In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

four days at Chaco Culture National Historic Park

Chaco Canyon, seen from the mesa edge with Chetro Ketl great house in the foreground.


In March and April of this year, Laura and I took our camper van to the southwest, spending most of our time in New Mexico. It is a fascinating state. Sparsely inhabited outside of the Albuquerque and Santa Fe corridor, New Mexico has high mountains, canyon and mesa lands, and vast areas of desert. The state contains extensive and impressive Native American sites with evidence of perhaps 10,000 years of human habitation. This post concerns Chaco Culture National Park in northwestern New Mexico.

The National Park contains about 10 miles of Chaco Canyon, a valley floor sometimes a mile wide, running between sandstone mesas. This relatively small area contains 15 major Native American building complexes. Dating from AD 800 to 1150 these were the largest buildings built in America until the late 1800s. Archaeologists disagree about many things, but the consensus is that Chaco Canyon  served as an administrative, religious, and commercial center for an integrated agricultural society, covering much of New Mexico and the Four Corners region. The large stone structures, called great houses, contain hundreds of rooms and were up to five stories high. They are believed to have been primarily used for storage and community activities. It is thought by archeologists that only a small number of an elite population actually lived in the great houses, with the majority of the population living in small homes spread throughout the agricultural areas. Some of the great houses ruins were partially reconstructed in the early 20th century. Most have not been excavated and have collapsed to varying degrees and been buried by wind-blown silt.

Chaco Canyon seen from the side of North Mesa with Chaco Wash running along the valley floor.
Fajada Butte is a prominent landmark arising in the middle of the canyon. On the top a series of rocks and petroglyphs are arranged so that narrow bands of light fall on the center of the petroglyphs on solstices and equinoxes. Other rocks and petroglyphs mark lunar events.
Most of the great houses are built close to the cliff sides of the North Mesa. This is Pueblo Bonito.
The unexcavated ruins of Una Vida are on the slope below the cliffside.
Wijiji Pueblo is built on the valley floor.
This is the road to Wijiji Pueblo along the valley floor. Fajada Butte is on the left.
Chaco Wash runs through the middle of the canyon. It rarely has water in it.


The great houses vary in design and construction techniques and were remodeled over the centuries. The buildings contain millions of sandstone stones, all of which had to be quarried and shaped without the use of metal tools. Hundreds of thousands of tree trunks and branches were used for flooring and roofing, transported from mountain forests 30 or more miles away. This was all done without the use of wheeled vehicles or draft animals; horses and oxen did not arrive in America until brought by the Spaniards in the 1500s. It is thought that some windows and rooms were aligned to correspond with astronomical events.

This is Pueblo Bonito, seen from the edge of the mesa behind it. It is the largest of the Chaco Canyon great houses. Constructed in stages from AD 850 to 1150 it covers three acres and has about 800 rooms.
This is a rendition of how the pueblo may have appeared, seen from the opposite direction of the photo above.
The rear wall at the upper left has been partially destroyed by a rock fall from the adjacent cliff. The round structures are kivas: circular, usually partially underground rooms presumed to have been used for community or ritual purposes.
The defect in this wall is from looters seeking access to interior rooms.
National Park Service stabilization supports along the rear wall.
An unusual corner window in Pueblo Bonito, thought to be positioned for astronomical alignment.
One of many kivas at Pueblo Bonito.
An unusual T-shaped door in the interior of Pueblo Bonito.
Kin Klestro seen from the mesa edge. Chaco Wash extends down the center of the canyon above the great house
Another view of Kin Klestro, looking across the canyon floor and the wash toward the South Mesa.
Tree rings patterns allow precise dating of the Chacoan great houses. Kin Klestro was constructed with logs cut in AD 1125 to 1130.
Kin Klesto interior walls
Kin Klestro missing its exterior wall
Chetro Ketl seen from the mesa top.
Closer view of Chetro Ketl with three above-ground kivas.

The majority of the great houses are located on the canyon floor, but others are located on the surrounding mesa tops. The great houses are geometrically aligned with each other, both within Chaco Canyon and on the adjacent mesas. Chaco Canyon was also connected to dozens of outlying great houses by a several hundred mile network of roads. Staircases and ramps for these roads were built up the adjacent mesas.

