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Archive 1 |
Original draft was almost completely taken from the US Government Web site linked to the page. Additional information added. Your edits and comments welcome.
WBardwin 06:31, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In the section Chaco Canyon sites there are a couple of references to the 1100's. From reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), I believe this should be either 1100s (which is the decade 1100-1109, note: no apostrophy) or 12th century. I'm guessing the author intended 12th century, but could someone who knows the dates better please fix this? -- 66.216.68.28 21:17, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of the Sun Dagger here -- or indeed, in Wikipedia at all? It's the most famous feature of Chaco Canyon, thanks largely to the movie of the same name. ShawnVW 04:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
are the structures depcted on this page rebuilt? i don't think they could have withstood a thousand years of weather
Justforasecond 15:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Why is there not any mention of the way that the cities , their walls, and the roads freqently line up exactly with the paths of the sun and moon? Or that a large portion of the "rooms" are sealed off and would have originally been inacessible? Or that there are very few large trash mounds, which would have been necessary if as large a population as is frequently claimed actually did live there? All of this pointing to a more religious purpose for the site? I belive NOVA did a show on all of this... 71.196.218.82
I would like to add http://www.xrez.com/gallery/chaco/xRez_chaco.html to the links. It contains the most detailed photo of Pueblo Bonito ever taken, it is 4 gigapixels and web-viewable. You can see every individual stone in the structure. I did not add it myself because there was a note in the links section to bring this up in "discussion" before adding links.
Mediation participants: Joey80 and Saravask Mediator: Alan.ca
Alan.ca 06:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Joey80 13:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Notice:
Recently read LeBlanc's "Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest" and compared with material from my "student days". While the topics are still very controversial, a section on archaeological findings relating to warfare and violence in and around the Chaco system might be appropriate here. Opinions? WBardwin 00:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
the first one's who build a multi story building of adobe and cut stones with connecting passage —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.144.155.149 ( talk) 03:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
It may just be me but the section of Dr. Wirt H. Willis seems to have little to do with this article. I can't cite the exact policy, but it seems like self promotion. What do others think? I won't delete or suggest that it be deleted until I get some feed back. Jfknrh ( talk) 21:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Dr. Wirt H. Wills is one of the leading southwestern archaeologists in the United States. Dr. Wills is currently a professor at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Wills primarily concentrates his expertise in the southwestern region of the United States, more specifically in New Mexico. His most recent southwest work includes the dig at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Dr. Wills defines his goals in his Curriculum Vitae: Field Research has been fundamental to my work in my four problem areas; 1) the origins of agriculture during the Late Archaic period (ca 4000 to 3000 B.C.), 2) the emergence of village communities during the early Ceramic Period (ca 200 to A.D. 500), 3) the development of hierarchically complex corporate groups after A.D. 1000 in the Colorado Plateau, and 4) the formation of Hispanic Irrigation communities during the 18th century in the Rio Grande Valley.
Dr. Wills research has been supported by such outstanding organizations as the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Philosophical Society. This ample funding has allowed him to investigate different areas of southwestern archaeology that interests him.
Career: Education 'Dr. Wills received his education at the University of New Mexico where he graduated Cum Laude in 1977. Prior to that Dr. Wills attended the Virginia Polytechnic and State University from 1973 to 1975. Dr. Wills then received his Master’s degree in Anthropology at the University of Michigan in 1980, followed by his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1985. Dr. Will dissertation was written on the Early Agriculture of Mogollon Highlands of New Mexico. His early research was done in the transition from food production to foraging. More recently, Dr. Wills has extended his research to include complicated social formations. (WillsCurriculum)
Professional Positions:
Dr. Wills has held a variety of Temporary Professional Positions in very prestigious locations. In 1982, Dr. Wills was a staff archaeologist at the Center for Archaeological Investigations, at Southern Illinois University. In March of 1989, Dr. Wills served a three month term as the Visiting Scholar in the Archaeology Department at Cambridge University. Dr. Wills also served as Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia from 2000 to 2001. Most recently, Dr. Wills served at the Smithsonian Institution as a Research Associate from 2002 to 2007. Dr. Wills has a permanent gallery at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropologyentitled Peoples of the Southwest, where he served as guest curator at the Maxwell Museum from 1988 to 1993. (WillsCurriculum)
Awards and Honors:
The awards and honors that Dr. Wills has received have been numerous as well. In 1988 Dr. Wills received the Presidential Recognition award at the University of New Mexico. In 2000, he received the Smithsonian Institution Short Term research award for the work that he did there. The Smithsonian Institute also honored Dr. Wills with the Smithsonian Institution post-doctoral fellowship award from 1985 through 1986. The United States Department of Interior Excellence also gave him a Service Award in March of 2001. He also received the Snead Wertheim Lectureship at the University of New Mexico in 2002 and 2003. Dr. Wills is also a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the American Anthropological Association. Dr. Wills belongs to the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, for his work in the American Southwest. Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Pi Alpha Theta are also several of the Greek organizations that Dr. Wills is currently a member of. (WillsCurriculum)
