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- The Chaco Research Archive is an online resource providing access to a wealth of information documenting the history of archaeological research in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The archive includes material from dozens of sites excavated in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park and beyond.
www.chacoarchive.org/cra/
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The Chaco Research Archive is an online resource providing access to a wealth of information documenting the history of archaeological research in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The archive includes material from dozens of sites excavated in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park and beyond.
- Explore the Canyon
This page allows you to graphically obtain information about...
- Query the Database
The following options allow you to search tables within the...
- Chaco Sites
© 2010 Chaco Research Archive. Published by the Institute...
- Architectural Stabilization
Since the beginning of its stewardship of the archaeological...
- Image Gallery
Maps, drawings, and photographs from the early projects in...
- Chaco Resources
An extensive bibliography of Chaco Canyon generously donated...
- Digital Monographs
Digital Monographs. The following published texts on Chaco...
- Popular Data Sets
Explore the Canyon; Query the Database; Chaco Sites;...
- Explore the Canyon
The Chaco Research Archive is a collaborative effort to create an online archive and analytical database that integrates much of the widely dispersed archaeological data collected from Chaco Canyon from the late 1890s through the first half of the 20th century.
- Early Settlement
- Great Houses
- Planned Landscape
- Agriculture & Trade
- Ritual
- Abandonment
- Legacy
The first evidence of long-term human settlement in Chaco Canyon dates to the 3rd century CE with the construction of partially subterranean homes known as pithouses, structures which eventually were clustered together to form large villages. As inhabitants became increasingly integrated, single-story multi-room buildings began to appear in the 8th...
One of the earliest constructed and most magnificent of great houses found within the canyon's walls is referred to as Pueblo Bonito, a Spanish name given by Carravahal, a Mexican guide who accompanied a U.S. Army topographical engineer making a survey of the region in 1849 CE (names of many structures, including the canyon itself, are Spanish in o...
Although Chaco Canyon contained a high density of architecture of a size never before seen in the region, the canyon was only a small piece located at the center of a vast interconnected area which formed Chacoan civilization. More than 200 communities with great houses and great kivas using the same distinct masonry style and design as those locat...
At an elevation of approximately two kilometers, winter in Chaco Canyon is long and brutally cold, shortening the growing season, while summers are scorchingly hot. Temperatures shift by up to 27 degrees Celsius in a single day, requiring both firewood to stay warm during the night and water to stay hydrated during the day, something difficult to m...
The presence of cacao provides evidence of a transfer not only of tangible goods but of ideas from Mesoamerica to Chaco. Cacao was revered by the Maya civilization who used it to make beverages which were frothed by pouring back and forth between jars before consuming during rituals reserved for the elite. Traces of cacao residue were found on pots...
Collections of tree ring data indicate great house construction ceased c. 1130 CE, coinciding with the beginning of a 50-year drought in the San Juan Basin. With life at Chaco already marginal during periods of average rainfall, an extended drought would have strained resources and set in motion the decline of the civilization and the migration fro...
In the second half of the 19th century CE, significant vandalism took place in the canyon, with visitors knocking down sections of great house walls, gaining access to rooms, and removing their contents. The effect of the damage became apparent in archaeological excavations and surveys beginning in 1896 CE, which led to the formation of the Chaco C...
- Benjamin Oswald
The Chaco Archive contains original field records, photographs, slides, and reports for park projects, maps, and manuscripts of Chaco-related archaeological research, and copies of earlier field notes and reports for work done by other institutions.
Part of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Chaco Canyon is among the most impressive archaeological sites in the world, receiving tens of thousands of visitors each year. Chaco is more than just a tourist site however, it is also sacred land. Pueblo peoples like the Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni consider it a home of their ancestors.
Maps, drawings, and photographs from the early projects in Chaco Canyon are critical to understanding the pre-Hispanic occupation of this important region. Thanks to the generous collaboration of several institutions — most notably the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives, the American Museum of Natural History Division of ...
To explore some of these questions, in June 2002, the School of American Research, in Santa Fe, invited 12 Southwestern archaeologists and information science specialists to explore the creation of a digital research archive of information from the Chaco Canyon region.
