Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

Chapter OneThe National Park Service Chaco ProjectAND WHEREAS, the extensive prehistoric communal or pueblo ruins in San Juan and McKinleyCounties, Territory of New Mexico, principally embraced within the Chaco Canyon and generally knownas the Chaco Canyon ruins, situated upon the public lands owned and controlled by the United States, areof extraordinary interest because of their number and their great size and because of the innumerable andvaluable relics of a prehistoric people which they contain, and it appears that the public good would bepromoted by reserving these prehistoric remains in a National Monument with as much land as may benecessary for the proper protection thereof.NOW, THEREFORE, I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, by virtue of thepower in me invested by section two of the aforesaid act of Congress, do hereby set aside as the ChacoCanyon National Monument, subject to any valid and existing rights, the prehistoric ruins and burialgrounds situated in San Juan County, New Mexico. . .. (By the President of the United States ofAmerica, A Proclamation [No. 740-Mar. 11, 1907-35 Stat. 2119].)Chaco Canyon is located in the northwesterncomer of New Mexico in the approximate center ofthe San Juan Basin (Figure 1.1). As part of thesoutheastern section of the Colorado Plateau, the SanJuan Basin encompasses an area of approximately40,000 km 2 , and is ringed by mountains-the San Juanand La Plata mountains on the north, the Carrizo andChuska mountains on the west, the Zuni Mountains tothe south, and the Nacimiento Mountains to the east.The San Juan Basin includes several smaller drainagesystems; e.g., the Chaco, which flows into the SanJuan River west of Farmington and near Shiprock.Within the approximately 11,500 km 2 Chaco Basin,Chaco Canyon (Figure 1.2) was carved out of thelower section of the upper Chaco Wash just before itmeets the Escavada Wash to form the Chaco River.Chaco Canyon is 32.5 km long, and from 500 to1,000 m wide (D. Love 1983b: 187). Sandstones andshales form the cliffs that rise between plains thatstretch north from the Escavada Wash and south fromChacra Mesa to enclose the canyon.Today Chaco Canyon is a tourist and researchdestination, but this was not always so. We nowknow that Archaic hunters and gatherers camped thereover several millennia; ancestors of historic Pueblopeople dependent on maize agriculture created themasonry structures for which Chaco Canyon NationalMonument was established. The canyon is now hometo only a few National Park Service (NPS) employees,who live amidst Navajo sheep- and cattle-rancherswhose ancestors came to this area after the Pueblopeoples moved to other locations. Deciphering thishistory has been under way for more than 150 years(Brand 1937a; Frazier 2005; Lister and Lister 1981;Gwinn Vivian 1990; Gordon Vivian and Mathews1965). The NPS Chaco Project (1969 to 1985) addedmuch to our understanding of this history; it was amajor research program that has inspired manyscholars who continue the quest for explanation ofevents that occurred in this stark setting. This volumewill document the Chaco Project's contributions fromboth historical and regional archaeological perspectives.This chapter will outline the background inwhich the NPS Chaco Project took place; e.g., thescholarly milieu in which the research was conducted,