One of the most famous archaeological sites in the southwest is Chaco Canyon. Chaco lies in northwest New Mexico somewhere between Gallup and Farmington. Actually Chaco Canyon is not a site but a district containing thousands of archaeological sites and it is recognized as a World Heritage Site.

I will be taking you to some of the lesser known places in Chaco Canyon in some later posts but for now I am stopping at an outlier about 50 miles south of Chaco and it is one that is integrally related to the prehistoric cities of the canyon.

Outliers in the professional archaeologist parlance are habitation sites that are somehow connected to a larger sphere of influence but located somewhere outside it’s core.

Driving from Gallup, exit at Thoreau (pronounced ‘threw’; it’s named for a former railroad man) as if to take the short cut to Farmington, New Mexico. Traveling by this back road toward the Bistii Wilderness, and eventually Farmington, as I am sure you have done many times, you may have noticed in passing an interesting rock formation east of the highway near Crownpoint. It looks much like a natural spire of sandstone when seen from the road traveling 70 plus miles an hour. Closer inspection though, discloses that while it is a stone spire, it is of man-made origin.

The Navajo (Dine′) have named it Kin Ya’a — the Tall House.

The Tall House, notice how the shadow makes it look like a natural formation. Looking east. Photo by M. Severson

It represents the remains of what must have been an imposing structure in its day. Archaeologists refer to it as a ‘tower kiva’ because there appears to be a ceremonial significance to the interior room at the top of the tower. Modern kivas are ceremonial rooms in pueblo towns and by the referential process of archaeological interpretation, archaeologists have identified these rooms as being ceremonial in ancient pueblos also. Tree ring dates place the building of Kin Ya’a around 1100 AD.

Generally kivas make up a small percentage of the overall rooms in a village. Tower kivas are a unique structure even among these less common specialized rooms because rather than being subterranean as  are most prehistoric kivas, they rise several stories into the air.

One theory is that building a kiva so high up gives it a stronger connection to the realm of the sky and therefore increases the viability of any prayers for rain that originate there. Since it appears that some tower kivas may be several of the structures stacked one atop the other, they may also replicate the four worlds of pueblo myths.

Tower kivas are not exclusive to sites that are linked to Chaco Canyon but they are most commonly found in Chacoan towns. The one at Chettro Ketl, the second largest town in the canyon, has some interesting stone projections that appear to allow for entry by those adventurous souls brave enough to ascend the exterior of the tower in that manner. A more likely function is to illustrate to the people when it was time to re-plaster the exterior walls. When the rock projections start to show it’s time to start mixing more plaster.

The Chettro Ketl tower kiva has been excavated to illustrate the amount of work that went into the foundations of the structure. Not surprisingly it sits upon an impressive stone base excavated more than twenty feet into the Chaco soil. West of Pueblo Bonito, the compact town of Kin Kletso has two structures that appear to be tower kivas. If you are interested in learning more about Chaco you can go to the NPS site. 1)

Here in a close-up of remains of the tower kiva interior wall where you can see the reddish coloring of oxidation on the sandstone bricks indicating that the structure probably burned. Looking north. Photo by M. Severson

Most archaeologists agree that the tower kiva at Kin Ya’a has a very specific reason for its placement at this particular Chacoan town. But because they are archaeologists they don’t all agree on what that reason is. It all depends on who you talk to.

This site is unexcavated, which means all the information is still there waiting for future improvements in archaeological techniques. Looking northeast. Photo by M. Severson

The purpose of the structure may have long been open to debate but I like the signal tower aspect that has been presented in many discussions. The idea is that fires built atop the kiva could be used to signal other sites far away, especially at night. Kin Ya’a lies along the Great South Road out of Chaco, in fact the road bisects the pueblo diagonally.

To read more information on Kin Ya’a and a nice interpretive reconstruction painting go to the NPS brochure 2).

If you want to go to Kin Ya’a I better tell you my story.

Anyone traveling to Chaco today normally enters by the Pueblo Pintado road between Bloomfield and Cuba, NM;  built a decade or so ago to facilitate visitation to the remote site. Back in the day, a generation or more in the distant past, this adventurous explorer used to enter the canyon by the south road at the old trading post (TP) turnoff and return the next day by the Blanco TP or Nageezi TP road. I have always been a lover of bad roads.

