Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

Basketmaker III to Pueblo I 121by any specific group at the site. Instead, theyproposed consensus agreements among householdheads, possibly using a periodic corporate strategy.In contrast, Schelberg (1982a) proposed that alow-level ranked society during Basketmaker III wouldmonitor climatic changes that affected the availabilityof food products. The leaders would be in contactwith similar groups throughout the San Juan Basin andbeyond. He thought that the presence of great kivasand the importation of nonlocal materials did notdiffer qualitatively from the evidence for later periodsthat he thought represented a stratified society.Schelberg proposed that the Basketmaker III-Pueblo Iperiod was the foundation for later developments.Imported goods could easily have beentransported from other areas as part of the huntingquest. Whether some lithic materials were actuallyobtained during hunting expeditions has not beenestablished. There were, however, very few importsinto the canyon during the Basketmaker III and PuebloI periods (Breternitz 1997; Cameron 1997a, 1997b;Mathien 1997; H. Toll and McKenna 1997; M. Toll1985, 1993a; Wills 1997). Cameron (1997c) suggeststhat very few cores were imported, and that mostmaterials came as end products. Because the distanceto marine shells is much farther, it not unlikely thatthe shells from the Gulf of California were obtainedthrough a down-the-line trade network. The fewnumbers of imported lithics (including turquoise) andshell prior to around A.D. 920 do not signify a highdegree of broad regional interaction outside of the SanJuan Basin.At Shabik'eshchee Village, the protokiva definitelyshared Pueblo I features, as did House C withits raised bench and multiple posts, and the court withits tub-shaped rooms and paved patio. Wills andWindes (1989:353-354) suggested that the breaks indeposition in the refuse mounds that Roberts attributedto two different Basketmaker occupations may,instead, divide Basketmaker III and Pueblo Ioccupations.A change in subsistence strategy is suggested byseveral lines of evidence. The change from living inpithouses and storing foods in cists to above-groundstorage facilities fronted by ramadas, and eventuallyhabitation rooms, may be related to increased concernover the protection of harvested crops, and reflect achange from communal sharing (by hunter-gatherersdependent on horticulture) to individual familystockpiles (by those dependent on agriculture)(McKenna 1986).Based on firepit size, McKenna (1986: 14) suggestedthat a change from single-family dwellings tomultifamily dwellings might indicate more cooperationbetween members of an extended family and possiblyless reliance on the community at large. Access tostorage rooms located behind ramadas was limited tothe users of the ramada directly in front of theserooms; connections between ramadas were not visible(Truell 1986).The wetter periods around A.D. 850 to 864 andA. D. 887 to 899 would have provided an opportunityto acquire surplus, which could lead to severalpossible changes; e.g., greater storage for nonsurvivaluses and/or the ability to support an increasedpopulation within the same spatial configurations.Judge et a1. (1981) postulated that those who hadestablished a claim to the best lands at confluences ofside tributaries of the Chaco Wash would have beenable to support the growth that is seen ca. A.D. 850and thereafter. Three early examples in the canyonare Penasco Blanco, Pueblo Bonito, and Una Vida; inthese areas, cultivation could have been expanded aslocal populations increased. Such developments couldhave occurred anywhere in the San Juan Basin wheresimilar conditions existed; the presence of BasketmakerIII and Pueblo I communities has been documentedin the San Juan Basin (e.g., Marshall et al.1979; R. Powers et al. 1983). Some, but not all, haveevidence of later construction of large Chacoanstructures. If extended families retained use of thesebetter watered areas starting during Early Pueblo I,then some type of social organization would be neededto maintain interaction among the various inhabitantsof the canyon and its surrounding area. Judge et a1.(1981) considered the three great houses andcommunities that developed in the tenth century (nowknown to have occurred in the ninth century) (Windesand D. Ford 1996) to have changed from a kin-basedsociety that used reciprocity to even out subsistenceshortfalls to one of redistribution by leaders whogained advantages due to the location of their farmlands in better watered locations (with labor-intensivestrategies), This model provided some basis for