The Race Track: A Chacoan Legacy in the Northern Rio Grande

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A portion of a retired race track was excavated in 2023 on Picuris tribal lands within the right-of-way of a planned infrastructure project. Just one of Picuris’s many race tracks, the feature draws our attention to the ongoing heritage of Chacoan “roads” in the northern Rio Grande region, while also underscoring the local spiritual significance of the race track’s destination—Jicarita Peak—located 14 miles to the southeast. This paper covers the background of the race track in the history and landscape of Picuris Pueblo, the results of our recent test excavations, and the significance of the race track as an ancestral connection to the Chacoan world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38830.0