Published Works:
An extensive variety of papers, books and articles have also been written on the subject of Southwestern Archaeology. In 1994, Dr. Wills co-wrote the book entitled The Ancient Southwestern Community: Models and Methods for the Study of Prehistoric Social Organization. Another book was co-written by Dr. Wills in 1980, this book was entitled The Archaeological Correlates of Hunter-Gatherer Societies: Studies From the Ethnographic Record. Referenced journals have also provided Dr. Wills an excellent way in which to better report on his studies to an appreciative audience. The Late Archaic Across the Borderlands: From Foraging to Farming was written in 2006, this article describes the evolution from foraging for food to the development of agriculture in the Late Archaic period. In 1996, Dr. Wills went back to his dissertation and wrote an article entitled The Preceramic to Ceramic Traditions in the Mongollon Highlands of Western New Mexico, which was published in the Journal of Field Archaeology. The Journal of Anthropological Research also published his article entitled Patterns of Prehistoric Agricultural Development in Western New Mexico, in 1989. This article again touched on his research of the prehistoric southwestern people and how their agricultural and farming techniques developed over an extended period of time. (WillsCurriculum)
Chaco Canyon:
More recently, his work has been centered on the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico. In 2000, Dr. Wills published the article entitled 'Alternative Leadership Strategies in the American Southwest.' This article discussed Dr. Wills’ theories on the political leadership of the 'Chaco canyon peoples during the years of A.D. 1020 to 1140. In 1997 Dr. Wills wrote 'Ceramics, Lithics, and Ornaments of Chaco Canyon, Analysis of Articles From the Chaco Project,' 1971 to 1978, this article was a preliminary analysis of the hammer-stones found in the Chaco canyon region. His studies there have provided him with an excellent wealth of knowledge in which to educate the world on the Southwest American agricultural and technological advances in regards to the prehistoric people that called the Chaco Canyon region home.
As of the early nineties, the bulk of Dr. Wills’ work has been centered on the Chaco canyon region of New Mexico. Chaco canyon is known to have been the epicenter for cultural development of the southwest between the years of 800 and 1200 A.D. This period of time was unprecedented for the people of the region because they experienced an economic boom caused by increased farming techniques, in combination with massive trade systems and an increasingly complex ritual behavior which led to the construction of huge masonry buildings called “great houses.” Dr. Wills is currently working with the Chaco Stratigraphy Project; its purpose being to contribute to a greater understanding of the Chaco canyon region. Dr. Wills’ primary focus with the Chaco Stratigraphy Project has been to study in detail the technology and the agricultural change that resulted in the economic and social boom particularly during the years of A.D. 850 to 1140, otherwise called the Bonito Phase. Dr. Wills also has a particular attachment to this project because he was the one that wrote the funding proposal for the project. The document entitled, 'Chaco Canyon Project Description' was submitted to the National Science Foundation in 2003 by Dr. Wills. The purpose of this paper was to obtain funding from the National Science Foundation in order that the work at the Chaco Canyon site could continue. (WillsCurriculum)
University of New Mexico:
When he is not out in the field, Dr. Wills is also a professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Since the fall of 1986, Dr. Wills has taught a variety of courses including Pyramids and Paradoxes, Southwest Archaeology, Preceramic Southwest Archaeology, and Ritual in Prehistory. He also teaches a class with an Archaeological Field school. (UNM)
I've reverted the recent attempt to place all images on the right-side per MOS:IMAGES: "Multiple images in the same article can be staggered right-and-left". There's a good reason for this and the layout works much better. Viriditas ( talk) 00:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The article seems rather sparse in the extensive archaeological scholarship regarding the Chaco phenomenon from AD 900 to 1150, when the major construction of the great houses was taking place. There are many papers dealing with why this occured, why it stopped, and what sort of organization (social, economic, etc.) was in place. Although mentioned in the article, it is a major topic within Southwest archaeology. Is this dealt with in a different article, or should another article be developed (it seems somewhat out of place here). Thoughts? -- TeaDrinker ( talk) 00:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement: The Chaco Canyon area is also characterized by remarkable climatic extremes: recorded temperatures range between −38 °F (−39 °C) to 102 °F (39 °C),[15] and temperature swings of up to 60 °F (16 °C) in a single day are not unknown.[7]
Issue: temperature swings of up to 60 °F (16 °C)
Discussion: This is incorrect. While it is true that 60 °F is approximately 16 °C (more precisely 15.6), that is not what is being discussed. This is talking about a change of 60 °F - NOT an actual temperature of 60 °F. A degree Celsius is 1.8 times larger than a degree Fahrenheit. Thus one only needs divide 60 by 1.8 to get the correct temperature swing in Celsius. This would be 33.3 °C. --DMG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.244.214.59 ( talk) 12:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm reverting the two paragraphs inserted by Bheldthor ( talk · contribs) because, in addition to lacking citations of reliable sources, they seem to have little relevance to the specific sections to which they were added and they contained wording matching that appearing at http://www.solsticeproject.org/aboutsolstice.html and http://www.solsticeproject.org/AALiDARarticle.pdf, thus consituting, at least in part, copyright violations. Deor ( talk) 11:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Why {{ Smallcaps}}? This is just ugly, unnecessary and not a normal practice.
