of the south-western United States. Chaco Canyon, a major centre of ancestral Pueblo culture between 850 and 1250, was a focus for ceremonials, trade and political activity for the prehistoric Four Corners area.
Is Chaco a tribe?
The indigenous Gran Chaco people consist of approximately thirty-five tribal groups in the Gran Chaco of South America. Because, like the Great Plains of North America, the terrain lent itself to a nomadic lifestyle, there is little to no archaeological evidence of their prehistoric occupation.
What was the spiritual significance of Chaco Canyon?
Some people believe the primary purpose of Chaco Canyon was as a center of spiritual practice for all the surrounding tribes. Of the hundreds of rooms, few have hearths, so it seems unlikely that people lived in them. There are many kivas — round rooms under the ground — that are roofless now.
Where is Chaco and what is it like?
The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas in the United States.
Why is Chaco Canyon sacred?
This history is of deep importance to the living ancestors of the ancient Pueblo people who live in communities in New Mexico and Arizona. Chaco Canyon is a sacred pilgrimage site for those who believe their ancestors still dwell in the ancient city.
What is the significance of Chaco Canyon for astronomy?
Chaco Canyon continues to be of great interest to those who study ancient cultures, including archeoastronomers. Evidence suggests that the Chacoans were expert skywatchers, with a clear knowledge of the cyclic and seasonal patterns of the sun, moon, and stars.
What is Chaco Canyon?
Who or What Is Chaco? Chaco refers to a place— Chaco Canyon —and to an ancient Puebloan society that developed in that place.
How did Chacoan leaders manage their society?
Chacoan leaders managed this society through a sophisticated sociopolitical organization, yet they were not coercive or oppressive. The success of Chacoan society rested primarily on its ability to promote a ritual means of keeping the ancient Pueblo world in balance.
When did Chacoan society flourish?
Chacoan society thrived in the period from A.D. 1000–1150. Developments in Chaco Canyon began centuries earlier, but the florescence of the uniquely Chacoan adaptation to the American Southwest was a relatively short-lived phenomenon.
Where did Chacoans live?
Northwest New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon was the epicenter of Chacoan society. By 1100, the Chacoan world was far-flung, with perhaps 200 affiliated sites spread across the Four Corners states over an area the size of Ireland.
What were the Chacoans able to predict?
Chacoans were thus able to predict the movements of the sun, moon, and various stars and planets.
What were the Chacoans' buildings called?
Chacoans’ “calling-card” across the ancient landscape was their amazing architecture. They built large multistory dwellings known as great houses . Standing up to 50 feet high, with massive three-foot-thick walls, these buildings were visible for miles across the landscape. Great houses incorporated tens of thousands of carefully shaped, tabular sandstone slabs and hundreds of beams of high-elevation wood (pine, spruce, and fir) that had been carried dozens of miles overland from source areas in the mountains.
What are Chacoan outliers?
These “outlier” sites were highly variable, from ten-room sites such as Newcomb to large residential sites such as Salmon and Aztec Ruins. Chacoan migrants built some of these sites to serve as Chacoan colonies. Others were built at the behest of local Puebloan leaders who sought to be part of the Chacoan network.
Who are the archaeologists who worked at Chaco?
Among many prominent southwestern archaeologists who have worked at Chaco are Neil Judd, Jim W. Judge, Stephen Lekson, R. Gwinn Vivian, and Thomas Windes.
Where is Chaco Canyon located?
Updated September 24, 2018. Chaco Canyon is a famous archaeological area in the American Southwest. It is located in the region known as the Four Corners, where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. This region was historically occupied by Ancestral Puebloan people (better known as Anasazi) and is now part ...
What are the most famous sites in Chaco Canyon?
Some of the most famous sites of Chaco Canyon are Pueblo Bonito, Peñasco Blanco, Pueblo del Arroyo, Pueblo Alto, Una Vida, and Chetro Kelt. Because of its well-preserved masonry architecture, Chaco Canyon was well known by later Indigenous communities (Navajo groups have been living at Chaco since at least 1500s), Spanish accounts, ...
What are the small houses called in Chaco Canyon?
Archaeologists working at Chaco Canyon call these small villages "small house sites," and they call the large centers "great house sites." Small house sites usually have less than 20 rooms and were single-story. They lack big kivas and enclosed plazas are rare. There are hundreds of small sites in Chaco Canyon and they began to be constructed earlier than great sites.
What was the cause of the decline of the Chacoan region?
Evidence from archaeology and dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) indicates that a cycle of major droughts between 1130 and 1180 coincided with the decline of the Chacoan regional system. Lack of new construction, abandonment of some sites, and a sharp decrease in resources by AD 1200 prove that this system was no longer functioning as a central node. But the symbolism, architecture, and roads of the Chacoan culture continued for a few more centuries becoming, eventually, only a memory of a great past for later Puebloan societies.
When was Chaco Canyon discovered?
Archaeological Investigations of Chaco Canyon. Archaeological explorations at Chaco Canyon began at the end of the 19 th century, when Richard Wetherill, a Colorado rancher, and George H. Pepper, an archaeology student from Harvard, began to dig at Pueblo Bonito. Since then, interest in the area has grown exponentially and several archaeological ...
Which group managed to create a complex regional system of small villages and large centers, with irrigation systems and inter-connect?
This is clearly a difficult area for agricultural production. However, between AD 800 and 1200, ancestral Puebloan groups, the Chacoans, managed to create a complex regional system of small villages and large centers, with irrigation systems and inter-connecting roads.
What is the C word in the Southwest?
Cannibalism in the American Southwest. 5 COMMENTS. By Kristy McCaffrey. It’s known as the C-word among archaeologists, and often leads to bitter disputes over whether cannibalism is fact or fiction. Physical anthropologist Christy Turner, now a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, has spent his life’s work in the pursuit of fact.
How long did the Toltec Empire last?
The Toltec empire in Mexico lasted from about A.D. 800 to 1100. It’s possible a heavily armed group of these “thugs” infiltrated into the southwestern part of the U.S. and found a suspicious but pliant population whom they terrorized into reproducing the theocratic lifestyle they had previously known in Mesoamerica.
What are the stories of the Navajo people?
The people there abused sacred ceremonies, practiced witchcraft and cannibalism, and made a dreaded substance called corpse powder by cooking and grinding up the flesh and bones of the dead. Their evil threw the world out of balance, and they were destroyed in a great earthquake and fire.
