Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

PrefaceThe National Park Service (NPS) Chaco Projectwas a cooperative and multidisciplinary endeavor thatmaintained several ties to earlier field schoolsconducted in Chaco Canyon by the University of NewMexico (UNM), School of American Research (SAR),and Museum of New Mexico (MNM) from 1929 to1942, and in 1947. First, several archaeologists involvedwith the Chaco Project had been field-schoolstudents in Chaco Canyon (e.g., John M. Corbett,Robert H. Lister, Alden C. Hayes, and Thomas W.Mathews) and were later employed by the NPS forsome period during their careers prior to the initiationof the Chaco Project. Second, during those earlyyears, UNM held title to several sections of land thatwere within the boundaries of Chaco Canyon NationalMonument (Hewett 1936:207-213). A 1949 agreementceded those parcels to the NPS, with the understandingthat UNM would have the privilege ofconducting research in future years. (Note that, forpurposes of this volume, the original NPS administrativedesignation HChaco Canyon NationalMonument" and the current NPS administrativedesignation "Chaco Culture National Historical Park"will both be referred to as "the park. ") Third, duringthe Chaco Project several NPS staff held facultyappointments in the department of anthropologyand/or taught at least one course per academic year.Fourth, a number of UNM graduate and undergraduatestudents from various departments were ableto participate in various natural and cultural resourcestudies. Fifth, and last, so as not to separate the twomajor collections and to make them more easilyaccessible for future study, the NPS Chaco Projectcollections remain on the UNM campus as part of acooperative agreement between these two institutions.Although the following brief review of this uniquemultidisciplinary collaborative program is offered forits historical perspective, other institutions were alsoinvolved, and younger investigators continue to pursueanswers to new questions.In the 1960s, John M. Corbett was the NPS chiefarchaeologist. When the opportunity to begin anothermajor NPS research program arose, he realized thatmany questions about Chaco Canyon remainedunanswered. Additionally, the NPS could gain recognitionfor its archaeological research program byinitiating a project that utilized cutting-edge technologyand employed a multidisciplinary approach tostudies of adaptive change in a well-known andarchaeologically rich area in northwestern NewMexico. To gain approval for his plan, Corbettneeded a prospectus that included a research design,plans for facilities, number and types of personnel,and costs. He contacted Douglas W. Schwartz,Director of SAR, who prepared an initial bibliographyon Chaco studies and sponsored an advanced seminaron Chaco Canyon. A number of scholars representingNPS, UNM, and Chaco research, as well as specialistsfrom related fields, met on January 8-11, 1969. Theseminar discussions (NPS Chaco Culture NHPMuseum Archive, No. 1996) were formalized byWilfred Logan and Zorro Bradley as the ChacoProspectus (NPS 1969); it was soon approved byGeorge B. Hartzog, then Director of the NPS (Maruca1981:11-12).To initiate the program, Thomas R. Lyons, ananthropologist and geologist who had worked in theSan Juan Basin and who was testing remote sensingtechniques at the Technical Applications Center atUNM, was appointed acting director of the ChacoCanyon Archeological Center on September 20, 1969.Studies were initiated by faculty and students in thedepartments of biology , geography, and geology, andthe Office of Contract Archaeology. Lyons updatedthe natural and cultural resources bibliography andconcentrated on the evaluation of remote sensingtools. Space on the UNM campus was provided forLyons and his staff until a permanent research facilitywas completed on the second floor of the anthropologybuilding in 1972.Throughout the years, numerous NPS administrativechanges ensued; these affected the name of theproject and how it was managed over the years. Inxiii