Chacoan and Local Inftuences in Three Great House Communities in the Northern San Juan Region

The northern San Juan region is best known for the spectacular 13th-century cliff dwellings and towers at Mesa Verde and Hovenweep, but this expanse also harbored nwnerous Chaco-era great houses beginning in the late 11 th century. The Bluff great house, located in southeastern Utah, was one of these structures. Reports on the few great houses in the northern San Juan region that have been excavated are meager and we know little of the communities that surrounded the great houses. Excavations at the Bluff great house between 1995 and 1998 and a survey of the Bluff community in 1997, undertaken