Chacoan Ritual Landscapes: The View from Red Mesa Valley

A n investigation of great house community autonomy requires an understanding of the relationships between the communities and Chaco Canyon. Great house communities have been primarily defined by virtue of the presence of Bonito-style (Chacoan) architectural forms, yet the processes underlying the spread of this architecture throughout the San Juan Basin are poorly understood. Because the largest and most impressive concentration of Bonito-style architecture is in Chaco Canyon, the canyon is usually assumed to be the hub from which the architecture emanated. Bonito-style architecture at great house communities could have been built by migrants carrying masonry traditions from Chaco into