Great House origins and population stability at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico: The isotopic evidence

Price, T. Douglas; Plog, Stephen; LeBlanc, Steven A.; Krigbaum, John

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.11.043

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Famous examples of this third size-range of spread-out settlements (Figure 7) are Great Zimbabwe (Garlake, 1970;Pikirayi and Chirikure, 2011;Chirikure et al, 2016Chirikure et al, , 2017, Cahokia (Fowler, 1989;Kelly and Brown, 2014;Baires, 2015;Pauketat et al, 2015) and the European oppida of the late 1st millennium BCE (Collis, 1984;Sievers and Schönfelder, 2012;Moore et al, 2013;Poux, 2014). It turns out that some very rare example even range up to 40-70 sq km and perhaps larger (Figure 8) such as Gelonas-a Scythian gorodische (Shramko, 1987(Shramko, , 2012Murzin et al, 1999;Zöllner et al, 2008) and the vast area of Chaco Canyon (Vivian, 1970;Wills and Dorshow, 2012;Drake et al, 2014;Price et al, 2017) in the SW of North America. As yet no-formally agreed term is available to refer to this class of settlement though some are contentiously called urban or else rejected as urban, either periodically or at the same time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trajectories to Low-Density Settlements Past and Present: Paradox and Outcomes

Fletcher

2019

Front. Digit. Humanit.

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The conventional history of urban growth defines agrarian-based cities prior to the nineteenth century CE as densely inhabited and commonly bounded by defenses such as walls. By contrast industrial-based cities are viewed as more spread out and without marked boundaries. Since the 1960s a trajectory toward extensive, low-density urbanism with sprawling, scattered suburbs surrounding a denser core has been formally recognized and given various names such as megalopolis in the West and desakota in southern and eastern Asia. These sprawling industrial cities have been regarded as a unique derivative of modern phenomena such as mechanized transport and the commercial property market. However, this set of premises are not valid. The agrarian-based world also contained dispersed, low-density urbanism-on its grandest scale, the vast circa 1,000 sq km urban complex of Greater Angkor and the famous Maya cities of lowland Central America with maximum areas of about 200 sq km. The Maya only used pedestrian and riverine transport so the conventional transport explanation for industrial dispersed urbanism is at best partial. There was another trajectory to extensive, low-density settlement forms for places which were generally <15-20 sq km in extent but could on rare occasions reach areas as large as 40 to 90 sq km. Famous examples are Great Zimbabwe, Chaco Canyon and the European oppida of the late 1st millennium BCE. No-formally agreed term is available to refer to them. I will refer to them by default as "Giants." The three trajectories to low-density settlement form redefine the history of settlement growth and the meanings of the term "urban." Worryingly, none of the successive low-density settlements derive from any of the low-density cases of the preceding trajectory. Neither Angkor nor the Classic Maya cities have any connection to the industrial low-density cities. By contrast compact cities, the epitome of the obsolete definition of cities display continuity to succeeding urban forms over several 1,000 years. The implications for modern, giant, low-density cities are ominous.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trajectories to Low-Density Settlements Past and Present: Paradox and Outcomes

Fletcher

2019

Front. Digit. Humanit.

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“…Price et al . (2016), for example, have used isotope analysis of human remains, comparing Pueblo Bonito individuals from Room 33—one of the richest burial chambers in the Southwest—with individuals from sites to the north and north-west. They found that the isotopic signatures for Pueblo Bonito individuals did not overlap with those from northern areas.…”

Section: Chaco Migration Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Chaco migration scenarios using dynamic social network analysis

et al. 2018

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“…Human isotopic variation, however, suggests that Chaco Canyon’s populations came from multiple areas, but probably not from the Northern San Juan (Price et al . 2017). Others point out that the earlier Basketmaker III ( c. AD 500–750) occupation of Chaco Canyon has been underestimated (Wills et al .…”

Section: Differentiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2017; Price et al . 2017). Furthermore, it does not appear that salinity would have been a problem for Chaco farmers (Tankersley et al .…”

Section: Feeding Chacomentioning

confidence: 99%