New Research on the Chaco South Road by Robert S. Weiner, PhD, Dartmouth College

The Great House of Kin Ya’a located along the South Road.

The monumental avenues associated with Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico are among the most enigmatic archaeological features of the precolonial Indigenous Americas. In this talk, our speaker will present recent fieldwork on the Chaco South Road, one of the longest avenues in the Chaco World, and discuss newly found architectural sites along the road and the road's relationship with sacred geography. Numerous aspects of the South Road's archaeology suggest it may predate the 11th century height of monumentality at Chaco Canyon, raising questions about the connections between roads and the rise of Chaco as a religiopolitical center. Our speaker will also compare the archaeology of the South Road with that of the better-known North Road, discussing how these two regional-scale corridors functioned within the Chaco World. 

Robert Weiner, PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth College, where he is affiliated with the Department of Religion. His research focuses on Chaco Canyon and its world, with particular attention to Chacoan religion, monumental roads, and Diné oral histories. Weiner earned concurrent BA-MA degrees from Brown University and a PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder. He has published nineteen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and he has won grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and School for Advanced Research among other funders. Weiner conducts archaeological fieldwork on the Navajo Nation and elsewhere throughout the Four Corner s. 

This lecture will be presented virtually on the Society’s Zoom platform. You must be preregistered to attend. A registration link will be available in the second half of May. Now that you are here, why not visit other parts of our website and consider buying a t-shirt or joining the Society.