scholarly journals Ancestors and the sun: astronomy, architecture and culture at Chaco Canyon

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S278) ◽  
pp. 255-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Munro ◽  
J. McKim Malville
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Ancestor Veneration ◽  
Great House ◽  
Previous Proposal ◽  
Construction Activity ◽  
Great Kivas ◽  
East West

AbstractThree architectural traditions with astronomical associations have been identified among the ‘Great Houses’ and ‘Great Kivas’ of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Great Houses and one Great Kiva built during the height of construction activity (AD 1020–1100), the Bonito Phase, include front-facing south-southeast (SSE) orientations, and cardinal north-south and/or east-west (NS/EW) alignments. We present ethnographic material supporting our previous proposal that the SSE orientation is probably linked to migration traditions and ancestor veneration. We also confirm that a majority of Late Bonito Phase Great Houses (built after A.D. 1100) exhibit a third astronomical tradition: five of the principal in-canyon Great Houses built at that time were positioned at or near observing locations that could have functioned as solstice calendrical stations. Through use of these locations for public ceremonies, the Chacoan elite could demonstrate astronomical knowledge and ritual power. These findings provide support for Van Dyke's hypothesis that construction during this period was intended to reinvigorate a faltering system. One ‘Chaco halo’ Great House, Bis sa'ani, incorporates all three traditions. We suggest that temporal analysis of these traditions improves understanding of migration paths and shifting balances of power and social dominance among ancestral Pueblo culture groups.

scholarly journals Performance Space, Political Theater, and Audibility in Downtown Chaco

Acoustics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Witt ◽  
Kristy Primeau
Keyword(s):  
Political Theater ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Modeling Tools ◽  
Performance Space ◽  
Great House ◽  
Ancestral Puebloan ◽  
Great Kivas

Chaco Canyon, NM, USA, was the center of an Ancestral Puebloan polity from approximately 850–1140 CE, and home to a dozen palatial structures known as “great houses” and scores of ritual structures called “great kivas”. It is hypothesized that the 2.5 km2 centered on the largest great house, Pueblo Bonito (i.e., “Downtown Chaco”), served as an open-air performance space for both political theater and sacred ritual. The authors used soundshed modeling tools within the Archaeoacoustics Toolbox to illustrate the extent of this performance space and the interaudibility between various locations within Downtown Chaco. Architecture placed at liminal locations may have inscribed sound in the landscape, physically marking the boundary of the open-air performance space. Finally, the implications of considering sound within political theater will be discussed.

Colour and Directional Symbolism in Ancestral Pueblo Radial Offerings from Chaco Canyon

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Hannah V. Mattson
Keyword(s):  
American Southwest ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Regional System ◽  
Roof Support

Dedicatory offerings of small colourful objects are often found in pre-Hispanic architectural contexts in the Ancestral Pueblo region of the American Southwest. These deposits are particularly numerous in the roof support pillars of circular ritual structures (kivas) at the site of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, which served as the ceremonial hub of the Chacoan regional system between the tenth and twelfth centuries ce. Based on the importance of directionality and colour in traditional Pueblo worldviews, archaeologists speculate that the contents of these radial offerings may likewise reference significant Chacoan cosmographic elements. In this paper, I explore this idea by examining the distribution of colours and materials in kiva pilaster repositories in relation to directional quadrants, prominent landscape features, and raw material sources. I discuss the results in the context of Pueblo cosmology and assemblage theory, arguing that particular colours were polyvalent and relational, deriving their meanings from their positions within interacting and heterogenous assemblages.

Sacred Earthen Architecture in the Northern Southwest: The Bluff Great House Berm

2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine M. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Sacred Place ◽  
Great House ◽  
Earthen Architecture ◽  
Bluff Great House ◽  
Ritual Architecture

This article reports on the excavation of a “berm”—an earthen mound that surrounds the Bluff Great House in southeastern Utah. Comparisons are made to Chacoan-era (A.D. 850–1150) great house mounds in Chaco Canyon and to other berms and mounds at great houses throughout the Chacoan region. Great house mounds in Chaco Canyon and berms outside Chaco Canyon are assumed to have been ritual architecture, and continuity in the use of mounded earth and trash as a sacred place of deposit is traced through time from the Pueblo 1 period to modern Pueblos. The Bluff berm does not seem to have been constructed as the result of ceremonial gatherings (as has been suggested for the great house mounds in Chaco Canyon), but there is intriguing evidence that it continued to be used into the post-Chacoan era (A.D. 1150–1300), perhaps as a result of a restructuring or revival of Chacoan ideas in the northern San Juan region. Examination of the spatial distribution of berms suggests that they are most common at great houses south and west of Chaco Canyon; the northern San Juan region, where Bluff is located, has far fewer such features, possibly because the revival of Chacoan ideas in this region was short-lived.

scholarly journals Convergence of Evidence Supports a Chuska Mountains Origin for the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon

2020 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-346
Author(s):  
Christopher H. Guiterman ◽  
Christopher H. Baisan ◽  
Nathan B. English ◽  
Jay Quade ◽  
Jeffrey S. Dean ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Pinus Ponderosa ◽  
Ponderosa Pine ◽  
Strontium Isotopes ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
The West ◽  
Potential Growth ◽  
Great House ◽  
Lines Of Evidence

The iconic Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito is widely believed to have been a majestic pine standing in the west courtyard of the monumental great house during the peak of the Chaco Phenomenon (AD 850–1140). The ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) log was discovered in 1924, and since then, it has been included in “birth” and “life” narratives of Pueblo Bonito, although these ideas have not been rigorously tested. We evaluate three potential growth origins of the tree (JPB-99): Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, or a distant mountain range. Based on converging lines of evidence—documentary records, strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr), and tree-ring provenance testing—we present a new origin for the Plaza Tree. It did not grow in Pueblo Bonito or even nearby in Chaco Canyon. Rather, JPB-99 originated from the Chuska Mountains, over 50 km west of Chaco Canyon. The tree was likely carried to Pueblo Bonito sometime between AD 1100 and 1130, although why it was left in the west courtyard, what it meant, and how it might have been used remain mysteries. The origin of the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito underscores deep cultural and material ties between the Chaco Canyon great houses and the Chuska landscape.