Links from Citations to References now broken:
Please don't use list definition markup (semicolon ;) to make a bold line.
{{
Refbegin|1}}
is the default and {{
refend}}
does not have any parameters.
---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 01:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand how the references are listed. Why are Sources separate from References? Why is the Reference section split? ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 11:50, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Please don't use the Cquote template unless the quotation has been " pulled" from the article. I like the look of Cquote, too, however misuse of that template just adds to the nonstandard look of Wikipedia. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX ) 12:56, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I tried the {{ Quotation}} template and didn't like it, so I changed to the {{ Epigraph}} template. Another editor liked the Quotation template better and reverted. That's okay, but it should probably be discussed here on the talk page before any more reversions are made. I chose the Epigraph template because it retains the larger attribution font (larger than the {{ Quote}} template) without the gaudy looking borders and different bg color of the Quotation template. Hopefully, other editors will chime in with their opinions. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX ) 17:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I just realized that there were notes in this article about whether to include spaces or not in "Archaic – Early Basketmakers" - after I made all the changes to the articles that link to the A-EB article. From what I saw in the comments, there was no need for a space, just needing to use the right kind of dash - so it sounded like it could go either way. Is that right?-- CaroleHenson ( talk) 16:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Deor (or Dior: sorry, couldn't resist):
I've reset sizes of many photo thumbs per MOS -- someone had set many of the "landscape"-format photos to "upright" syntax, which shrinks the thumbs. See Wikipedia:Image markup for guidelines. -- Pete Tillman ( talk) 02:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
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Chaco Culture National Historical Park has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
. In the second paragraph it says "Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century." It would be more accurate to say the largest masonry structures instead of buildings. Timber framed structures have not survived.
How large were the long houses in the northwest? What were the structures like at the cahokia mounds. If a pyramid with no rooms inside counts as a building, do earth mounds in the same shape count as a building?
205.178.46.166 ( talk) 15:01, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
template. Do you have any sources that say that timber framed structures were built that were larger or taller? What defines "largest"; The square footage inside? The cubic footage inside (surely churches with 50 foot high vault cathedral ceilings are larger than a building that is only 20 feet high even with 1/2 the square footage)? This is as unclear as your request here. As far as pyramids go, I am unaware of any in North America and as far as I know, they all do actually have "chambers" or rooms and passageways. — {{U|
Technical 13}} (
t •
e •
c) 15:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)I have marked as OR the uncited assertion in Chaco_Culture_National_Historical_Park#Sites that "There are fourteen recognized Great Houses." I think this was an improper editorial summation not supported by references. It was first added by long-gone editor WBardwin in this edit after he had listed fourteen Great Houses without giving a total number for them. This was in 2007 when our requirements of inline citations were not so strict as today and there were only three general references listed at the bottom of the article. (I rather suspect that he may have taken those fourteen from the fact that Frazier in People of Chaco lists those in the key or caption to his maps.) Limiting it to a hard statement such as "there are fourteen recognized" is, even if sourceable, pretty clearly wrong and misleading since, for example, even Frazier recognizes at page 220 that there's another Chaco great house at the East Community (which is, admittedly, outside the park boundaries, but this article is not just about the park, notwithstanding the title, but about the Chaco site and culture as a whole) and since the list includes Casa Rinconada which cannot be properly classified as a great house since it was an isolated kiva without dwelling or other structures. The designation of fourteen is now, moreover, confusing because there are more than fourteen sites mentioned in the "Sites" section, now converted from Bardwin's list to paragraph form, and it is unclear, without delving back into the page history, just which fourteen this is intended to include. Unless I draw an objection to the tagging, I'm going to rewrite this sentence to read, "The great houses mentioned below are grouped according to geographic positioning with respect to the canyon." Regards, TransporterMan ( TALK) 15:14, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
The first sentence of the second paragraph under "Geography" reads "The alluvial canyon floor slopes downward to the northeast ..." Shouldn't that be "to the northwest"? The previous paragraph says that the canyon "is aligned along a roughly northwest-to-southeast axis", and maps indicate that the Chaco Wash flows down to the Escavada Wash / Chaco River in the northwest. I'm posting here rather than changing it myself in case I'm misreading something. Deor ( talk) 15:48, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I see some information uncited. Is citation required for (less than) challenging info? -- George Ho ( talk) 06:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
I brought this up a month ago about lack of citations and possible original research. I was thinking FA review, but I would rather bring this up again in talk page. -- George Ho ( talk) 20:21, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
The opening sentence describes Chaco as the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. An IP editor proposes to qualify this by restricting it to "pre-Columbian" pueblos, pointing out that there are a lot of pueblos in the Southwest. Is the qualification needed?
We have two claims. "Most exceptional," I think is safe: there was nothing quite like Chaco in the Southwest, then or later. Of course, it's also a qualitative judgment and there were and are other exceptional sites.
