The Chaco Meridian

The Chaco Meridian: One Thousand Years of Political and Religious Power in the Ancient Southwest, by Stephen H. Lekson, second edition.

I was introduced to the author of The Chaco Meridian and his ideas by Craig Childs in his fascinating book The House of Rain, wherein he surveys the spectrum of current archeological thought on the fate of the Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloan, peoples. Now that I’ve read the second edition of Lekson’s seminal work, I can see how he inspired Childs to undertake his personal quest for answers to the mystery of their decline and disappearance. Lekson’s book is provocative, irreverent, very well written, and entertaining right through the footnotes and appendices!

The book’s eponymous meridian is 107 degrees 57 minutes 25 seconds, and it’s the north-south line upon which Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; Aztec Ruins, New Mexico; Paquime, Chihuahua and (ancient) Culiacan, Sinaloa are aligned.  Lekson argues that this is intentional, not accidental, that the cardinal alignment (and this applies to both cities and buildings within them, in the case of Chaco and Paquime), which is traced out quite clearly on the ground as “The Great North Road” between Chaco and Aztec, represents the dominance of one religio-astronomical tradition over another, more common one, that saw previous and subsequent dwellings facing southwest or southeast, corresponding to sunset and sunrise on the winter solstice. The latter is the more useful alignment for farmers, as the sun, not the stars, dominates their lives. Furthermore, he argues that all four sites were city-states were ruled by an indigenous nobility with strong Mesoamerican connections. They appeared first at Chaco (850-1125), subsequently colonized and migrated to Aztec, (1110-1275) then Paquime (1300-1450) and, more speculatively, Culiacan (?-1530). He finds evidence for the common heritage in architectural elements, such as colonnades, room-wide platforms, stone disks, double- and triple- walled buildings and T-shaped doors. The latter are also very common in numerous cliff dwellings in the Mexican Sierra Madre Occidental between Paquime and Culiacan.

The Mimbres culture thrived in parallel with Chaco in the valleys of southwestern New Mexico, located along the Chaco Meridian, and can be seen as a hybrid, with elements of Chaco and Hohokum (an intensive canal irrigation culture whose homeland lies to the Southwest, in today’s Arizona). Mimbres “Classic” culture also “disappeared” at about the same time as Chaco: 1130 AD.

Chaco and its satellite villages are characterized by Great Houses, large imposing formal constructions, such as Chaco’s White House that, Lekson argues, reflect a stratified society dominated by a palace nobility. He further suggests that their form of government may have been the altepetl: a kingship that rotated amongst 6-8 noble families and whose occupant was elected for life. This was the norm in central Mexico at the same time Chaco was in its heyday. He gives further evidence of strong connections amongst Chaco, Paquime, the Mimbres (and, to a lesser extent, Aztec) with the South based on finds of luxury trade goods such as macaws (and macaw feathers), which don’t occur naturally anywhere north of central Mexico, copper bells and turquoise. 

Lekson thinks that the historical Pueblos (Zuni, Hopi, Acoma and along the Rio Grande) were founded by peoples who were subjugated by the Chaco nobility, but then revolted and freed themselves from their yoke during a time of extreme environmental stress (drought) in the 12th C-13th Cs. The egalitarian, ritual-based agricultural societies they founded were a reaction to the hierarchical system of Chaco.

Finally, Lekson even suggests (if I read him right) that the migrating Chacoan nobility might ultimately turn out to be the Nahua/Mexica, whom we know as the Aztecs. According to their traditions, their last stop en route their mythical northern home, Aztlan, to the Valley of Mexico was (you guessed it!) Culiacan. Working backwards from this: could Aztlan have been Chaco?

A little internet research of my own turned up the following additional evidence:

1. For Mesoamerican connections with SW US: From the Relacion of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1542): “Entre estas casas avia algunas dellas que eran de tierra : y las otras todas son de esteras de cañas, y de aqui passamos mas de cien leguas de tierra, y siempre hallamos casas de assiento y mucho mantenimiento de maiz y frisoles. Y davan nos muchos venados y muchas mantas de algodon mejores que las de la nueva España. Davan nos tambien muchas cuentas y de unos corales que ay en la mar del Sur, muchas turquesas muy buenas que tiene, de hazia el norte : y finalmente dieron aqui todo quanto tenian y a mi me dieron cinco esmeraldas hechas puntas de flechas, y con estas flechas hazen ellos sus areytos y bayles. Y paresciendo me a mi que eran muy buenas les pregunte que donde las avian avido : y dixeron que las trayan de unas sierras muy altas que estan hazia el norte y las compravan a trueco de penachos y plumas de papagayos : y dezian que avia alli pueblos de mucha gente y casas muy grandes”. “They also gave us plenty of beads made out of the coral found in the South Sea ; many good turquoises, which they get from the north ; they finally gave us all they had ; and to me they presented with five emeralds, made into arrowheads, which they use in their feasts and dances. As they appeared to be of very good quality, I asked whence they got them from, and they said it was from some very high mountains toward the north, where they traded for them with feather head-dresses and parrot feathers, and they said also that there were villages with many people and very big houses.
2. For the location of Aztlan: From the Cronica Mexicoyotl of Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc (1598): “He aquí que comienzo, aquí está el relato de los ancianos mexicanos. El lugar de su morada tiene por nombre Aztlan, y por eso se les nombra aztecas; y tienen por segundo nombre el de Chicomoztoc, y sus nombres son estos de aztecas y mexicanos; y hoy día verdaderamente se les llama, se les nombra mexicanos; pero después vinieron aquí a tomar el nombre de tenochcas. Los mexicanos salieron de allá del lugar llamado Aztlan, el cual se halla en la mitad del agua; de allá partieron para acá los que componían los siete “calpulli”.El Aztlan de los antiguos mexicanos es lo que hoy día se denomina Nuevo México; reinaba allá el llamado Moctezuma.”