The Ancient Ones: Chaco & The Anasazi
This episode of the American Southwest Podcast is the 4th in the series about the original Native American inhabitants of the region and specifically about The Anasazi & Chaco Culture National Historic Park. This episode covers what makes Chaco so significant and special and runs down archaeologist Stephen Lekson’s take ‘em to the bank fun and indisputable facts about the important Native American site. I cover the aura of Pueblo Mystique that surround the Anasazi and the Ancestral Puebloans and how it affects the way we view the secondary state region that was heavily influenced from Mesoamerica. I also cover the significance of the many Great Houses, kivas, the pottery, the economy, the ritual landscape, and monumental architecture. I touch on the Chacoan Roads, signal hill system, cosmology, and the emerging violence once Chaco begins to unravel. It covers only a few hundred years of climatic and cultural changes that envelop the Anasazi Pueblo World of the four corners of the American Southwest.
Click the Landscape to Adventure in Chaco Canyon
Video of Anasazi Ruins in Utah
Video of Anasazi Ruins in the Bears Ears Region of Utah.
Video of Anasazi Ruins in Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado on the Utah Border.
Video of the Episode with a Slideshow of my Pictures.
Watch Yet Another Video of Anasazi Ruins in Utah near Monument Valley on Youtube
Watch Yet Another Video of Anasazi Ruins on Cedar Mesa near the Bears Ears on Youtube
Selected Sources:
In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest by David Roberts
Behind the Bears Ears: Exploring the Cultural and Natural Histories of a Sacred Landscape
Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest by Stephen Plog
A Study of Southwestern Archaeology by Stephen Lekson
Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau by Craig Childs
House of Rain: Tracing a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest by Craig Childs