"Densest" is tricky because it could mean "population density", for which we have no definitive evidence, or "architectural density", or "site density", or something else. Unquestionably there was a lot of Chaco at Chaco in a very small space.
But is the superlative justified? I think it might well be. Worse, "Pre-Columbian" doesn’t help us much, because several possible competitors were also Pre-Columbian. Among dense collections of sites that we’d call "pueblos", among those that spring to mind are pre-Columbian Zuni-Acoma, the Hopi mesas and environs, and perhaps Mesa Verde/Aztec/Escalante/Lowry if McElmo is really distinct from Chaco. But all these are much larger spans of land, and most of the best candidates are also pre-Columbian. If we’re simply talking population per meter, you aren't likely to beat Pecos alone or Paquime alone at their height. The historic Rio Grande Pueblos were surely more populous than Chaco ever was, but of course it's far more vast.
In fact, the weakest claim here might be that the Chaco great houses were pueblos -- that is, that they were something like historic Taos, Pecos, or Orabi, residences occupied by hundreds or thousands of people. But the sites look like pueblos and are discussed as pueblos, and it's too much weight for the lede to problematize this so early.
MarkBernstein (
talk) 19:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Lekson's Chaco Meridian makes both claims explicitly, at least in the new second edition. In any case, both claims can (as I show above) be separately traced through the literature. See, for example, Linda Cordell’s Prehistory of the Southwest or, better for this case, Lekson’s A History of The Ancient Southwest. The exceptionality claim is easily sourced, and as I said, the density claim is only tricky because "density" might mean several things. What we mean here, pretty much, is "number of big buildings per acre," and Chaco clearly stands out. MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
I generally support Deor's removal of the gallery, but I want to say that my objection partly rests upon the fact that many of the images in the gallery were too indefinite to support that part of the Image Use Policy which reads "However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject. Images in a gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance both to the article subject and to the theme of the gallery..." (emphasis added). Many of the images in the removed gallery were captioned with things like (and several images would have the same caption):
Those are not illustrative of "aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images," nor are they "suitably captioned to explain their relevance." I'm not anti-gallery like some people (I don't mean that to point at Deor, by the way, I have no idea whether he's anti-gallery or not and he certainly had good reason to object to this one), but a gallery has to be something more than just a set of general illustrations about the subject and needs to be relatively small. If this had, for example, been a set of images of some of the main great houses in the canyon mentioned in the article text, each captioned with the name of the house, I might have been less supportive of its removal. Similarly, if it had been or included a collection of some images showing architectural or cultural features unique to Chaco which were mentioned in the text, ditto. But as it was, it really wasn't proper (and was too big and growing). Regards, TransporterMan ( TALK) 21:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Gandydancer ( talk), TransporterMan ( TALK), Deor ( talk), Montanabw, Viriditas In light of the above conversation, I have, with some trepedation (!) added five images to a Gallery, each illustrating features not apparent from the main page. I included a closer view of the stairway, as it is not apparent from the photo in the text unless you magnify the image; a close-up of a kiva, as all other photos are from "far away"; an image of early graffiti, not mentioned in the text; and a pictograph, of which some were mentioned in the text but this is another example; and finally an up close view of wall construction of wood and stone. Please let me know of what you think of the appropriateness of these additions. Steven C. Price 18:20, 17 September 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven C. Price ( talk • contribs)
Steven C. Price I think that the gallery is an excellent addition. Thanks! Gandydancer ( talk) 01:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
The reference to this fact do not mention the Colosseum and according the article on the Colosseum it was 3 times as large as Pueblo Bonito. אביהו ( talk) 04:58, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
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The current article is a little confusing to me as to the actual nature of these buildings. The introduction states: "Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.[2][4]"
The rest of the text, and the accompanying photos, don't match this description well. In particular, I don't even see any "buildings" at all in the photos, only ruined walls, and none of them are made of timber. Did the buildings collapse in the 19th century just as larger buildings were built elsewhere, and just before anyone could photograph them? Or did they collapse much earlier, in which case they did not "remain" the largest buildings until the 19th century? And what do these collapsed wooden buildings have to do with the stone ruins in the photos? Ornilnas ( talk) 04:56, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
This is a 2007 Featured article that has not been maintained to FA standards:
Unless these issues can be corrected with a substantial update and rewrite, the article should be submitted to Featured article review. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:39, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Regarding "Remote sensing, anthropological study of Indian oral traditions, and dendrochronology—which left Chacoan relics undisturbed—were pursued." Dendrochronology involves taking core samples from artifacts (wood beams). The disturbance may be small, but "undisturbed" seems untrue. Also, I was unable to verify, because the citation is to a high level of NPS website; site web search for "dendrochronology" and "undisturbed" did not find me anything. -- Yae4 ( talk) 17:14, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Does anyone else have an opinion about the one-sentence "In Popular Culture" (note the capitalization) section that was recently added to this article? Although I don't have access to the work included as a reference, the addition seems to me to violate the spirit, at least, of MOS:POPCULT (particularly the "bone broth" paragraph); but I'm unwilling to start an edit war over the matter. Deor ( talk) 22:53, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Original draft was almost completely taken from the US Government Web site linked to the page. Additional information added. Your edits and comments welcome.
