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Foreword

¶ 1   Over thirty years ago in the fall of 1982, Robert Powers began planning a 100 percent inventory of the archaeological resources on unsurveyed lands added to Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The new lands, or additions, consisted of 5,263 ha (13,005 acres) in six separate tracts: the North, South, Chacra Mesa, Kin Klizhin, Kin Bineola, and Kin Ya’a areas. A little more than half of this total, 2,718 ha (6,717 acres), had been previously surveyed by Alden Hayes (1981) at the beginning of the Chaco Project. The remaining 2,545 ha (6,288 acres), including all of the Kin Klizhin, Kin Bineola, and Chacra Mesa additions, as well as a small portion of the South Addition, had never been systematically investigated. These four areas were surveyed under Powers’s direction over two field seasons in 1983 and 1984. The purpose of this report is to present, describe, and interpret the data gathered during the field effort.

¶ 2   Chapters 1 through 8 of this volume were completed in 1987. The concluding chapter, only partially written at the time, had to be shelved while Powers assumed other duties. The report sat for over a decade until work resumed under the direction of Ruth Van Dyke, Frances Joan Mathien and Powers. In 1999, the chapter authors, by now scattered in a wide variety of professional positions, were asked to review their 12 year old manuscripts. Some undertook substantial revisions, while others preferred to let their original chapters stand. Subsequent to the author revisions, Van Dyke revised and completed Chapters 1 and 9 in 2000-2001 while a resident scholar at the School of American Research (now the School for Advanced Research). Following preparation of the remaining illustrations, and conversion of the manuscript to a single electronic format, the entire volume was peer reviewed. The peer reviewers, David M Brugge, W. James Judge, and R. Gwinn Vivian provided extensive and extremely useful comments. Unfortunately by then both Van Dyke and Powers had other pressing commitments. Even more dispiriting, our continuing efforts to obtain National Park Service funding for publication of the Chaco Additions Survey volume were unsuccessful. The volume remained in limbo until spring of 2011 when Steve Plog offered to publish the manuscript electronically on the Chaco Research Archive web site (www.chacoarchive.org). It is a result of Steve’s good will and interest in making Chacoan archaeological data accessible that the volume is now finally available.

¶ 3   As readers delve into the volume they should be aware of several things. Most importantly, the volume is a historical document, despite its publication date. Although the editors have worked diligently to address the peer review comments and to eliminate inconsistencies, errors, and other factual problems, a decision was reached following the author revisions in 1999 not to further update the manuscript. As such readers will need to apply their own knowledge of the current Chacoan archaeological literature to evaluate the interpretations presented by the volume authors.

¶ 4   A second element revealing the volume’s long history is use of the word “Anasazi” by the authors in reference to the ancient people who once lived in the Chaco area. “Anasazi” was the word in archaeological usage during the time of the Chaco Additions survey, and it was not realistic at this late point in the volume’s development to replace it.

¶ 5   A much earlier version of this Foreword apologized for our inability to publish several large appendices, which were printouts of the Chaco Additions survey database. Fortunately this is no longer a stumbling block. Hyperlinks to the main data base printouts (settlement, ceramics, lithics, and historic trash) are provided in the report appendices, and the data presented in the tables are “queryable” on the Chaco Research Archive website. Copies of all of the 957 site record forms completed by the survey are also available on the website.

¶ 6   Finally, we would like to express our sincere apologies to each of the volume authors for the interminable delays in the publication of their work. Each of them, because of circumstances wholly beyond their control, has had to watch their once fresh ideas grow older and older without benefit of recognition or debate. It is a testament to the quality of their contributions that we believe this volume still has a significant role to play in Chacoan archaeology.

Robert P. Powers and Ruth M. Van Dyke