Pink Chert, Projectile Points, and the Chacoan Regional System

2001 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine M. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Chipped Stone ◽  
Considerable Distance ◽  
Data Support ◽  
Great House ◽  
New Models ◽  
Regional System ◽  
Organization Of Production ◽  
Made In

The most unusual aspect of chipped stone in Chaco Canyon is that materials were imported from a considerable distance but used almost exclusively as informal flake tools. Narbona Pass chert from the Chuska Mountains, 75 km away, is the most common nonlocal material found during the Chacoan Era (A.D. 900-1150). There are relatively few number of formal tools found in the Canyon, primarily projectile points, and a significant number of these do not seem to have been made in Chaco. New models of the organization of production offered by Earle, Hagstrum, Peregrine, and Renfrew (this issue) are evaluated using chipped-stone data collected by the Chaco Project during the 1970s. Chipped-stone data support the suggestion made by these scholars that great houses in Chaco Canyon were the focus of periodic communal gatherings. Deposition of quantities of Narbona Pass chert debitage in great house trash middens was apparently a ceremonial aspect of these gatherings, perhaps related to Puebloan concepts of renewal. Some projectile points appear to have been deposited in great house rooms or kivas as ritual offerings.

scholarly journals A Bayesian copula-based spatio-temporal method for multivariate drought risk analysis: A case study of the Balkhash Lake Basin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Yang ◽  
Yongping Li
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Drought Event ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Guarantee Rate ◽  
East West

In this study, a Bayesian copula spatio-temporal drought risk analysis (BCSDA) method is developed through coupling Bayesian copula and spatio-temporal analysis into a general framework. BCSDA can effectively identify drought characteristics and reveal the temporal and spatial variation, as well as analyze drought risk at different guaranteed rates based on the influence of multivariate interaction. Then, BCSDA is applied to the Balkhash Lake Basin (a typical arid watershed in Central Asia) for analyzing drought risk during 1901-2017. Major findings are: (i) Balkhash Lake Basin suffered 53 drought events in 1901-2017, and the most severe drought event occurred in October 1973 to January 1977, which lasted for 40 months and developed into an extreme drought during April 1975 to June 1976, affecting 335,800 square kilometers of the study basin; (ii) most of the drought events developed in the direction of east-west, and Lli River delta and the alluvial plain were the most severe of drought (47.2%), followed by the plateau desert area (28.3%) and the arid grassland in north of Balkhash Lake (24.5%); (iii) drought shows significant seasonality which usually began in spring and summer (64.2%) and ended in summer and autumn (66.0%); (iv) in Balkhash Lake Basin, multivariate characteristics (duration, severity and area) would significantly affect drought risk; (v) the range of drought risk would be [1.9%, 18.1%], [3.7%, 33.1%], [8.7%, 46.0%], [16.0%, 55.1%] and [27.6%, 59.8%] when guarantee rate is 0.99, 0.98, 0.95, 0.90 and 0.80.

The Chaco Pilgrimage Model: Evaluating the Evidence From Pueblo Alto

2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Plog ◽  
Adam S. Watson
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Household Activity ◽  
Deposition Patterns ◽  
Data Support ◽  
Great House ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Refuse Disposal

AbstractMost recent attempts to understand the complex nature of the prehispanic occupation of Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico often have postulated that the canyon was a center for pilgrimage fairs and ceremonies that attracted hundreds if not thousands of individuals from the surrounding region who may have resided in the canyon for significant periods of time. Scholars first proposed this model in the 1980s based on what they perceived as the unusual nature of Pueblo Alto, a Chacoan great house. In particular, they suggested that normal household activity and refuse disposal could not explain the deposition patterns in the Alto trash mound, the unusual number of ceramic vessels, and characteristics of the fauna recovered from the settlement. We evaluate this argument focusing primarily on the ceramic and faunal evidence and conclude that neither the ceramic nor the faunal data support the occurrence of periodic fairs, festivals, dances or pilgrimages of the scale that have been postulated.

scholarly journals KINSHIP AND COMMUNITY IN THE NORTHERN SOUTHWEST: CHACO AND BEYOND

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ware
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Colorado Plateau ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Great House ◽  
Descent Group ◽  
Nonstate Societies

Archaeogenomic studies of a burial crypt in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, have demonstrated the presence of an elite matrilineal descent group that spanned most of the 300+ years the great house was occupied, confirming, among other things, the deep antiquity of matrilineal ideologies among the Ancestral Pueblos of the northern Southwest. This article explores the sociopolitical implications of matrilineal descent, matrilocal residence, and Iroquois-Crow alliance structures among the Ancestral Pueblos of Chaco and elsewhere. It argues that matrilineal ideologies helped shape community forms and intercommunity relations throughout the Pueblo Southwest. It argues further that kinship provides insights into Chaco's eleventh-century expansion that dispersed “outlier” great houses over much of the southeastern Colorado Plateau. The article concludes with a call for archaeologists and cultural historians to pay more attention to kinship, the principal idiom of social, economic, and political relations in nonstate societies.

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