WBardwin 06:31, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In the section Chaco Canyon sites there are a couple of references to the 1100's. From reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), I believe this should be either 1100s (which is the decade 1100-1109, note: no apostrophy) or 12th century. I'm guessing the author intended 12th century, but could someone who knows the dates better please fix this? -- 66.216.68.28 21:17, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of the Sun Dagger here -- or indeed, in Wikipedia at all? It's the most famous feature of Chaco Canyon, thanks largely to the movie of the same name. ShawnVW 04:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
are the structures depcted on this page rebuilt? i don't think they could have withstood a thousand years of weather
Justforasecond 15:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Why is there not any mention of the way that the cities , their walls, and the roads freqently line up exactly with the paths of the sun and moon? Or that a large portion of the "rooms" are sealed off and would have originally been inacessible? Or that there are very few large trash mounds, which would have been necessary if as large a population as is frequently claimed actually did live there? All of this pointing to a more religious purpose for the site? I belive NOVA did a show on all of this... 71.196.218.82
I would like to add http://www.xrez.com/gallery/chaco/xRez_chaco.html to the links. It contains the most detailed photo of Pueblo Bonito ever taken, it is 4 gigapixels and web-viewable. You can see every individual stone in the structure. I did not add it myself because there was a note in the links section to bring this up in "discussion" before adding links.
Mediation participants: Joey80 and Saravask Mediator: Alan.ca
Alan.ca 06:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Joey80 13:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Notice:
Recently read LeBlanc's "Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest" and compared with material from my "student days". While the topics are still very controversial, a section on archaeological findings relating to warfare and violence in and around the Chaco system might be appropriate here. Opinions? WBardwin 00:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
the first one's who build a multi story building of adobe and cut stones with connecting passage —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.144.155.149 ( talk) 03:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
It may just be me but the section of Dr. Wirt H. Willis seems to have little to do with this article. I can't cite the exact policy, but it seems like self promotion. What do others think? I won't delete or suggest that it be deleted until I get some feed back. Jfknrh ( talk) 21:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Dr. Wirt H. Wills is one of the leading southwestern archaeologists in the United States. Dr. Wills is currently a professor at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Wills primarily concentrates his expertise in the southwestern region of the United States, more specifically in New Mexico. His most recent southwest work includes the dig at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Dr. Wills defines his goals in his Curriculum Vitae: Field Research has been fundamental to my work in my four problem areas; 1) the origins of agriculture during the Late Archaic period (ca 4000 to 3000 B.C.), 2) the emergence of village communities during the early Ceramic Period (ca 200 to A.D. 500), 3) the development of hierarchically complex corporate groups after A.D. 1000 in the Colorado Plateau, and 4) the formation of Hispanic Irrigation communities during the 18th century in the Rio Grande Valley.
Dr. Wills research has been supported by such outstanding organizations as the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Philosophical Society. This ample funding has allowed him to investigate different areas of southwestern archaeology that interests him.
Career: Education 'Dr. Wills received his education at the University of New Mexico where he graduated Cum Laude in 1977. Prior to that Dr. Wills attended the Virginia Polytechnic and State University from 1973 to 1975. Dr. Wills then received his Master’s degree in Anthropology at the University of Michigan in 1980, followed by his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1985. Dr. Will dissertation was written on the Early Agriculture of Mogollon Highlands of New Mexico. His early research was done in the transition from food production to foraging. More recently, Dr. Wills has extended his research to include complicated social formations. (WillsCurriculum)
Professional Positions:
Dr. Wills has held a variety of Temporary Professional Positions in very prestigious locations. In 1982, Dr. Wills was a staff archaeologist at the Center for Archaeological Investigations, at Southern Illinois University. In March of 1989, Dr. Wills served a three month term as the Visiting Scholar in the Archaeology Department at Cambridge University. Dr. Wills also served as Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia from 2000 to 2001. Most recently, Dr. Wills served at the Smithsonian Institution as a Research Associate from 2002 to 2007. Dr. Wills has a permanent gallery at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropologyentitled Peoples of the Southwest, where he served as guest curator at the Maxwell Museum from 1988 to 1993. (WillsCurriculum)
Awards and Honors:
The awards and honors that Dr. Wills has received have been numerous as well. In 1988 Dr. Wills received the Presidential Recognition award at the University of New Mexico. In 2000, he received the Smithsonian Institution Short Term research award for the work that he did there. The Smithsonian Institute also honored Dr. Wills with the Smithsonian Institution post-doctoral fellowship award from 1985 through 1986. The United States Department of Interior Excellence also gave him a Service Award in March of 2001. He also received the Snead Wertheim Lectureship at the University of New Mexico in 2002 and 2003. Dr. Wills is also a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the American Anthropological Association. Dr. Wills belongs to the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, for his work in the American Southwest. Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Pi Alpha Theta are also several of the Greek organizations that Dr. Wills is currently a member of. (WillsCurriculum)
