Ancient Chaco Canyon population likely relied on imported food

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2016/12/29/ancient-chaco-canyon-population-likely-relied-imported-food

by curtis • 8 years ago

14 4 8 years ago

sizzzzlerz• 8 years ago

Having been to Chaco several times and having read anything I can find on it and the Anasazi, I've always been curious why there don't seem to be middens of a size and quantity that might be expected if a large population lived there over several hundred years. Theories which suggest the many rooms in the Great Houses were mostly ceremonial, never meant to be occupied meaning a much smaller population would be more consistent. Why, then, would they have gone to the significant effort building them? One of the more fascinating questions which may never be answered.

mazelife• 8 years ago

I really enjoyed Craig Child's book "House of Rain", which isn't exclusively about Chaco, but does talk about it quite a bit along with a number of other sites across the region. Reading it made me want to visit Chaco next time I'm out that way.

njarboe• 8 years ago

Imagine a get together like Burning Man but instead of huge temporary art installations and the burning of the man, people gathered around a mega-structure and your sub-group gained status by adding to it. Bring a new blue stone to Stonehenge and get a bunch of other people to help you install it and you are the cool in-group that year.

oldmancoyote• 8 years ago

There are reasons to believe estimates of the population of Chaco Canyon may be too high.

There are at least two kinds of communal structures in Chaco: the large elaborate structures; and lots of small pueblos scattered around the canyon. I understand the high population estimates are based on the numbers of small pueblos.

I was listening to a talk by a woman who lived in one of the modern pueblos in New Mexico, and she remarked, off hand, that the population of any given pueblo moved from one pueblo to an other as the small animals and plants they relied on became depleted. They successively re-inhabited a circuit of pueblos allowing each to recover before returning.

I don't doubt that the people of Chaco Canyon influenced a wide area, but I am skeptical of large population estimates.

Ancient Chaco Canyon population likely relied on imported food

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