Dead People's Homes, Pt. 1

A couple of weeks (or more) ago we visited Jared and his family for a long weekend.  While we were there we had the chance to go to Chaco Canyon.  The official name is Chaco Culture National Historical Park.  That's kind of a mouthful, but more descriptive of the place.

It's not a particularly easy place to get to.  About an hour south of Farmington you turn off to the west on a twisty paved road that soon turns to a washboarded, dusty, bone-shaking road.  It was especially dusty when we went because it was dry, hot, and the wind was blowing like a fiend.*  At times we could barely see Jared's car!
*  I'm not sure how 'fiends' blow, but for two days the wind was pretty much unrelenting.  We left Kanab Friday afternoon and the wind blew us all the way to Farmington.  Going across the rez the bushes and weeds along the side of the road were laying almost flat.

The flag at the visitor center whipping in the 'breeze'.

The first great house we visited was Hungo Pavi.  The great houses are huge complexes of 200-almost 700 rooms.  They really are amazing, unlike any other ruins I've seen.

The walls are very thick and well constructed.  There is an incredible amount of great houses and associated structures in Chaco Canyon and the immediate area.  Even if the climate was wetter than it is today, it's hard to imagine how the area supported so many.  The theory is that these great edifices were more of a ceremonial and trading center, drawing people from hundreds of miles away.  Remains of roads have been found leading out in every direction from Chaco Canyon.

The girls were intrepid explorers, wanting to see everything.

The next site we visited was Chetro Kiel.

It was hot and windy and Danny was quickly roped into carrying Grace's backpack for her.  

Unlike the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and other areas, the ruins at Chaco are built out in the flats, at the base of cliffs sometimes, but not under overhangs.

Chacoan ruins are noted for their great kivas like the one shown above.  Like smaller kivas, they are circular, had roofs, and were thought to be centers of ceremonial and religious observances.  The large ones were capable of holding up to 400 people.

Scattered here and there are smaller kivas, thought to be built by families or clans.  Since the Chacoans left no written records, much of what we think we know is drawn from inferences, educated guesses, studies of trash piles and finds made in the great houses themselves.  Some ties can also be made between modern Pueblo peoples and their customs and similarities found their architecture.

Looking toward Pueblo Bonito from Chetro Kiel.  A few other great houses will be covered in the next post.