Exploring the site, Chaco road is in foreground. Exploring the site, people are standing on the ruins of multistory rooms. A portion of a Chaco road is in the foreground, the tower kiva to the right of picture. Looking west. Photo by M. Severson

Of course, while on tour, I also wanted to stop and see Kin Ya’a since I drove right by it. Not bothering to get directions, (Don’t say it!) I felt I could find my way to the site. After all, I am a trained archaeologist. I’ve surveyed hundreds of miles of desert without getting lost. I can surely find my way to a stone spire that anyone can plainly see.

Yep.

On my first attempt I wound up in a local front yard somewhere south of Kin Ya’a. Sitting there slightly embarrassed but unashamed I watched as a Navajo granny in long skirts came out her front door. She looked at the huge white van loaded with bil-ganas (the term Navajos use for ‘white people’) that was being driven by some big guy with a nervous smile on his hairy face. She slowly shook her head, turned around and walked back in the house shutting the door behind her

As you can tell by my photos, I did finally find my way to Kin Ya’a but I still owe that granny an apology.

The carefully constructed Chacoan walls usually had a visual pattern to the layers of sandstone. Then they were covered by plaster and never seen by the people who lived there. Looking northwest. Photo by M. Severson

1) http://www.chaco.com/park/brochure.html

2) http://www.nps.gov/chcu/planyourvisit/upload/

KIN%20YA’%20A%20-%202005.pdf

(Many thanks to Mark Evans my indomitable editor for helping me finally get this together and ready to publish. In the future, digital Neanderthal that I am notwithstanding, I’ll try and manage better on my own. MBS)

Success, by my own standards at least, in my other writing (ReTired Tucson Teacher) has encouraged me to venture back in time to my first profession: archaeology. I spent several years working as an archaeologist back in the 70s and then as I moved into education I continued to dabble in the field both figuratively and in fact. While I would like to say that I enjoyed the scientific investigation and thrill of discovery but, truth is, I just loved getting dirty.

My intent in these articles is to take you places you may be interested in seeing. Most of you will probably never get to these places in person. If you are a professional archaeologist you have probably already been to most of them so it may not be of that much interest to you. But I will highlight some of my favorite archaeological sites that are off the well-beaten, asphalt path or gravel path, okay, barely recognizable marks of tire tracks in the dirt; and in doing so I hope to convey to the interested layman or the involved avocational archaeologist, some of the wonder I feel upon arriving at places of storied history and less storied prehistory for the first time.

When your Dad is an archaeologist you get to tromp through Pueblo Bonito in your Oshkosh overalls and Holly Hobbie sunbonnet for your first vacation. Photo by Marc Severson

For twenty years I worked for Pima College. Part of the time it was as an archaeologist working in a lab analyzing archaeological finds. But for most of those two decades I was a teacher in community service classes and a tour guide to various archaeological and anthropological sites in the southwest. I described the job as going to the places I liked to go to and taking other people with me. It was the best second job ever!

Most of my tours were localized in Arizona and New Mexico though I also visited places in Colorado and Utah. Occasionally I would even venture across the border into Mexico. Usually I would be gone for three to five days staying in motels near to where we were going. I got to know some of the best restaurants in towns like Gallup and Chinle. And to answer your question, “Yes there are some!” I also got to know a lot of great people along the way and I will share some of my memories of them. Come along for the ride if you like, I’m going places that I like to go and you are welcome to join me.

Riding with our guide as we approach the White House in Canyon de Chelly. Even an experienced tour guide sometimes needs to call on the expertise of someone more familiar with the nuances of his area. My favorite guide in de Chelly was named David. He knew every sight and all their stories. In all my trips into the canyons with him we only got stuck once, and that was a mechanical breakdown not quicksand. Photo by Marc Severson

Many towns and other locations on Indian reservations will have information of a general nature for their visitors. This sign is from the town of Zuni. Zuni Pueblo, locally known as Halona-wa was once a bustling place. Most of the 49ers stopped off here to get supplies prior to heading across the Mojave desert. Photo by Marc Severson