Chaco Culture Conservancy

Great houses are GREAT, but have you taken time to learn more about small houses?

Within Chaco Culture National Historical Park, there are hundreds of small house sites...mostly placed on the south side of the canyon opposite the great houses. The ancestral peoples who built them grouped them together into what look like small communities. It is possible that each community was defined by a family group, and they may have been associated with individual great houses.

Scientists generally believe that small house sites were residences, which may answer the question "where did everyone live, if not in the great houses?"

Here are a few things to know about small houses:

✔ They predate the great houses, being built around late A.D. 700s - early 800s
✔ They are almost always single story, often built using single block wide masonry
✔ Smaller rooms than great houses
✔ Standard floor plans
✔ These communities were not typically built with an associated kiva, the exception being the Casa Rinconada community

Today, you can visit several excavated small house sites that are part of the Casa Rinconada community and are accessible via the 1/2 mile trail that surrounds the great kiva. Keep in mind, these are only a handful of the hundreds of small houses that exist in the canyon!


Information from: The Chaco Handbook - An Encyclopedic Guide by R. Gwinn Vivian and Bruce Hilpert

🪐Drops of Jupiter 🪐

There's no better place to witness the night sky than Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

How did you celebrate International Dark Sky Week? Let us know in the comments, or share your favorite night sky memory 👇


📷: Clif Taylor. Jupiter shining through a doorway in Pueblo del Arroyo.