Chaco Canyon, the great Ancestral Pueblo site of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, remains a central problem of Southwestern archaeology. Chaco, with its monumental Ògreat houses,Ó was the center of a vast region marked by ÒoutlierÓ great houses. The canyon itself has been investigated for over a century, but only a few of the more than 200 outlier great housesÑkey to understanding Chaco and its timesÑhave been excavated. This volume explores the Chaco and post-Chaco eras in the northern San Juan area through extensive excavations at the Bluff Great House, a major Chaco ÒoutlierÓ in Utah. BluffÕs massive great house, great kiva, and earthen berms are described and compared to other great houses in the northern Chaco region. Those assessments support intriguing new ideas about the Chaco region and the effect of the collapse of Chaco Canyon on ÒoutlyingÓ great houses. New insights from the Bluff Great House clarify the construction and use of great houses during the Chaco era and trace the history of great houses in the generations after ChacoÕs decline. An innovative comparative study of the northern and southern portions of the Chaco world (the northern San Juan area around Bluff and the Cibola area around Zuni) leads to new ideas about population aggregation and regional abandonment in the Southwest. Appendixes on CD-ROM present details and descriptions of artifacts recovered from Bluff: ceramics, projectile points, pollen analyses, faunal remains, bone tools, ornaments, and more. This book is one of only a handful of reports on Chacoan great houses in the northern San Juan region. It provides an in-depth study of the Chaco era and clarifies the relationship of ÒoutlyingÓ great houses to Chaco Canyon. Research at the Bluff Great House begins to answer key questions about the nature of Chaco and its region, and the history of the northern San Juan in the Chaco and post-Chaco worlds.

A timely synopsis of the archaeology of the Middle San Juan region bringing recent work at Salmon Ruins into the context of thirty-five years of research there.

Chaco Canyon, the great Ancestral Pueblo site of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, remains a central problem of Southwestern archaeology. Chaco, with its monumental “great houses,” was the center of a vast region marked by “outlier” great houses. The canyon itself has been investigated for over a century, but only a few of the more than 200 outlier great houses—key to understanding Chaco and its times—have been excavated. This volume explores the Chaco and post-Chaco eras in the northern San Juan area through extensive excavations at the Bluff Great House, a major Chaco “outlier” in Utah. Bluff’s massive great house, great kiva, and earthen berms are described and compared to other great houses in the northern Chaco region. Those assessments support intriguing new ideas about the Chaco region and the effect of the collapse of Chaco Canyon on “outlying” great houses. New insights from the Bluff Great House clarify the construction and use of great houses during the Chaco era and trace the history of great houses in the generations after Chaco’s decline. An innovative comparative study of the northern and southern portions of the Chaco world (the northern San Juan area around Bluff and the Cibola area around Zuni) leads to new ideas about population aggregation and regional abandonment in the Southwest. Appendixes on CD-ROM present details and descriptions of artifacts recovered from Bluff: ceramics, projectile points, pollen analyses, faunal remains, bone tools, ornaments, and more. This book is one of only a handful of reports on Chacoan great houses in the northern San Juan region. It provides an in-depth study of the Chaco era and clarifies the relationship of “outlying” great houses to Chaco Canyon. Research at the Bluff Great House begins to answer key questions about the nature of Chaco and its region, and the history of the northern San Juan in the Chaco and post-Chaco worlds.

This book was presented the New Mexico Heritage Preservation Award of Honor in 1991.**This is the definitive scholarly reconstruction of the "Chacoan World" of the 10th- to 12th-century native Americans. These tribes built and lived in Pueblo Bonito, Aztec Ruin, Mesa Verde, and many of the other magnificent prehistoric pueblos scattered throughout the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico, which are some of our most popular national parks and monuments today. The Chacoan Prehistory of the San Juan Basin will appeal to archaeologists interested in the American Southwest, including undergraduate and graduate students, and all amateur and professional archaeologists.

Chaco Canyon, the great Ancestral Pueblo site of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, has inspired excavations and research for more than one hundred years. Chaco Revisited brings together an A-team of Chaco scholars to provide an updated, refreshing analysis of over a century of scholarship. In each of the twelve chapters, luminaries from the field of archaeology and anthropology, such as R. Gwinn Vivian, Peter Whiteley, and Paul E. Minnis, address some of the most fundamental questions surrounding Chaco, from agriculture and craft production, to social organization and skeletal analyses. Though varied in their key questions about Chaco, each author uses previous research or new studies to ultimately blaze a trail for future research and discoveries about the canyon. Written by both up-and-coming and well-seasoned scholars of Chaco Canyon, Chaco Revisited provides readers with a perspective that is both varied and balanced. Though a singular theory for the Chaco Canyon phenomenon is yet to be reached, Chaco Revisited brings a new understanding to scholars: that Chaco was perhaps even more productive and socially complex than previous analyses would suggest.