Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

214 Chaco Project Synthesiswhere Room 110 had several cores of Narbona(Washington) Pass chert and evidence for flakedistribution in pits that were on several floors of theroom. Cameron (1997b) concluded there was no evidencefor craft specialization in chipped stone items inthe canyon.Only 500 formal tools were recovered from sitesexcavated by the Chaco Project during this longperiod. Lekson (1997) reviewed other collections toadd another 1,200 tools in his study of points , knives,and drills. Points were the most abundant, andLekson (1997:Figures 4.1 and 4.3) was able to confirmthat artifacts from Chaco Canyon reflect theAnasazi point series. There is great variety in materialtype and point size in this large collection. Ofinterest were the observed metric differences betweencomplete points and blade fragments. Lekson (1997:675) suggested that blade fragments may have beencoming into the canyon, perhaps transported with meatfrom other areas (Akins 1982b, 1985), but he couldnot infer that there was a difference between completepoints and blade fragments sufficient to suggest differentareas of manufacture. Complete points had a60:40 ratio of local:exotic materials; while the ratiofor blade fragments was nearly 50:50.There was one unique set of points found withBurial 10 in Room 330 at Pueblo Bonito (Judd1954:254-255, 333; Plates 73A, 74, 98 [lower]).Lekson (1997:676) indicated that they are larger, andhave deeper notches, unusual base forms, and otherdistinctions that set them aside from the rest of thecollection. Most important is the variability in workmanshipthat B. Bradley (1980) assigned to at leastfive different knappers. This collection of unusualand well-made arrows found either in the quill orbetween the legs of a middle-aged male in the westernburial repository led Akins (1986) to assign this burialto a second tier of an elite hierarchy based on heranalysis of grave goods.Two other distinct point types were found(Lekson 1997:676). In the trash at the south end ofRoom 251 in Pueblo Bonito was a group of Neffpoints, a type found in southeastern New Mexico in asite dated between A.D. 1000 and 1200 (Wiseman1971). The second type was recovered in surfacetrash at Be 51. Made from probably-local white chert,the bases of these points were deeply concave; thisform is not uncommon at Pueblo III and Pueblo IVsites in other Southwestern areas. Similar quality ofworkmanship was recorded for the two large obsidianknives from Pueblo del Arroyo and two whitechalcedony knives from a niche in the north wall ofRoom 45 at Be 51. Three large blades (two fossiliferouschert and one fine white quartzite) recoveredfrom a sealed cache in the north wall of Kiva Q atPueblo Bonito (Judd 1954:323-324) are also unusual;a stabilization crew also found a similar chert blade ina sealed niche in the south wall of Room 316 atPueblo Bonito (Lekson 1997:687). These, and otherdistinct examples, do not prove the presence of craftspecialists in the canyon, but they do indicate greatskills by some knappers who produced points thatmade their way in the canyon sites. That many werefound in caches or special proveniences suggests theywere not part of everyday life.In the collection, both globular and discoidalcores were present.I observed one small core with a singleplatform and small parallel blade scars.Alone, this could easily have been unintentional,but the occurrence of this form(along with small blades in the MontezumaValley of southwest Colorado) may indicatethat there was a minor bladelet productiontechnology, possibly for theproduction of small drills. (B. Bradley1997:698)Although Bradley did not indicate the material of thiscore or the site it was from, chalcedonic silicifiedwood cores tend to be small (Cameron 1997b:644).Whether or not Bradley's observations pertain tochalcedonic silicified wood, there is an association ofdrills of this material (described as fortuitous drillsand not considered formal tools) with jewelry-makingdebris at 29SJ629 and Pueblo Alto (29SJ389)(Cameron 1997b:596), both of which date to the A.D.920 to 1020 period, when the frequency ofchalcedonic silicified wood cores is highest (Cameron1997b:Table 3C.13).The identification of jewelry workshops is basedpredominantly on the presence of turquoise in severalstates of manufacture (Mathien 1984, 1997); butstudies of lapidary abraders (Akins 1997) and