Chaco Style at Chetro Ketl

This wall is one of a few beautiful masonry styles surviving today at Chaco Canyon. It is a part the back wall - the straight lined wall in this D-shaped structure called Chetro Ketl. You may already know, but Chaco Canyon, as with Mesa Verde, is shrouded in mystery. Chaco Canyon is not a real hospitable place. There's no river, no great source of water, they don't have seep springs like the ones at Mesa Verde, and they don't have great potential for farming.

So why did they build all these structures? Who helped them? Why at this spot? They had to import wood, probably water and food, and labor. One idea is that there was slavery. Another is that people were hired to work or came and worked and stayed to serve some spiritual hierarchy that was dominating the region.

It was a dominant culture. Chaco-styled great houses are spread for many miles and had roads from Chaco to these great houses. One story from Book of the Hopi has a ceremonial foot race for boys starting in Chaco and ending up at Mesa Verde's Sun Temple (see below).