Evidence for Population Aggregation and Dispersal during the Basketmaker III Period in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Abstract

The appearance of pithouse settlements in the American Southwest that have multihabitation structures has been considered evidence for the emergence of "village" social organization. The interpretation that village systems are reflected in pithouse architecture rests in great part on the assumption that large sites correspond to large, temporally stable social groups. In this article we examine one of the best known pithouse settlements in the Southwest—Shabik’eschee Village in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico—and argue that the site may represent episodic aggregation of local groups rather than a sedentary occupation by a single coherent social unit.

Patterning in procurement of obsidian in Chaco Canyon and in Chaco-era communities in New Mexico as revealed by X-ray fluorescence

“…and emblematic of, later Chacoan great houses. Shabik'eschee contains at least 70-plus pit structures (Lekson et al, 2006:70;Wills and Windes, 1989) and there are another dozen or more pithouse locations in the general vicinity totaling another "37e46" structures (Wills and Windes, 1989:360). Site 29SJ423, adjacent to the early great house of Peñasco Blanco, and a cluster of nearby sites contain a total of about 100 pit structures (Lekson et al, 2006:70;Wills and Windes, 1989:360;Windes, 2006).…”

“…These sites, the well known village of Shabik'eschee Roberts, 1929;Wills and Windes, 1989) and 29SJ423 and adjacent sites, comprise two anomalously large and early village settlements, located on either end of Chaco Canyon National Historical Park (Windes, 2006, Fig. 2).…”

Vessels and villages: evidence for conformist transmission in early village aggregations on the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico

“…1500 BC-AD 200) settlements in riverine southern Arizona even though they have some variability in pitstructures (especially in the amount of storage capacity and apparent degree of specialization for storage), to the extent that they are better characterized as favorable locations re-occupied many times over hundreds of years by relatively small groups (Schurr and Gregory, 2002). There appear to be a few Basketmaker III (AD 500-750) settlements that should be considered small villages, for example, in northeastern Arizona (Morris, 1980) and in the Chaco Canyon area (Roberts, 1929;Wills and Windes, 1989). The SU site (Bullard, 1962;Wills, 1991) demonstrates that settlements of comparable size and complexity were developing contemporaneously in the Mogollon highlands.…”

Foundations of Social Inequality

“…The initial pattern is communal storage in open, visible spaces (Wtlls and Windes 1989). The subsequent configuration is a tight association between individual residences and storage rooms such that storage areas can be entered only from within the habitation rooms (S. Plog 1990; Wills and Wmdes 1989). Third, rather than the negative correlation between the intensity of intervillage exchange and annual precipitation that would be expected from widespread sharing as exclusively a risk-reduction strategy, exchange intensity is positively correlated with paleoclimatic conditions that would have minimized agricultural risk (Plog and Hantman 1990;Sebastian 1992).…”