New Alto, on top of North Mesa, about a half mile from the canyon.
Pueblo Alto, also on top of North Mesa. It has mostly collapsed and has not been excavated or restored.
Tsin Kletzin on the South Mesa. It is mostly unexcavated.
This photo was taken on the South Mesa, looking across the canyon. A great kiva is in the foreground, Pueblo Bonita is at the base of the cliff, and New Alto is barely visible on the horizon to the right of center.
Laura is on the trail down from the South Mesa.
A very old and well worn handhold by the mesa trail, still useful.
Laura on the trail up to the top on the South Mesa.
These ancient stairs ascend to the top of the North Mesa from the floor of a side canyon behind the great houses. It is named the Jackson Staircase after William Henry Jackson, an explorer and early photographer of the American West.
Handholds are visible along the staircase. It is highly eroded and the lower section has collapsed.
Laura looking down from the top of the Jackson Staircase. It is strictly off-limits for climbing.
It is difficult to see but in the center of the photo is another eroded stairway up to the top of the mesa.

Chaco Canyon is full of dramatic views of the great houses and across the canyon and mesas, but there is also great beauty in the smaller details. There are many styles of masonry and construction techniques evident in the great houses. These evolved over the centuries of their construction and renovation. The canyon is also full of smaller artifacts outside the great houses.

A distinctive feature of Chaco masonry is banding, alternating layers of thicker and thinner stones.
Pueblo Alto with banded masonry.
Another pattern of banded masonry
And still another banded pattern.
A different technique at Pueblo del Arroyo.
T-shaped windows and doors are a unique Chocoan design element. The bottom of this T has been filled in for some reason.
A blocked up doorway; structures were renovated and altered over the centuries.
Craig inside Pueblo del Arroyo.
Here is an example of interior plaster, little of which remains.
Roof detail, presumably restored. The round holes in the lower right beam are from the removal of sample cores for tree ring dating.
Detail of the great kiva at Casa Rinconada. Note the T-shaped door on the right.
Petroglyphs on the canyon walls.
Some petroglyphs are easily understood, many are not.
Spirals are frequently depicted, for unknown reasons.
A “pecked basin” carved in the sandstone of the mesa top. Its purpose is unknown.
Depressions for grinding corn, at the base of the mesa cliff behind Wijiji Pueblo.

What happened to Chaco Canyon and its inhabitants? It is known that a 50 year drought began in AD 1130 and by AD 1200 the canyon and its dwellings were mostly deserted. Specifics are not known, but by about AD 1400 the descendants of the Chaco people had become established in Pueblo villages on the Hopi mesas of northwestern Arizona, and in the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. These Pueblo villages were and are much smaller than those of Chaco Canyon. They typically have populations of a few thousand people, and are located in areas with dependable water sources. The Pueblo tribes build residential and community buildings and irrigation infrastructure, but they do not expend resources on monumental architecture. More so than the Chaco Canyon civilization, these pueblo societies have proved long-lasting and resilient. They have survived centuries of climate change, raiding by other Indian tribes, Spanish conquistadors with their Old World diseases, population pressures from Mexican farmers and herdsmen, and most recently, Americans with their treaties and uranium mines and boarding schools.

I think it’s presumptuous to think that we are any smarter or more enlightened than the builders of Chaco Canyon. We are certainly building cities in the desert; Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Tucson, Salt Lake City and Denver come to mind. Most of these were fairly small places 100 years ago.

Modern Pueblo peoples have their own understandings of Chaco Canyon and their subsequent histories, not necessarily at odds with those of the archeologists. The Pueblo people believe they were and are on a spiritual journey, venturing from their places of origin to a Center Place, their final spiritual destination. The centuries their ancestors spent at Chaco Canyon were steps on this journey. They moved on when they had accomplished their purposes there.

The road to Chaco Canyon.

7 Comments

  2. Nice writeup & cool snaps. Like the one of CL staring up the flue of PdA. I’ll post a link to this entry for my North America class this coming fall. One or two students might even drop in for a visit (the website, I mean)!

  3. Fascinating. We just watch a show regarding the Chaco Canyon. Their opinion of the spirals are that they were used as astronomical markers to determine the movement of the sun and moon… In other words, used as calendars.

    Loved your photos. Thanks again for sharing.

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