With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Patricia L. Crown will analyze the artifacts excavated from trash deposits at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. With an estimated 600-800 rooms, Pueblo Bonito is the largest and most completely excavated site in Chaco Canyon, as well as one of the most completely documented. Archaeologists widely consider Pueblo Bonito the most important site in the UNESCO World Heritage Site Chaco Culture Park. Two major expeditions excavated most of the site, providing extensive collections largely housed at the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History. These excavations revealed a concentration of objects never duplicated in excavations of other large Chacoan sites. The accessibility of the collections has made them ongoing subjects of much study. What is lacking in these collections though is refuse, here defined as intentionally discarded or lost cultural material. Although the 1890s Hyde Expedition and the 1920s National Geographic Society (NGS) Expedition encountered refuse in quantities, little was kept. The whole objects kept by these early research projects likely give a biased view of the material world of Pueblo Bonito.
In the 1920s, Neil Judd directed excavation of north-south oriented trenches through two mounds that sit directly south of Pueblo Bonito and a third trench between the mounds as part of the NGS excavations. Drs. W. H. Wills and Patricia L. Crown recently directed reopening of portions of the three trenches to document the stratigraphy and collect geological, pollen, ostracod and macrobotanical samples from all strata. All trench fill was screened, revealing a high density of refuse. Preservation in these trenches is good, so the material recovered includes a quantity of charred corn cobs, a basketry fragment, along with large numbers of sherds, chipped stone materials, ground stone fragments, and faunal remains and tools. Ceramics reveal that mound deposits represent a relatively brief period of time (ca. A.D. 1050-1125) coinciding with the major construction of Pueblo Bonito. The high frequency of material makes this an excellent collection to explore the nature of Pueblo Bonito refuse.
The current study will characterize the refuse from the mounds at Pueblo Bonito, particularly focusing on the evidence for production, exchange, use, and discard of the material. Comparisons will be made to the published data on refuse from the contemporaneous Pueblo Alto and a small site to examine discard patterns between two great house sites and great house versus small house sites. Finally, comparisons between the two mounds will evaluate possible group differences associated with material deposited in each mound.
Intellectual merits include examination of issues of continuing importance to southwestern archaeologists that have broader implications for issues of emergent complexity worldwide. A comprehensive laboratory methodology will generate an invaluable database upon which to build future research on the production, exchange, use and discard of artifacts in Chaco. The research will be the first comprehensive study of refuse from Pueblo Bonito.
Broader impacts of this research include dissemination to Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, where the knowledge generated by this project will enhance interpretation to over 85,000 annual visitors. There is considerable pressure to complete this project as rapidly as possible, because some descendant tribal groups have requested that all artifacts be reburied after analysis, and the NPS has not yet made a decision about this request. Finally, the project will provide professional training to a group of young undergraduate and graduate scientists in the context of research.
