Investigations at the Pueblo Alto Complex, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico 1975-1979: Volume I Summary of Tests and Excavations at the Pueblo Alto Community

Summary

Pueblo Alto is one of 13 or 14 greathouses in Chaco Canyon in which the Bonito phase had been widely identified. Altos classification as Chacoan greathouse includes the complex of traits that Powers et al. (1983:15-16) have used to classify “Chacoan structures.” These traits include large site, size large rooms with high ceilings, massive stone, core and veneer walls, and construction of large-scale units indicative of complex planning efforts. In this report, the Bonito phase is not restricted to sites of unusual size and architectural style. Instead, the Chaco Center has broadened the phase to include all sites in the period spanning about A.D 900 to about A.D 1150 (Judge et al. 1981; Toll et al. 1980). Any manifestations of the Chacoan Anasazi during that span now fall under the Bonito phase, and the phase is not restricted to great houses as it once was.

Much has been written about the period in Chacoan prehistory that has been designated the Bonito phase. The latter has been redefined from the period proposed by Gladwin (1945) to include the beginning of the great-houses and the contemporary smaller sites, through the classic period and its demise (Judge et al. 1981; Toll et al. 1980) spanning approximately A.D. 900 to A.D. 1140. The Hosta Butte and McElmo phases have found wide acceptance in the literature as contemporary periods of occupation that were congruent with the Bonito phase based on differences primarily in site size and architecture. These contemporary phases imply social, economic, and political differences that have not been demonstrated for the Chacoan occupation and distort examination of the overall process and organization of what is better recognized as single, multidimensional, integrated system. For this reason separate Hosta Butte and McElmo phases are not used in the discussion and explanation of Pueblo Alto and the Chacoan Phenomenon. Instead the Early Classic and Late Bonito phases temporally divide the 240-year period (Figure 1.5). In this report however the term Bonito phase refers to the entire 240-year period of the Chacoan Phenomenon.

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• Chaco Canyon Project Publications

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