Chaco Canyon: Societies Run By Women for Centuries



About 20 years ago, wife and I visited a Federal Park in New Mexico called Chaco Canyon. Unlike most Federal sites it was accessible only by about 15 miles of gravel roads. It was a wonderful experience.

The site is a large expanse of ruins, parts of walls and outlines of many little structures plus bigger ones with many rooms. Besides being on the backroad, the location in a high desert is very desolate. Obviously a large complex society had built it. But who were they, what did it all mean and why was it there is such an unlikely place?

Since our visit, research has discovered who was buried in Chaco Canyon and how the society was organized. Plus, the mystery of why it was abandoned is known.

Analysis of burial sites has revealed the Chaco Canyon was the center of a societies we now call Pueblo and Hopi. Drought ended about 1,000 years of prosperity in the early 1100's.  The royal people buried there reveal of royal linage of women. The royal linage not male. Power was passed from mother to daughter for many generations. How fun it is to learn that the Christian version of "natural law" where authority is men is not "natural" at all.  

While the current climate is desert, the time when the buildings were constructed was one of ample rainfall. This supported a large population. It was this prosperity that allowed the extensive religious buildings and it royalty. 

Climate change came and the powerful gods and royal families were no match. People left. What remains, however, is statement of the power of religion to take labor and material away from other uses. We see a bit of Chaco Canyon in the churches of every U.S. city and town.

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