Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

The Classic Adaptation 197block size, amount of mortar, the presence offootings, and the presence of simple and compoundmasonry. Plazas with slab-lined firepits were occasionallyprotected by short masonry walls. Pitstructures retained mud walls but the number of floorfeatures decreased. There is more standardization inshape and size in the pit structures constructed duringthe early to mid-A.D. lOoos.Although full masonry walls appear in abovegroundrooms during this period, they do not appearin pit structures until the late A.D. lOOOs. Masonryappearance or style differs from that in great houses,where it was present by the late A.D. 800s or earlyA.D. 900s (Truell 1986:274-276). At small housesites there is little evidence for stone preparation; andonly a few examples of Judd's type I masonry styleappear approximateiy 75 years after it was used ingreat house walls. Wall niches and benches are alsoabsent in above-ground rooms.Storage rooms with two to five mealing catchmentsand similar catchment areas in the plaza datingto the late A.D. 900s and early A.D. lO00s werefound at 29SJ1360 and 29SJ627 (Truell 1986:281-282). Slab-lined boxes or bins are found in pit structuresat great houses and small house sites during thisperiod. (This changes by the late A.D. lO00s). Fixedmealing bins suggest possible communal grindingareas. Two rooms at 29SJ627 each have five mealingbins; one of these rooms is accessible only from theplaza and is twice the size of other living rooms at thissite. This is also the only room with mealing bins thatdoes not contain a heating pit or firepit.In the late A.D. 900s and early A.D. 1000s,there is a difference between four storage rooms at29SJ627 and those constructed during the A.D. 1020sto 1040s (Truell 1986:269-273). The later storagerooms were, on the average, 1 m 2 larger. Comparableincreases in living or work areas were noted. Truell(1986:273) asked whether the corresponding increasein orifice diameters for neck-banded gray ware at thistime (H. Toll and McKenna 1993:Figure 1.12)represents larger families, more permanent site use, ornew responsibilities.The differences in small house sites dating to theClassic Bonito phase (A.D. 1050 to 1100) and theLate Bonito phase (A.D. 1100 to 1150) are not aseasily distinguishable. Although there are data froma number of small houses for the late A.D. 1000s,good architectural details from excavated sites arescarce and difficult to evaluate because many of thesites exhibit earlier occupations and much of theearlier excavation work was not fully reported.During the Chaco Project, only one and a half abovegroundexcavated rooms at 29SJ633 provide evidencefor the Late Bonito phase; however, these rooms werereoccupied during the early A.D. 1200s, and representsome mixed use. In spite of these analytical handicaps,Truell (1986:284-301, 307-308) made severalobservations:• There is greater variability in rear room sizeduring this period. This variability is moreobvious between sites than within one site.• Former plaza-facing rooms and ramada areasoften had two to three small rooms added infront. Some rooms may have been interstitialspaces around enclosed kivas, and many wereoften used in conjunction with pit structures.These small rooms frequently contained firepitsor bins.• Regardless of their positions in a room block,rooms with firepits tend to have larger floorareas, but they do not differ significantly fromearlier floor areas. Some sites, however, werelarger than others.• Compound masonry walls exhibiting a variety ofstyles and range in the quality of craftsmanshipare preserved. At two sites (Bc 50 and Bc 51),two stories were present. There were a numberof sites containing adobe or stone footings thatdo not seem to align with earlier constructionepisodes. Masonry wall stones typically werenot pecked or ground except at Bc 236 (Voll1964:3) and Leyit Kin (Dutton 1938), whereadditional labor was invested in construction.Some sites (e.g., 29SJ633) often have evidenceof reuse of stone from other sites.Truell (1986:291-295; Appendix B) listed 48small sites constructed between the late A.D. lO00sand early A.D. ll00s using core-and-veneer masonry.Although located throughout the canyon, they tend tocluster along the canyon bottom, especially near