Chaco Culture National Historical Park& World Heritage Site
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
& World Heritage Site
Welcome to my Chaco Canyon website. Chaco Canyon was the center of the Anasazi world. It was occupied at least from 800AD to 1300AD, with a peak of development between 900AD and 1100AD. This site contains photos, maps, information, links, opinions and journals of trips to Chaco Canyon. Let me know what you think. mjh
Chaco Canyon is in northwest New Mexico. This area is known as the Four Corners,
where northwest New Mexico, northeast Arizona, southeast Utah and southwest
Colorado
meet. This area is also the San Juan Basin and part of the Colorado Plateau.
Chaco Canyon is 150 miles northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico -- that's about 3 hours driving time (the last 20+ miles are dirt road). [The map to the right is a link to a larger Adobe Acrobat file with many more related areas shown.]
See also: Ah, Wilderness!: The Roads to Chaco Canyon for a description and map of the dirt roads into Chaco Canyon (on my blog).
The Anasazi Indians lived in this area for centuries. Some prefer the name "Ancestral Puebloans," which more clearly describes their relationship to present-day Pueblo people, including the Hopi (who call these people "Hisatsinom"), the Acoma, Taos Pueble, the Zuni, and other Pueblos of New Mexico. They were descended from the Basketmakers and roughly contemporary with the Hohokam, Sinaqua, and the Mogollon.
The Anasazi built so-called "great houses" which are sometimes huge structures of stone three or more stories high, consisting of hundreds of rooms. Construction consists of complex masonry of several styles (often quite small stones). Most of the stonework was originally covered in plaster which has since warn away leaving the stonework exposed. These structures are no longer occupied and are now stunning ruins.
I've added a new weblog for frequent updates regarding Chaco and related topics. Please check out Chaco Blog after you look at the rest of this site.
You may want to look at my older site, which still has a lot of useful information and photos that I haven't moved to this site (yet). I also have another site on outliers of Chaco (great houses outside of the canyon)
hits.
