Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Chaco Culture National Historical Park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington. The park preserves one of the most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas in the United States. Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancestral Puebloans between AD 900 and 1150.
About Chaco Culture National Historical Park in brief
Chaco Culture National Historical Park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington. The park preserves one of the most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas in the United States. Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancestral Puebloans. Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction. Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a fifty-year drought commencing in 1130. The sites are considered sacred ancestral homelands by the Hopi and pueblo people, who maintain oral accounts of their historical migration from Chaco and their spiritual relationship to the land. It is located within the San Juan Basin, atop the vast Colorado Plateau, surrounded by the Chuska Mountains to the west, theSan Juan Mountains toThe north, and the San Pedro Mountains tothe east. The canyon is distinct from the wider Chaco Core, which lie within the Chaco Valley, a region of flat grassland with infrequent stands of timber. As the park averages 1.8 inches of rainfall annually, the canyon and wider region of the Chacra Valley average 8 inches annually. The region is only 15 miles east of the Continental Divide, and different drainage patterns differentiate it from other and nearby nearby regions.
The Chaco Slope, the Slope Valley, the Gobernador Slope and the Gouska Valley are all within the region of high xeric scrubland and steppe, the latter of which is the only part of the park that receives more than 1 inch of rainfall a year. The national park is on the Trails of the Ancients Byway, one of New Mexico Scenic Byways. It’s located in the arid and sparsely populated Four Corners region, in the southwestern corner of the state. The main canyon floor slopes downward to the northwest at a gentle grade of 30 feet per mile ; it is bisected by the Chaco Wash, an arroyo that rarely bears water. The principal ChacoAn complexes, such as Puebli Bonito, Nuevo Alto, and Kin Kletso, have elevations of 6,200 to 6,440 feet. The alluvial canyon floor slope downward at a gradual 30 feet per mile. The mesa comprises sandstone and shale formations dating from the Late-retaceous, Verde Verde formation, which are buried under roughly 125 feet of sediment. The canyon’s main aquifers were too deep to be of use to ancient ChacoANS: only several smaller and shallower sources supported the small springs that sustained them. Today, aside from occasional storm runoff coursing through arroyos, substantial surface water—springs, pools, wells—is virtually nonexistent. Large gaps between the southwestern cliff faces—side canyons known as rincons were critical in funneling rain-bearing storms.
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This page is based on the article Chaco Culture National Historical Park published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 11, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
