Chaco Culture - agricultural land

This view is looking southeast along Chaco Canyon toward Fajada Butte. The one-way park road crosses diagonally across the image in the foreground. This view provides a good perspective on the amount of space for agricultural land that the valley provided to the Ancestral Puebloans (Chacoans). Puebloan-style construction began in the Chaco Canyon around A.D. 850 (Lekson and others, 2005). The Chacoan Classic Period (between 1100 and 1250 A.D.) is when much of the larger construction effort took place. The Chacoans built water catchment and distribution systems for irrigation, utilizing storm floodwaters from small canyons draining from the surrounding mesas (Ragsdale, 1996). Corn was the dominant food resource in the region, supplemented by other crops and native plants (Minnis, 1989). An ancient road system across the Four Corners region reflected the influence of Chacoan cultural influence and trade (Benson, 2004; NPS, 2005b, 2008).