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Chaco Canyon Cultural Center
Chaco Canyon was the political, ceremonial, and architectural center of Ancestral Pueblo culture in the North American Southwest, located in the arid…
Timeline
- c. 850–1000Core area of Chaco Canyon · Chaco CanyonFrom the mid-ninth century, large-scale stone great house construction began in Chaco Canyon, with buildings such as Pueblo Bonito expanded in successive phases; straight roads extended in all directions, connecting distant satellite great houses and forming the distinctive Chaco road system and a regional integration network.
- 1041–1050Pueblo Bonito · Chaco CanyonIn the 1040s and 1050s, Chaco Canyon reached its fullest flourishing; Pueblo Bonito had over six hundred rooms, dozens of kivas, and precise astronomical alignments. Turquoise, parrot feathers, and shells from distant lands converged here, and ceremonial activity and political integration made Chaco the symbolic center of a vast region of the Southwest.
- c. 1100–1150Chaco Canyon · Chaco CanyonIn the early twelfth century Chaco's core functions weakened, great house expansion ceased, and populations migrated north to canyons such as Mesa Verde and Aztec; drought, depletion of forest resources, and social reorganization brought the Chaco Phenomenon to an end, though architectural and ceremonial traditions continued among descendant Pueblo peoples.
Sources
- Chaco Culture National Historical Park https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/353/
- The Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years of Political and Religious Power in the Ancient Southwest — Stephen H. Lekson (1999)