The Great Houses of the Mesa Verde Cuesta

Summary

The Mesa Verde uplift has long been noted for its relative lack of great houses, notwithstanding its geographic position between Aztec and the Great Sage Plain. The notable exception has been Farview House, which has great house attributes, but not all regional archaeologists have agreed that it qualified as one. Yet, the Chaco period (950-1150 CE, also known as the Pueblo II period) was of the densest periods of occupation on the Mesa Verde uplift, which at that time also had a higher population density than elsewhere in the region. In Mesa Verde National Park, recent surveys that focused on reconsidering the social landscape of the Mesa Verde cuesta have produced re-configured village maps for the largest ancestral Pueblo villages with Chaco period occupations. This poster presents preliminary results that highlight five sites with great house or great house-like architecture in order to reassess the nature of Chaco on the Mesa Verde cuesta.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20858