Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

The Florescence 169Bonito phase structures in Chaco Canyon could also betied into a single system (Figure 5.25) linked by lineof site from the three elevated kivas at Tsin Kletsin tothe raised kiva at Kin Klizhin and a tower-likestructure (29S11578) above Kin Bineola. 29S1706also provided a visual link with the tower kiva at KinYa'a. If anyone of these shrines had been locatedfrom 30 to 70 m in any direction, such a system wouldnot have worked. It was inferred, therefore, that sometime and labor had been invested in determining thelocations of the shrines/signaling stations.Since the mid-1970s, Windes added 29Mc183and 29Mc186 on Chacra Mesa (Drager 1976a: 12).Another U -shaped shrine (29Mc567) was found on topof the mesa just west of the Chaco East community, atthe confluence of Wild Horse Canyon and the Chaco\Vash ('yVindeS 1993:459 a..~d Figure F.l; Windes etal. 2000:43, Figure 4.2.). Site 29Mc187, on ChacraMesa near the Chaco East community, ties PuebloPintado into the canyon system as well. The eleventhortwelfth-century masonry in the shrines suggests awidespread communication system within the Chacocore (Drager 1976a).Stone CirclesTwenty stone circles differ from shrines (Hayesand Windes 1975). Windes (1978) described thesefeatures as oval or circular walls up to 1 m high thatusually enclose circular or rectangular basins cut intothe bedrock. Although basins are randomly distributedwithin the stone circles, the larger circles hadmore basins and are located closer to Bonito phaserums.Recovered artifacts only hint at their date andfunction. Ceramics suggest a Pueblo II-Early PuebloIII use (80 percent of the sherds vs. 12.5 percentdating to the Basketmaker III -Pueblo I period, and 7.5percent to the Pueblo III period). The low numbers ofsherds suggest nonceramic activities. Siliceous stonewas rare; where present, there was a high percentageof imported materials (obsidian, Brushy Basin chert,and Narbona [Washington] Pass chert). The mostabundant ground stone artifact recovered is theweathered abrader, which is consistently found inassociation with walls or wall rubble. All 229abraders had similar wear patterns. Unlike those fromhabitation sites, they may have been used to smooththe bedrock on which the stone circles were built. Ofthe abraders, 95.6 percent showed no modificationother than wear patterns that could not be assigned toa specific task. Only a few other ground stone objects(manos, a shaft smoother, metate fragments, and apossible pot cover) were recovered. At 29S11974,three stone pendants, found in the rubble northwest ofthe stone circle, were crudely shaped and drilled fromtwo sides.All stone circles are located on cliff edges thatoverlook the canyon; most appear on the first bench,at an average of 693 m from a Bonito Phase site(Figure 5.25). Visibility to the nearest great house israre, but great houses can be seen from nine of 13sites. From all, a Pueblo II to III great kiva is visible.Because stone circles were placed in precise locationsthat allowed visibility between them and great kivas,their function was probably integrative. "Towns withonly a single circle nearby might be indicative ofoccupation by a single social or religious group, orsimply that other circles nearby escaped detection"(Windes 1978:65). Even though similar basins inother areas could be used for water catchment, thestone circles were not built for water control. Theycould represent areas where manufacturing of religiousitems occurred; they could have been hide-processingor wood-processing centers. Public dancing areas orstaging areas for dancers were also postulated, buttheir exact role within the system remains uncertain.Windes (1978:65-69) concluded that stone circlesappeared primarily between A.D. 1000 and 1150.Roads and Road-related FeaturesRoad segments in the San Juan Basin weredocumented by Holsinger (1901) and Judd (1964),among others, but it was not until the 1950s and 1960sthat they received much attention. Gordon Vivianbegan to examine linear features, some of which hethought were canals (Obenauf 1980a; Gwinn Vivian1983b). Continuing studies by Gwinn Vivian (1972;Vivian and Buettner 1973) identified six major routesthat started in the canyon and extended outward,including the North Road (called the Great NorthRoad by C. Randall Morrison; Vivian 1983a:A-12).Chaco Project staff documented additional linearfeatures on aerial photographs, both in the canyon andthroughout the San Juan Basin (Ebert and Hitchcock