Pacal Wrote:
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>
> I suppose it could depend on the severity of the
> drought, certainly something caused them to
> abandon Chaco and then build those extrodinary
> cliff dwellings and then ashort time later (at
> most 2 centuries probably less) abandon most of
> them. This does seem like the behavior of people
> acting under signifigant strain.

I agree but I do think that the behaviour is peculiar. Drought could not possibly be the only reason why they would undertake what would've been a major endeavor to build some of these cliff dwellings. They didn't just slap these things together. They took time to build them properly and decorate the plasters. It just doesn't quite seem the act of a drought starved people but maybe a people strained by drought and invaders stealing their stores.


>
> Certainly the collapse of Chaco almost certainly
> was not a particularily pleasant event and it
> appears likely that these dwellings were aresponse
> to the collapse and its aftermath.

The expansion of the dwellings, probably. I can't be certain but I think that there are cliff dwellings that pre-date the collapse of Chaco Canyon. I think that somebody had the idea that they needed to return to the cliffsides again. They took such care in what they built there. Perhaps the idea was trying to please somebody and two generations later, they decided the whole idea didn't work, lol.

>
> Lots of room for speculation.

Definitely.

Stephanie




In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.--Ralph Waldo Emerson