NO. I ARCHITECTURE OF PUEBLO BONITO JUDD 55 



Ruin, 1086-1089 — lies in the last third of dated architecture at Pueblo 

 Bonito. But the subject is not so easily dismissed. 



The East Kiva on Chimney Rock, which seems so isolated and 

 alone, is undeniably Chaco-like in its lack of a sipapu, its low log- 

 enclosed pilasters, its west-side vault, and a subfloor ventilating sys- 

 tem that was rebuilt to the original plan when the floor was raised. 

 These Chaco resemblances invite further exploration, but at the time 

 of his initial visit Roberts (1922, p. 12) recorded his then opinion 

 that Chimney Rock pottery looked older than that of Chaco Canyon. 

 If he is correct in this early impression then the associated Chaco-like 

 masonry must be older and Chimney Rock stands not as a colony from 

 Chaco Canyon but as a possible way station on a path southward. 



"The Chaco-like remains north of the San Juan, both architectural 

 and ceramic," wrote Earl Morris (1939, p. 204), "are so widespread 

 and so numerous that I consider it untenable to view them wholly as 

 an extension of or a backwash from, the Chaco Canyon center. . . . 

 The most Chaco-like of the vessels from the north country, which 

 seem so significant when viewed singly or selectively grouped, become 

 far less so when viewed as the minor component that they are of the 

 totality of wares among which they occur." 



Kidder obviously had the same intangible evidence in mind when 

 he observed that Chaco-like vessels from Montezuma Valley and 

 McElmo Canyon, target of commercial and amateur collectors for 

 half a century, "are seldom of the most pronounced Chaco types ; they 

 give one the impression of being either the product of a peripheral 

 development affected by Chaco influence, or of an earlier and less 

 specialized stage of the Chaco culture" (Kidder, 1924, p. 56). They 

 may, he added, "indicate a northwestern spread or a northwestern 

 origin" of that culture. Anna Shepard may have seen a like prob- 

 ability when she hinted (1939, p. 285) a common source in early P. Ill 

 times or previously for the mineral-paint Chaco and the carbon-paint 

 Mesa Verde wares. 



Morris doubtless would have regarded Chimney Rock pottery as 

 "more Chacoesque than Chaco." To him the many small ruins 

 throughout the San Juan and Animas valleys in which Chaco-like 

 pottery predominates might be earlier, contemporary with, or even 

 later than Chaco-like Aztec pueblo (Morris, 1928, p. 418). He does 

 not so imply but some one of these small ruins may have spawned the 

 unique ideas in architecture and in pottery ornamentation that brought 

 about the Pueblo III conquest of Chaco Canyon. 



In pursuing our investigations for the National Geographic Society 



