Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

4 Chaco Project Synthesisand the federal regulations that affected the researchdesign. Once the prevalent interpretations of Chaco atthe time of the project's inception are reviewed, thegoals of the Chaco Prospectus (NPS 1969) will bepresented. At that time, new research tools werebecoming available; the methods in which they wereemployed, as well as some of the results andevaluations of these new techniques, will be presentedprior to outlining how the research results are groupedinto four major topics in the remaining chapters of thisbook.Background to the Chaco ProjectDiscovery, documentation, and discussion ofdata obtained by examining several large ruins and anumber of small houses related to the Pueblo use ofthe canyon (Figure 1.3) began in the late 1800s. Anumber of institutions conducted major multiyearprojects now commonly referred to as the HydeExploring Expedition (1896 to 1901), the NationalGeographic Society Expedition (1921 to 1927), andthe combined School of American Research (SAR)/University of New Mexico (UNM)/Museum of NewMexico (MNM) field schools (1929 to 1942, 1947)(Lister and Lister 1981). In 1937, the NPS inaugurateda ruins stabilization program, and NPSarchaeologists conducted surveys and excavations atseveral sites in order to prevent loss of knowledgeabout these resources due to erosion and other naturalprocesses. By 1969, therefore, numerous surveys andexcavations had been completed-but reports oftenremained buried among field notes kept byarchaeologists or in repositories of sponsoringinstitutions. Appendix A provides a list of excavationscarried out as part of each of these majorperiods and indicates where relevant information maybe found.Just prior to the Chaco Project, Gordon Vivianand Tom Mathews (1965) published their summary ofarchaeological research in the canyon area andoutlined topics for future research. A few preceramicsites had been identified, but they were not included insurvey records and no excavations of these sites hadbeen conducted. Historic records and interaction withNavajo provided some information about their recentuse of the canyon, but the exact date of Navajoentrance into the area was uncertain. A few sitesoutside the park boundaries had been excavated (Judd1954; Gwinn Vivian 1960). Most research hadfocused on early Pueblo use of the canyon. Based onKidder's (1927) Pecos Classification, change in usethroughout that period was thought to progress froman incompletely described Basketmaker II periodwithout pottery; to life in pithouses (some in smallsettlements); to use of above-ground structures with afew rooms by agriculturalists; to multifamilydwellings, the earliest of which are found in ChacoCanyon. Early Pueblo use of the canyon wasrecognized as occurring during the Basketmaker IIIperiod, for which Shabik'eshchee Village (Roberts1929) was the type site. Shabik'eshchee Village wasthought to represent occupation during the later part ofthis period (A.D. 700s), and to continue into PuebloI (Bullard 1962); this latter period was alsorepresented by Half House (R. N. Adams 1951) andone of Judd's (1924) pithouses. Most excavators hadfocused on four of the large Classic period sites,considered to be towns much like the historic puebloswith large numbers of permanent residents: PuebloBonito (Judd 1954, 1964; Pepper 1920); Chetro Ketl(Hawley 1934; Hewett 1936; Reiter 1933); Pueblo delArroyo (Judd 1959); Una Vida (unreported); and KinKletso (Gordon Vivian and Mathews 1965).During the 1930s, Hawley (1937b; Kluckhohn1939a) recognized that sherds recovered from ChetroKetl and several small houses indicated contemporaneityof occupation. Several possible explanationswere offered, including two different mental outlooks(conservative and progressive), two different socialorganizations, or two different groups of people.Unfortunately, for the smaller and somewhatcontemporary excavated sites, only a few reports werereadily available (e.g., Brand et a1. 1937; Dutton1938; Kluckhohn and Reiter 1939). Based onexcavations at Pueblo Bonito, where the greatestnumber of exotic items were recovered from rooms inthe earliest section of the building, Judd (1954,1964)had also proposed that two different groups of peoplewere present.By 1969, several sites recently excavated by NPSarchaeologists included considerable amounts ofMcElmo Black-on-white pottery; there was somedebate over the place of this ceramic type and thedimpled McElmo masonry style in the Chacosequence. Pottery attributed to the McElmo periodincluded a number of recognized types: the mineral-