The Group Within the Group: Carter Ranch Pueblo and the Chaco Regional System

Summary

Fifty years ago Paul Martin and John Renaldo of the Field Museum of Natural History directed the excavation of Carter Ranch Pueblo in the Hay Hollow Valley of east central Arizona. Decades later, archaeologists recognized a regional system of settlements in and around the San Juan Basin linked to great houses in Chaco Canyon via roads and highly visible material cultural characteristics. Although Carter Ranch Pueblo displays typical Chacoan attributes, its inclusion within the Chaco regional system has not been widely accepted. I compare the architectural, material cultural and chronometric characteristics of Carter Ranch Pueblo to sites more commonly accepted as Chacoan outliers within a framework of historical processualism to infer the relationship of Carter Ranch Pueblo to the Chaco regional system. I conclude that, rather than a product of migration from areas closer to Chaco Canyon or emulation by outsiders, Carter Ranch Pueblo represents willing participation in the Chaco regional system by local populations.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage