Published June 27, 2024 | Version v1
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Chaco Culture

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Dartmouth College

Contributors

  • 1. The University of British Columbia

Description

The Chaco Culture refers to Indigenous societies in the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest from approximately AD 800-1200 that participated in a religious tradition focused on the monumental center at Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. Chaco-style Great House architecture, roads, and ceramic designs are found throughout a 100,000 sq. km region of the U.S. Southwest comprising what is known as the Chaco World or Chaco Regional System. Experts debate the significance of this widespread cultural pattern (e.g., whether the Chaco World was an integrated polity), but most agree that a compelling religious tradition was central to Chaco Canyon's regional prominence and the spread of Chacoan architecture. The inhabitants of the Chaco World are ancestral to contemporary Pueblo and Diné (Navajo) cultures in the U.S. Southwest. Evidence for Chacoan religion is derived from the analysis of archaeological materials and also inferred through ethnographic analogy with descendant Pueblo and Diné (Navajo) cultures. Many Chacoan Great Houses and roads form alignments towards prominent landforms and astronomical events (specifically, solstices, equinoxes, and the lunar standstill cycle), suggesting a religious focus on sacred geography and astronomy. Chacoan religion also emphasized rainfall and moisture as suggested by extensive offering deposits of shell and turquoise, the destinations of many ceremonial roads at watery places, as well as the ongoing prominence of rainmaking ceremonialism among descendant cultures today. Key religious practices likely included pilgrimages to Chaco Canyon (though this interpretation is debated); commemoration of astronomical events; rituals utilizing Mesoamerican exotic goods including cacao, macaws, and copper bells; dances and gatherings in Great Kivas (circular, semi-subterranean ritual structures) and plazas; ritualized processions and races on roads; and making offerings of turquoise, shell, jet, and other stones. There is substantial evidence for an elite class in Chacoan society who lived in Great Houses, and many scholars posit that their elevated status derived from religious knowledge. Descendant Pueblo and Diné people state that many of their ongoing ceremonial practices originated at Chaco Canyon. Their oral traditions describe the Chaco Era to have been a time when certain members of society leveraged religious powers (e.g., control over the weather) and thereby gained social status and authority. While practices that developed during the Chaco Era remain core components of Pueblo and Diné religious life, the social structures in which they were/are practiced transformed radically in the centuries following the decline of Chaco Canyon as a regional center.

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