Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

188 Chaco Project Synthesisfirst discovered. This section will review data andproblems associated with population estimates andhealth that need to be resolved.Population EstimatesPopulation estimates for Chaco Canyon varyconsiderably (Table 6.5). The most common methodcounts the number of rooms and multiplies by areasonable factor. The use of architecture, however,is fraught with pitfalls, even when based on the samedata. For example, Loew (1875: 1096) assumed thata family of four inhabited each room at PuebloPintado. In contrast, Jackson (1878:436) thought afamily of five would use four rooms. Thus, their estimatesfor Pueblo Pintado were 400 and 200 ,respectively.Prior to the 1970s, most population estimatesconsidered only the occupation of great house sites(Table 6.5), and investigators assumed these werehabitation sites used by the local agricultural population.In contrast, Fisher's (1934:21) estimate wasbased on the amount of irrigable land and availablerunoff for the entire Chaco Basin.The first to examine popUlation by period and toinclude small site data was Pierson (1949), whorecorded 211 sites along the Chaco Wash. He estimatedthe number of rooms at each site and apportioned1.9 people per room based on contemporaryPueblo room use. Although his small-house surveywas incomplete, he concluded that 4,400 people livedin the canyon during its peak occupation betweenA.D. 950 and 1075 (Table 6.6).Based on the Chaco Project inventory survey,Hayes (1981:50-51) calculated that a family of 4.5individuals would use a three-room suite; thus,accurate numbers of rooms in a site were critical to hisresults. Hayes was aware of complicating factors thatwould affect his results (including sites buried underlater deposits or occupations) and tried to compensatefor such problems. During the period of maximumpopulation, his Early Pueblo II period (A.D. 1050 to1175), his total of 5,652 included 2,889 people insmall sites and 2,748 in great houses.Other Chaco Project investigators used differentapproaches. Drager (1976b) measured the areas of 12Table 6.6. Pierson's population estimates forChaco Canyon. aPeriodEstimated(A.D.) Total Rooms Population700 - 800 101 191800 - 850 923 1754850 - 950 1,837 3,490950 - 1075 2,316 4,4001075 - 1130 1,889 3,5091200 - 1300 168 391• Taken from Pierson (1949:Figure 4).Bonito and McElmo great houses on photogrammetricmaps. NaroWs (1962) formula (which he compared tomodem Pueblo use) depended on room area; it wasapplied to covered roof space to suggest a populationof 2,947 for the central canyon great houses. This isan increase of 201 over Hayes's (1981) estimate, anumber not unlikely given that two different methodsand formulas had been used. Drager used Hayes'snumbers for small sites to obtain a suggested total of5,836 as a maximum popUlation living in the canyon.The assumption that great houses were habitationsites, however, came into question. Windes (1982a)recognized that Hayes's population figures differedconsiderably from the popUlations that could besupported by the economic estimates of local woodresources (Betancourt and VanDevender 1981), arableland (Schelberg 1982a), and faunal remains (Akins1982b). Based on his work at Pueblo Alto, Windesproposed that big-room suites that lacked true firepitsmight represent single-use or short-term use forlimited functions. Other rooms probably were associatedwith road-related activities. As a result hequestioned whether these great houses were usedseasonally or year-round.Estimates of populations at great houses mustaddress several other considerations. Windes (1984a:83) recognized that excavations at Pueblo Altoindicated that the small site pattern of plaza-facing