Blazing New Trails: Rethinking the Extent of the Ancestral Pueblo Road Network in the Northern San Juan Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Historically, research on prehistoric roads in the southwest has been heavily focused on Chaco and the San Juan Basin, however, these enigmatic anomalies extend into the Central and Western Mesa Verde Regions as well. LiDAR data for the Four Corners area has made it possible to peer through the trees and shrubs of the Great Sage Plain and observe the surface traces of previously unrecognized segments of roads. These new finds provide context for the organization of the great house system in the north, highlight differences between areas of the wider prehistoric world, and may even give us clues about the roads’ significance. When considered at a regional scale, the extent of these features paint a picture of a highly integrated society that had the organizational power to complete massive and complex infrastructure projects through inter-community cooperation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39385.0