| While the AD 1020-1150 Chaco System is physically defined as well by its geography and ceramics, it is known primarily by its architecture and settlement pattern: its ancestral Puebloan, or Anasazi, great houses are found near or amidst surrounding smaller, presumably residential sites. Archaeologists have yet to agree on the nature of the Chaco System in part because of uncertainty as to the nature of the great house. In this dissertation, a three-dimensional slice of Chaco Canyon, with large and small sites, is recreated at a moment in time. Observations are made about the reconstructed landscape by drawing on perceptual theories to discern what is visibly significant, and, in accord with the semiotic premise that architecture encodes meaningful information for its creator-users and for archaeologists, by attempting to describe what is seen in terms of signs and sign manipulations. The research strategy suggests there is value in attempting to assure ourselves that we see what the Ansazi saw before we read meaning in their architecture, and that a perceptual or experiential approach may be more fruitful for archaeology than semiotics itself or semiotics alone. The reconstructions and analysis themselves show that great houses visually and in terms of access were qualitatively different than small sites. They suggest great houses were nondomestic, likely ritual structures and that the Chaco System owes its architecture and settlement patterns to attempts at emulation. |
