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<p>This paper examines the Chaco South Road, a monumental roadway associated with the precolonial Indigenous center at Chaco Canyon (ca. AD 850–1140) in the North American Southwest, as a persistent place utilized for religious practices across multiple centuries. I present the results of new fieldwork to demonstrate the presence of striking geological features and ruined architectural traces of the pre-Chacoan past along the South Road corridor. I argue that the affective allure of these places was central to the road’s use during the 11th-century florescence of monumental architecture, social inequality, and regional influence at Chaco Canyon. I also raise the possibility that certain segments of Chaco’s South Road were first established as processional routes during the Basketmaker III (ca. AD 500–750) and Pueblo I (ca. AD 750–900) periods. Portions of the road itself may therefore have been persistent places whose use across centuries added to the corridor’s religious power. I close by proposing that the South Road’s monumentalization indexes a Chacoan discourse regarding the influence of regions to the south in Chaco’s rise as a ceremonial center. More broadly, the case study of Chaco’s South Road underscores the religious, affective dimensions underlying the persistence of certain routes through the landscape worldwide.</p>

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Processing Into the Past: The Chaco South Road as a Multi-Century Religious Corridor

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年12月8日

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  • Robert S. Weiner

摘要

This paper examines the Chaco South Road, a monumental roadway associated with the precolonial Indigenous center at Chaco Canyon (ca. AD 850–1140) in the North American Southwest, as a persistent place utilized for religious practices across multiple centuries. I present the results of new fieldwork to demonstrate the presence of striking geological features and ruined architectural traces of the pre-Chacoan past along the South Road corridor. I argue that the affective allure of these places was central to the road’s use during the 11th-century florescence of monumental architecture, social inequality, and regional influence at Chaco Canyon. I also raise the possibility that certain segments of Chaco’s South Road were first established as processional routes during the Basketmaker III (ca. AD 500–750) and Pueblo I (ca. AD 750–900) periods. Portions of the road itself may therefore have been persistent places whose use across centuries added to the corridor’s religious power. I close by proposing that the South Road’s monumentalization indexes a Chacoan discourse regarding the influence of regions to the south in Chaco’s rise as a ceremonial center. More broadly, the case study of Chaco’s South Road underscores the religious, affective dimensions underlying the persistence of certain routes through the landscape worldwide.