Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- -196 Chaco Project SynthesisGreat House and Small House DifferencesPrior to the Chaco Project, sites in ChacoCanyon were viewed as discrete entities rather than aspart of a larger settlement. The more detailed architecturalstudies of Lekson (1984a) and Truell (1986)recognized that both the "towns" and "villages" ofGordon Vivian and Mathews (1965) belonged to asingle architectural continuum, and that there wasconsiderable complexity and variability within eachcategory. By the late A.D. 1000s to early 1100s,what were labeled villages often had 30 to 35 rooms,making them comparable to some of the smallertowns; e.g., Talus Unit No. 1. Thus, the dichotomyin site size blurred, and investigators began to thinkmore about community and interaction among inhabitants.Differences in architecture and materialremains still exist between these two general categories,but the inappropriate earlier terms have beenreplaced by the terms "great house" (Lekson 1984a:266-267) and "small house" site (Truell 1986:128-129). Both architectural and material culture analysesinform on the interactions among their inhabitants andsuggest changing interactions through time within thelarger region.Architectural StudiesEarly Red Mesa pottery appears in small housesites and great houses with the type I masonry style;recent tree-ring studies indicate that the earliest sectionsof Una Vida, Pueblo Bonito, and Penasco Blancowere built in the middle to late A.D. 800s (Windesand D. Ford 1996). At this time, great houses andsmall sites both exhibited a similar unit pattern, butthe size of the rooms in great houses is greatly increased,and they are two stories high. This sectionreviews evidence for diverging developments at thesetwo site types.Small House Architecture. During the EarlyBonito phase, there is some correlation betweenchanges in pottery types and architecture, but these arenot always clear cut. Among the small sites, Truell(1986:250) recognized the presence of Red MesaBlack-on-white pottery just prior to A.D. 900; it wasfound on these sites until the late A.D. 1000s. Duringthis long continuum, subtle architectural differenceswere better matched when Truell separated the EarlyRed Mesa from Red Mesa around A.D. 950 (see H.Toll and McKenna [1997:278-297] for detaileddescriptions).To briefly review, during the late A.D. 800s tomiddle 9OOs, typical small house units included twostorage rooms fronted by a partially enclosed workspace or ramada, a plaza area, and a pit structure; andplacement of trash in formal exterior mounds becomesmore common and extensive (Truell 1986:307).Storage rooms were walled and had floors that wererecessed from 20 to 30 cm (Truell1986:251). Otherthan large-volume cists set into the floor, storagerooms generally lacked floor features. Storage roomswere connected to a ramada or living room by doorways.The ramada or living room fronting thesestorage rooms was at the same level as the plazasurface in front, but it lacked full walls. Ramadaswere characterized as having light roofs; occasionalboundary walls; centralized fixed features; and theappearance of a gray-clay plaster on the surfaces(Truell 1986:266). By A.D. 900, firepits thataveraged ca. 20 cm deep and were either slab-lined orplastered were present. Because ramadas were not enclosed,they were thought to have been used seasonally.Pit structure orientation in this period shiftedto a more southerly direction. The pit structuresmaintained floor features associated with living andworking activities, and had some storage features andsome evidence of ceremonial use.From the mid-900s through the mid-lOOOs, thelocation of storage and living .rooms within roomblocks is less predictable (Truell 1986:268-282, 307-308). The rear storage roolll..'> become slightly longerthan they are wide. Floor-feature position is also lessconsistent. A few of the rear-row rooms contain crudeheating pits, as before; but at 29SJ627, Room 19 wasconverted into a mealing room. Although flat-laidmasonry replaces adobe turtlebacks and storage roomshad more squared comers, the abundant plaster stillgave them an oval appearance. Plaza-facing rooms orearlier ramada areas were fully enclosed. The frontliving rooms tend to be slightly longer and wider thanthe rear storage rooms. Living rooms also vary morein size than do storage rooms, which may be related toa wider range of activities taking place within them.Yet some of these plaza-facing rooms are featureless.Thus, Truell suggested that room size does not necessarilycorrelate with function, but rather with location.Masonry in the above-ground rooms is variable in