Chetro Ketl

Chetro Ketl
Chetro Ketl from the north mesa
Location	Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States
Nearest city	Gallup, New Mexico
Area	3 acres (1.2 ha)
Elevation	6,000 feet (1,800 m)
Built	945–1070
Architectural style(s)	Ancestral Puebloan
Governing body	National Park Service
Location of Chetro Ketl in New Mexico

Chetro Ketl is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archaeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. The meaning and origin of the name are disputed, but Navajo translations include "broad-house", "house in the corner", and "shining house". Construction began c. 945 and was largely complete by 1070, with significant remodeling occurring as late as 1116. Archeologists estimate that Chetro Ketl once housed approximately 1,500 people. By 1140, after experiencing dramatic crop failures during a period of prolonged drought, the Puebloans began to emigrate north from Chaco Canyon to locations such as Colorado's Mesa Verde, and by 1250 Chetro Ketl had been abandoned.

The great house was re-discovered in 1823 by the Spanish governor of New Mexico, José Antonio Vizcarra. American exploration of the area began in 1849, when Lt. James Simpson, a surveyor with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, documented the physical characteristics of the major ruins in Chaco Canyon. Formal excavations of Chetro Ketl were conducted during 1920 and 1921, and again between 1929 and 1935, by Edgar L. Hewett, president of New Mexico Normal University and director of the first archeological field school in the canyon.

Archeologists estimate that it required more than 500,000 person-hours, 26,000 wood beams, and 50,000,000 stone blocks to erect Chetro Ketl, which is approximately 450 feet (140 m) by 280 feet (85 m) and 1,540 feet in circumference; the diameter of its great kiva is 62.5 feet (19.1 m). Chetro Ketl contained approximately 400 rooms, which encompassed more than 250,000 square feet (23,000 m²); it was the largest great house by surface area in Chaco Canyon, covering nearly 3 acres (1.2 ha). The structure was composed of several groups of rooms built three-deep, stacked one to three stories tall, and organized in an D-shaped configuration with an exterior wall that enclosed a raised open space plaza.

Chetro Ketl was built opposite a large opening in the canyon known as South Gap, which helped maximize the building's exposure to the Sun, while increasing visibility and access to the south. 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land to the east of the structure are thought to have been irrigated farms fields, but might also have been used to raise frogs and fresh-water shrimp. Chetro Ketl lies 0.4 miles (0.64 km) from Pueblo Bonito, in an area that archeologists call "downtown Chaco". Scholars theorize that the area might be an ancestral "sacred zone" that included Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Bonito, and Pueblo del Arroyo. In the cliffs behind Chetro Ketl are ancient stairways that lead to prehistoric roads on the mesa top. The site contains architectural elements, such as a colonnade and tower kiva, that appear to reflect a Mesoamerican influence. The building has deteriorated significantly since its re-discovery in the early 19th century, and archeologists warn that its usefulness as a source of information about Chacoan Culture is slowly diminishing.

Etymology

Carravahal, a Mexican guide who worked for the first American expedition in 1849, translated Chetro Ketl as "rain town". Nonetheless, the origin and true meaning of the name are unknown. Archeologists Stephen H. Lekson and Peter McKenna note that while most of the names given to Chacoan ruins are either Spanish or Navajo, "Chetro Ketl is neither."

In 1889, Navajo historian Washington Mathews reported that, in tribal mythology, the building is referred to as Kintyél or Kintyéli, which means "broad-house". Other Navajo translations include "house in the corner" and "shining house".

Location and position

Map of Chaco Culture National Historic Park

Chaco Canyon is located in northwestern New Mexico 60 miles (97 km) north of the Santa Fe railroad and 130 miles (210 km) from Gallup, the nearest city. The sandstone canyon lies in a desert terrain at an elevation of approximately 6,000 feet (1,800 m). The Continental divide is 20 miles (32 km) east. The Chaco group includes some ruins not in the canyon proper, extending 35 miles (56 km) from Kin Ya'a in the south to Pueblo Alto in the north, and 20 miles (32 km) from Pueblo Pintado to the northeast and Peñasco Blanco in the southwest. In terms of drainage and cultural affinity, the area is part of the San Juan Basin, which includes Mesa Verde in Colorado and Kayenta, Arizona.

Chetro Ketl lies .4 miles (0.64 km) east of Pueblo Bonito, in an area that archeologists call "downtown Chaco". Scholars theorize that the area might be an ancestral sacred zone demarcated by a low masonry wall that encloses Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Bonito, and Pueblo del Arroyo. Chetro Ketl was constructed on the north end of an open space that was later converted to an enclosed plaza. The great house was built opposite a large opening in the canyon known as South Gap, which helped maximize the building's exposure to the Sun while increasing visibility and access to the south. Chetro Ketl is not perfectly aligned to the cardinal directions, but its nominal southerly orientation further enhanced solar exposure to its tiered rooms. Like Pueblo Bonito, its rear wall runs parallel to the canyon, and at less than 100 feet (30 m) from the cliffs its proximity allowed inhabitants to benefit from passive solar energy emanating from the rocks. Chetro Ketl's position is symmetrical to Pueblo Bonito, and the buildings lie on a north-south axis that runs through the canyon.

