This photo from the 1930s shows the back wall of Pueblo Bonito, the largest structure found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Archaeologists estimate the intact structure was 5 stories high and had about 500 rooms. University of Arizona tree-ring studies of building's wooden beams revealed the structure was built in phases from 850 to 1120. Credit: George A. Grant/ National Park Service
Visted Chaco a few years back. It’s a must see place in beautiful country.
Pretty darned impressive. And, it was done without the help of IC engines, CAD, etc.
Been there. Seen that.
Condos for the Indians.
The community had only two problems:
1. The river ran dry
2. They were cannibals.
Incredible site. I’ve been to Chaco Canyon twice when I was still living in Arizona. There are also dozens of fascinating sites in the four corners area. The Pueblos and the Hopi seem dependents with likely additional cultures. Zuni is also well worth a trip.
Hotel for visiting aliens?
It appears that a major climate change occurred that left that area without water.
um, unexpected wood...
Happened to me in sixth grade when I had to get up to sharpen a pencil.
This is interesting. In the 90s, I did some petrographic microscopy for the UA Anthropology Department on Chaco Canyon pottery, comparing the contained sand grains to various source rocks, some of which were from the Chuskas.
Then my wife and I visited Chaco Canyon a few years ago, as well as other archeological sites in the Four Corners area.
Horses were introduced to America by early post-Columbian explorers. Prior to that time, trees had to be moved from the Zuni and Chuska mountains by human labor. It must have been an enormous effort over nearly three centuries to cut (using stone tools) and move the estimated 240,000 trees used in construction.
Interesting. One thing I couldn’t find was what wood are we’re talking here? Fir, pine, cypress, or some kind of hardwood? Oh well.
Many parts of Chaco Canyon can be reinterpreted to mean very different things from the official archaeology.
To start with, it was the center of a major transshipment route all the way from New England to South America. Perhaps comparable to Chicago today. It was also something of a “banking center”, in that at the time the reserve trading currency was turquoise chips, tens of thousands of which have been discovered there.
Something that can be noted on the site are the many underground “kivas” or rooms, or at least that is the assumption, until you notice that adjacent kivas are stair stepped down, so may have instead been cisterns.
The buildings there often have basements, as well as several floors, and the different construction masonry techniques are very obvious.
About halfway from Chaco Canyon to Albuquerque is the Petroglyph National Monument, a black basalt mesa cliff face with some 24,000 petroglyphs on it. Perhaps it was the Free Republic forum from a thousand years ago.
I have never felt as “at home” as I have at Chaco. It is certainly one of those places that you should experience. If you think “civilization” is a new thing, you need to go there and see what happened a long time ago.
"The peaceful Zuni of New Mexico and Arizona are much studied, partly because their language, culture and physical appearance set them apart from other Native American peoples. Davis, an anthropologist who has made 10 visits to the Zuni pueblo, now offers the startling thesis that a group of Japanese Buddhists left earthquake-wracked medieval Japan and came by ship to the Southern California coast, eventually migrating inland to the Zuni territory, where they merged their culture and genes with Native Americans to produce the modern Zuni people around A.D. 1350. Davis uses "forensic" evidence--including analyses of dental morphology, blood and skeletal remains--to support a Japanese-Zuni connection."
They were not big folks.
A picture from the 1930s. Does that mean the wall is no longer there?