Published Works:
An extensive variety of papers, books and articles have also been written on the subject of Southwestern Archaeology. In 1994, Dr. Wills co-wrote the book entitled The Ancient Southwestern Community: Models and Methods for the Study of Prehistoric Social Organization. Another book was co-written by Dr. Wills in 1980, this book was entitled The Archaeological Correlates of Hunter-Gatherer Societies: Studies From the Ethnographic Record. Referenced journals have also provided Dr. Wills an excellent way in which to better report on his studies to an appreciative audience. The Late Archaic Across the Borderlands: From Foraging to Farming was written in 2006, this article describes the evolution from foraging for food to the development of agriculture in the Late Archaic period. In 1996, Dr. Wills went back to his dissertation and wrote an article entitled The Preceramic to Ceramic Traditions in the Mongollon Highlands of Western New Mexico, which was published in the Journal of Field Archaeology. The Journal of Anthropological Research also published his article entitled Patterns of Prehistoric Agricultural Development in Western New Mexico, in 1989. This article again touched on his research of the prehistoric southwestern people and how their agricultural and farming techniques developed over an extended period of time. (WillsCurriculum)
Chaco Canyon:
More recently, his work has been centered on the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico. In 2000, Dr. Wills published the article entitled 'Alternative Leadership Strategies in the American Southwest.' This article discussed Dr. Wills’ theories on the political leadership of the 'Chaco canyon peoples during the years of A.D. 1020 to 1140. In 1997 Dr. Wills wrote 'Ceramics, Lithics, and Ornaments of Chaco Canyon, Analysis of Articles From the Chaco Project,' 1971 to 1978, this article was a preliminary analysis of the hammer-stones found in the Chaco canyon region. His studies there have provided him with an excellent wealth of knowledge in which to educate the world on the Southwest American agricultural and technological advances in regards to the prehistoric people that called the Chaco Canyon region home.
As of the early nineties, the bulk of Dr. Wills’ work has been centered on the Chaco canyon region of New Mexico. Chaco canyon is known to have been the epicenter for cultural development of the southwest between the years of 800 and 1200 A.D. This period of time was unprecedented for the people of the region because they experienced an economic boom caused by increased farming techniques, in combination with massive trade systems and an increasingly complex ritual behavior which led to the construction of huge masonry buildings called “great houses.” Dr. Wills is currently working with the Chaco Stratigraphy Project; its purpose being to contribute to a greater understanding of the Chaco canyon region. Dr. Wills’ primary focus with the Chaco Stratigraphy Project has been to study in detail the technology and the agricultural change that resulted in the economic and social boom particularly during the years of A.D. 850 to 1140, otherwise called the Bonito Phase. Dr. Wills also has a particular attachment to this project because he was the one that wrote the funding proposal for the project. The document entitled, 'Chaco Canyon Project Description' was submitted to the National Science Foundation in 2003 by Dr. Wills. The purpose of this paper was to obtain funding from the National Science Foundation in order that the work at the Chaco Canyon site could continue. (WillsCurriculum)
University of New Mexico:
When he is not out in the field, Dr. Wills is also a professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Since the fall of 1986, Dr. Wills has taught a variety of courses including Pyramids and Paradoxes, Southwest Archaeology, Preceramic Southwest Archaeology, and Ritual in Prehistory. He also teaches a class with an Archaeological Field school. (UNM)
I've reverted the recent attempt to place all images on the right-side per MOS:IMAGES: "Multiple images in the same article can be staggered right-and-left". There's a good reason for this and the layout works much better. Viriditas ( talk) 00:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The article seems rather sparse in the extensive archaeological scholarship regarding the Chaco phenomenon from AD 900 to 1150, when the major construction of the great houses was taking place. There are many papers dealing with why this occured, why it stopped, and what sort of organization (social, economic, etc.) was in place. Although mentioned in the article, it is a major topic within Southwest archaeology. Is this dealt with in a different article, or should another article be developed (it seems somewhat out of place here). Thoughts? -- TeaDrinker ( talk) 00:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Statement: The Chaco Canyon area is also characterized by remarkable climatic extremes: recorded temperatures range between −38 °F (−39 °C) to 102 °F (39 °C),[15] and temperature swings of up to 60 °F (16 °C) in a single day are not unknown.[7]
Issue: temperature swings of up to 60 °F (16 °C)
Discussion: This is incorrect. While it is true that 60 °F is approximately 16 °C (more precisely 15.6), that is not what is being discussed. This is talking about a change of 60 °F - NOT an actual temperature of 60 °F. A degree Celsius is 1.8 times larger than a degree Fahrenheit. Thus one only needs divide 60 by 1.8 to get the correct temperature swing in Celsius. This would be 33.3 °C. --DMG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.244.214.59 ( talk) 12:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm reverting the two paragraphs inserted by Bheldthor ( talk · contribs) because, in addition to lacking citations of reliable sources, they seem to have little relevance to the specific sections to which they were added and they contained wording matching that appearing at http://www.solsticeproject.org/aboutsolstice.html and http://www.solsticeproject.org/AALiDARarticle.pdf, thus consituting, at least in part, copyright violations. Deor ( talk) 11:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Why {{ Smallcaps}}? This is just ugly, unnecessary and not a normal practice.
