We are not the first culture to have and rely upon international trade. If we feel that way, perhaps it’s because we coined the term “globalism” to reflect our connected global marketplace. Unfortunately, that is the only contribution we made to global trade. The spice roads connected China and Europe via Persia and India for thousands of years before an unknown Venetian sailor in a Genoese prison recounted his travels to the East.
Cultures are only the sum of their societal input regardless of how diverse they may be. Life in the Roman Empire was completely different depending on whether you were in Gaul or in Palestine but it was Roman life none-the-less.
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| Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA (Author's Collection. Copyright 2015) |
Perhaps this overview should be applied to the Ancestral Puebloans. In an attempt to explain the chasm of unknowns associated with their history, today’s scholars are trying to invent their own “Theory of Everything”. Sadly, they are precluding obvious and significant facts in order to do it. The largest fact is that the Chaco World conducted significant, long-distance trade not only with their contemporary societies, but also with Mesoamerica and there is evidence of even wider commercial circles. These Ancestral Puebloans had contact with many external societies and being highly adaptable people, they traded for different goods from different regions: Sea shells from the West Coast, Macaws and cacao from Mesoamerica and copper ornaments which may have come from The midwest state of Missouri in today’s United States. As we do today, Chacoans used what they could, acquired what they needed and tried to leave a better world for their children. So, when studying a culture that provides no eye-witnesses and only limited recorded resources, we must be careful not to be fooled by the facts. Because of this situation of limited resources, we rely heavily upon archaeology and, to a lesser degree, the oral traditions of today’s Puebloan tribes and it is imperative that we do not use any single-source of input if we hope to arrive at a viable conclusion.
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| Kin Klizhin Tower Kiva, Kin Klizhin Outlier, New Mexico, USA (Author's Collection. Copyright 2015) |
The conclusion is that Chaco Canyon was, for centuries, a vibrant culture diffused throughout the Four-Corners Region of today’s United States that had contact with their contemporary cultures both near and far. The level of this contact differed over the centuries but left its indelible mark on Chacoan Culture for the rest of time. Chacoans assimilated many cultural traditions, both good and bad, and, in the end, all these forces - internal, external, cultural, socio-political and environmental - forced Ancestral Puebloans to abandon their homes and disappear into time.
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| Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA (Author's Collection. Copyright 2015) |
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