Background and discovery

Chetro Ketl, facing west

In the years following the Ancestral Puebloan's departure from Chaco Canyon, several migrations to the region occurred. During the 1400s, Navajo people emigrated to the area from northwestern Canada, and in the 1700s Spanish explorers and settlers came from the south. The Spanish investigated parts of the San Juan Basin, but there is no record of them ever finding Chaco Canyon. When cartographer Bernardo de Miera y Pacheo drew a map in 1774 of Spanish land holdings in the region, he labeled Chaco Canyon with the word Chaca, but it is unlikely he ever visited the area. In 1823, the governor of New Mexico, José Antonio Vizcarra, discovered ancient ruins in the canyon during a military campaign against the Navajo. Vizcarra's account is the first historical record of the Chacoan great houses that were, "of such antiquity that their inhabitants were not known to Europeans". In 1844, Josiah Gregg made the first published reference to Chaco Canyon in his popular book, Commerce of the Prairies.

Ancient beams in Chetro Ketl

American exploration of the region began following the Mexican–American War of 1846–48 and the United States' acquisition of the New Mexico Territory soon afterward. During a military campaign against the Navajo in 1849, Lt. James Simpson, a surveyor with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, became interested in the canyon's ruins. Led by the governor of Jemez Pueblo, Francisco Horta, Simpson and the brothers Richard and Edward Kern, an artist and cartographer, respectively, explored the canyon. Simpson was impressed by Chetro Ketl's masonry, which he described as "a combination of science and art which can only be referred to a higher stage of civilization and refinement than is discoverable in the works of Mexicans or Pueblos of the present day." Simpson and company documented their findings, noting the location and style of the great houses, taking measurements, and sketching the canyon's major ruins. They described the kivas as "circular apartments sunk in the ground". Simpson briefly explored Chetro Ketl, documenting six of its kivas and 124 rooms on the ground floor of the four-story building. He noted an especially well-preserved room where, "the stone walls still have their plaster upon them, in a tolerable state of preservation." Archeologist R. Gwinn Vivian credits Simpson's 1850 report detailing their brief exploration of the canyon and Richard Kern's lithographs as the beginning of Chacoan archeology.

Proper archeological investigation of Chaco Canyon began in 1895, when Colorado rancher-turned archeologist Richard Wetherill began his exploration of the canyon. Wetherill was well known for his discovery of some of the largest Ancestral Puebloan dwellings in Mesa Verde, and when amateur archeologist Sidney Palmer invited him to Chaco Canyon, Wetherill organized a one-month expedition to the region. Soon afterward, he secured financial backing for a full season, and in 1896 excavations began at Pueblo Bonito.

Excavation

Excavation map of Chetro Ketl by Florence Hawley (1934), with great kiva (lower right) and central room block (top center)

The first formal excavation of Chetro Ketl was conducted during 1920 and 1921 by Edgar L. Hewett, president of New Mexico Normal University and director of Chaco Canyon's first archeological field school. Hewett first visited the canyon in 1902, and in 1916 he arranged for the School of American Research to participate in excavations at Chetro Ketl with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. He made some preliminary studies and the end of 1916, but with the onset of World War I these plans were delayed. When work resumed in 1920, financial considerations caused the Smithsonian to withdraw its support. Hewett suspended his research during archeologist Neil Judd's 1924 to 1927 National Geographic Society financed excavation of Pueblo Bonito, but returned to Chetro Ketl in 1929 with graduate students from his newly founded Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Hewett studied the canyon until 1935, and several Chaco scholars worked for or with him during this period, including Gordon Vivian (father of R. Gwinn Vivian), Edwin Ferdon, Paul Reiter, and Florence Hawley. Despite having spent several years excavating Chetro Ketl, Hewett never published a detailed account of his research there. Nonetheless, much is known about his studies through theses and dissertations written by students who worked with him. In 2015, archeologist Stephen Plog commented: "in retrospect, Hewett's Chetro Ketl excavations fell well below the standards of ... the National Geographic Project."

Inside Chetro Ketl, facing west

Hawley began her studies with Hewett in 1929, focusing primarily on dendrochronology and ceramic dating. She spent two summers excavating Chetro Ketl's refuse mound, and demonstrated that charcoal found in it could be used for tree-ring dating. Her 1933 doctoral dissertation showed that the mound's layers represent a reverse stratigraphy. Subsequent excavations indicated that the trash mound was likely created by more than typical household waste; numerous layers of the mound are composed of refuse from large-scale feasts that included the ritualistic smashing of pottery. Hawley estimated that Chetro Ketl had once housed approximately 1,500 people. She worked at the site through 1933, and in archeologist Brian Fagan's opinion her comparison dating of masonry walls and potsherds significantly enhanced the study of Chacoan culture. He credits her with aiding the establishment of one of archeology's most accurate chronologies. In 1983, as the only surviving member of Hewett's 1929–33 group of researchers, Hawley noted the difficulties of excavating Chaco Canyon during the Great Depression: "The young archeologists and dendrochronologists of today, struggling to reconstruct Chetro Ketl from the notes, maps, and too scanty publications and incomplete collections of the past, know little of the exigencies which have made their task difficult."