Links from Citations to References now broken:
Please don't use list definition markup (semicolon ;) to make a bold line.
{{
Refbegin|1}}
is the default and {{
refend}}
does not have any parameters.
---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 01:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand how the references are listed. Why are Sources separate from References? Why is the Reference section split? ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 11:50, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Please don't use the Cquote template unless the quotation has been " pulled" from the article. I like the look of Cquote, too, however misuse of that template just adds to the nonstandard look of Wikipedia. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX ) 12:56, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I tried the {{ Quotation}} template and didn't like it, so I changed to the {{ Epigraph}} template. Another editor liked the Quotation template better and reverted. That's okay, but it should probably be discussed here on the talk page before any more reversions are made. I chose the Epigraph template because it retains the larger attribution font (larger than the {{ Quote}} template) without the gaudy looking borders and different bg color of the Quotation template. Hopefully, other editors will chime in with their opinions. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX ) 17:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I just realized that there were notes in this article about whether to include spaces or not in "Archaic – Early Basketmakers" - after I made all the changes to the articles that link to the A-EB article. From what I saw in the comments, there was no need for a space, just needing to use the right kind of dash - so it sounded like it could go either way. Is that right?-- CaroleHenson ( talk) 16:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Deor (or Dior: sorry, couldn't resist):
I've reset sizes of many photo thumbs per MOS -- someone had set many of the "landscape"-format photos to "upright" syntax, which shrinks the thumbs. See Wikipedia:Image markup for guidelines. -- Pete Tillman ( talk) 02:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Chaco Culture National Historical Park has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
. In the second paragraph it says "Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century." It would be more accurate to say the largest masonry structures instead of buildings. Timber framed structures have not survived.
How large were the long houses in the northwest? What were the structures like at the cahokia mounds. If a pyramid with no rooms inside counts as a building, do earth mounds in the same shape count as a building?
205.178.46.166 ( talk) 15:01, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
template. Do you have any sources that say that timber framed structures were built that were larger or taller? What defines "largest"; The square footage inside? The cubic footage inside (surely churches with 50 foot high vault cathedral ceilings are larger than a building that is only 20 feet high even with 1/2 the square footage)? This is as unclear as your request here. As far as pyramids go, I am unaware of any in North America and as far as I know, they all do actually have "chambers" or rooms and passageways. — {{U|
Technical 13}} (
t •
e •
c) 15:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)I have marked as OR the uncited assertion in Chaco_Culture_National_Historical_Park#Sites that "There are fourteen recognized Great Houses." I think this was an improper editorial summation not supported by references. It was first added by long-gone editor WBardwin in this edit after he had listed fourteen Great Houses without giving a total number for them. This was in 2007 when our requirements of inline citations were not so strict as today and there were only three general references listed at the bottom of the article. (I rather suspect that he may have taken those fourteen from the fact that Frazier in People of Chaco lists those in the key or caption to his maps.) Limiting it to a hard statement such as "there are fourteen recognized" is, even if sourceable, pretty clearly wrong and misleading since, for example, even Frazier recognizes at page 220 that there's another Chaco great house at the East Community (which is, admittedly, outside the park boundaries, but this article is not just about the park, notwithstanding the title, but about the Chaco site and culture as a whole) and since the list includes Casa Rinconada which cannot be properly classified as a great house since it was an isolated kiva without dwelling or other structures. The designation of fourteen is now, moreover, confusing because there are more than fourteen sites mentioned in the "Sites" section, now converted from Bardwin's list to paragraph form, and it is unclear, without delving back into the page history, just which fourteen this is intended to include. Unless I draw an objection to the tagging, I'm going to rewrite this sentence to read, "The great houses mentioned below are grouped according to geographic positioning with respect to the canyon." Regards, TransporterMan ( TALK) 15:14, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
The first sentence of the second paragraph under "Geography" reads "The alluvial canyon floor slopes downward to the northeast ..." Shouldn't that be "to the northwest"? The previous paragraph says that the canyon "is aligned along a roughly northwest-to-southeast axis", and maps indicate that the Chaco Wash flows down to the Escavada Wash / Chaco River in the northwest. I'm posting here rather than changing it myself in case I'm misreading something. Deor ( talk) 15:48, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I see some information uncited. Is citation required for (less than) challenging info? -- George Ho ( talk) 06:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
I brought this up a month ago about lack of citations and possible original research. I was thinking FA review, but I would rather bring this up again in talk page. -- George Ho ( talk) 20:21, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
The opening sentence describes Chaco as the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. An IP editor proposes to qualify this by restricting it to "pre-Columbian" pueblos, pointing out that there are a lot of pueblos in the Southwest. Is the qualification needed?
We have two claims. "Most exceptional," I think is safe: there was nothing quite like Chaco in the Southwest, then or later. Of course, it's also a qualitative judgment and there were and are other exceptional sites.
"Densest" is tricky because it could mean "population density", for which we have no definitive evidence, or "architectural density", or "site density", or something else. Unquestionably there was a lot of Chaco at Chaco in a very small space.
But is the superlative justified? I think it might well be. Worse, "Pre-Columbian" doesn’t help us much, because several possible competitors were also Pre-Columbian. Among dense collections of sites that we’d call "pueblos", among those that spring to mind are pre-Columbian Zuni-Acoma, the Hopi mesas and environs, and perhaps Mesa Verde/Aztec/Escalante/Lowry if McElmo is really distinct from Chaco. But all these are much larger spans of land, and most of the best candidates are also pre-Columbian. If we’re simply talking population per meter, you aren't likely to beat Pecos alone or Paquime alone at their height. The historic Rio Grande Pueblos were surely more populous than Chaco ever was, but of course it's far more vast.
In fact, the weakest claim here might be that the Chaco great houses were pueblos -- that is, that they were something like historic Taos, Pecos, or Orabi, residences occupied by hundreds or thousands of people. But the sites look like pueblos and are discussed as pueblos, and it's too much weight for the lede to problematize this so early.
MarkBernstein (
talk) 19:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Lekson's Chaco Meridian makes both claims explicitly, at least in the new second edition. In any case, both claims can (as I show above) be separately traced through the literature. See, for example, Linda Cordell’s Prehistory of the Southwest or, better for this case, Lekson’s A History of The Ancient Southwest. The exceptionality claim is easily sourced, and as I said, the density claim is only tricky because "density" might mean several things. What we mean here, pretty much, is "number of big buildings per acre," and Chaco clearly stands out. MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
I generally support Deor's removal of the gallery, but I want to say that my objection partly rests upon the fact that many of the images in the gallery were too indefinite to support that part of the Image Use Policy which reads "However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject. Images in a gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance both to the article subject and to the theme of the gallery..." (emphasis added). Many of the images in the removed gallery were captioned with things like (and several images would have the same caption):
Those are not illustrative of "aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images," nor are they "suitably captioned to explain their relevance." I'm not anti-gallery like some people (I don't mean that to point at Deor, by the way, I have no idea whether he's anti-gallery or not and he certainly had good reason to object to this one), but a gallery has to be something more than just a set of general illustrations about the subject and needs to be relatively small. If this had, for example, been a set of images of some of the main great houses in the canyon mentioned in the article text, each captioned with the name of the house, I might have been less supportive of its removal. Similarly, if it had been or included a collection of some images showing architectural or cultural features unique to Chaco which were mentioned in the text, ditto. But as it was, it really wasn't proper (and was too big and growing). Regards, TransporterMan ( TALK) 21:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Gandydancer ( talk), TransporterMan ( TALK), Deor ( talk), Montanabw, Viriditas In light of the above conversation, I have, with some trepedation (!) added five images to a Gallery, each illustrating features not apparent from the main page. I included a closer view of the stairway, as it is not apparent from the photo in the text unless you magnify the image; a close-up of a kiva, as all other photos are from "far away"; an image of early graffiti, not mentioned in the text; and a pictograph, of which some were mentioned in the text but this is another example; and finally an up close view of wall construction of wood and stone. Please let me know of what you think of the appropriateness of these additions. Steven C. Price 18:20, 17 September 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven C. Price ( talk • contribs)
Steven C. Price I think that the gallery is an excellent addition. Thanks! Gandydancer ( talk) 01:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
The reference to this fact do not mention the Colosseum and according the article on the Colosseum it was 3 times as large as Pueblo Bonito. אביהו ( talk) 04:58, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
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The current article is a little confusing to me as to the actual nature of these buildings. The introduction states: "Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.[2][4]"
The rest of the text, and the accompanying photos, don't match this description well. In particular, I don't even see any "buildings" at all in the photos, only ruined walls, and none of them are made of timber. Did the buildings collapse in the 19th century just as larger buildings were built elsewhere, and just before anyone could photograph them? Or did they collapse much earlier, in which case they did not "remain" the largest buildings until the 19th century? And what do these collapsed wooden buildings have to do with the stone ruins in the photos? Ornilnas ( talk) 04:56, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
This is a 2007 Featured article that has not been maintained to FA standards:
Unless these issues can be corrected with a substantial update and rewrite, the article should be submitted to Featured article review. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:39, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Regarding "Remote sensing, anthropological study of Indian oral traditions, and dendrochronology—which left Chacoan relics undisturbed—were pursued." Dendrochronology involves taking core samples from artifacts (wood beams). The disturbance may be small, but "undisturbed" seems untrue. Also, I was unable to verify, because the citation is to a high level of NPS website; site web search for "dendrochronology" and "undisturbed" did not find me anything. -- Yae4 ( talk) 17:14, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Does anyone else have an opinion about the one-sentence "In Popular Culture" (note the capitalization) section that was recently added to this article? Although I don't have access to the work included as a reference, the addition seems to me to violate the spirit, at least, of MOS:POPCULT (particularly the "bone broth" paragraph); but I'm unwilling to start an edit war over the matter. Deor ( talk) 22:53, 25 November 2022 (UTC)