Chacoan turquoise pendant like those found in Chetro Ketl's great kiva, c. 1000-1040

12th century Chacoan twined sandal

In 1921, Hewett excavated Chetro Ketl's great kiva, where he discovered a more ancient one buried 12 feet (3.7 m) below. He also found several macaw feathers, but no copper bells, like those found at Pueblo Bonito, as he had expected. While Hewett was surprised at the lack of exotic items at the site, where no human burials have been found, a stash of black-and-white stone necklaces and some wooden artifacts were uncovered there, both of which archeologists consider unique in the region. The wooden figures, some of which depict birds, indicate the presence of ceremonial altars. Lekson notes that after "spectacular amounts of material" were recovered at Pueblo Bonito, "expectations for Chetro Ketl were undoubtedly high", and although Hewett and his students were ultimately disappointed, he describes the wooden artifacts as "an extraordinary collection ... [that] has not dispelled the notion that Chetro Ketl was a 'dry hole'".

In 1931 and 1932, Reiter and Gordon Vivian discovered caches of turquoise beads and pendants while digging in the great kiva. In all, 17,454 beads were recovered from the kiva's buried niches. Twined sandals have also been recovered from Chetro Ketl.

The relative lack of exotic material uncovered at Chetro Ketl, such as shells, copper bells, and macaw feathers, might indicate its lesser importance compared to Pueblo Bonito, where those items have been found in abundance. However, because Chetro Ketl has only been partially excavated definitive conclusions prove elusive. In 1937, W.W. Postlewaite, who had for three seasons directed Hewett's excavation of Chetro Ketl's great kiva, oversaw the final work at the site conducted by the University of New Mexico and the School of American Research. A long period of nearly continuous study at Chaco Canyon ended in 1965, when Vivian and colleague Tom Mathews published their findings on the great house Kin Kletso.

Description

The Jackson Staircase behind Chetro Ketl

Chetro Ketl's 400 rooms and 250,000 square feet (23,000 m²) made it the largest great house by surface area in Chaco Canyon; sections of it reached four stories, three of which remain. The building covers nearly 3 acres (1.2 ha), with approximately half of that in the enclosed plaza, which was lined by wings of rooms to the north, east, and west. Its circumference is 1,540 feet (470 m), and its great kiva is 62.5 feet (19.1 m) in diameter. Chetro Ketl is a D-shaped structure; its south facing wall is 280 feet (85 m) long, and the north wall is more than 450 feet (140 m) long. Rooms were constructed three-deep and three or four stories tall, and terraced so that the ground level that faced the plaza in the center of the building was one-story. The great house had twelve kivas, two large ones in the west wing plaza, one of which is a great kiva, and ten in the central room block, including one known as a tower kiva.

Chetro Ketl's plaza is raised above the surrounding grade by 5.75 feet (1.75 m), a feature that is unique in the canyon, where the plazas of all other great houses are level with the surrounding landscape. The trash mound was 205 feet (62 m) long, 120 feet (37 m) wide, and 20 feet (6.1 m) tall; it contained between 219,000 cubic feet (6,200 m³) and 275,000 cubic feet (7,800 m³) of debris. The front of the building contains a mysterious feature that includes two closely spaced parallel walls that archeologists call "the moat". The "long, narrow, curving, hall-like room", which runs along the outside wall, appears to have been backfilled around the same time that the plaza was raised, c. 1070. The original purpose of the feature is unknown, but tunnels between rooms are found in more northerly Puebloan sites, and in the opinion of Lekson, Windes, and Fournier: "the moat would have allowed unobserved movement between the east and west wings".

A narrow slit along the north wall's outside surface indicates the presence of an ancient balcony, and at the head of a canyon to the north is the Jackson Staircase, a parallel set of steps cut into the cliff that the Puebloans used to climb out of the canyon. There are several rooms attached to the rear of the structure that lack direct access to the main building; Fagan believes they were dedicated to community storage. The interior walls of great houses were typically covered in a rock veneer. Judd identified four distinct types, and his typology is the most commonly accepted in the region. Chetro Ketl's interior walls, particularly those in the eastern wing, were covered in a Type IV veneer characterized by uniform pieces of sandstone with little to no exposed mortar. It is one of two great houses in the canyon with corner doorways, which might have facilitated communication between relatives living in adjacent rooms.

Great kiva

Chetro Ketl's great kiva

From the south

Facing east, with round sitting stones

Whereas most great kivas in Chaco Canyon are located adjacent to or isolated from their associated great house, Chetro Ketl's lies within the pueblo's walls. Round sandstone disks that were used for seating are still there. A 18 foot (5.5 m) by 10 foot (3.0 m) antechamber is attached to the north side of the great kiva.

The earliest and lowest floor of the great kiva lies 15 feet (4.6 m) below the current plaza surface. Several peripheral rooms abutted the space, which is located in the southeast corner of the enclosed plaza; a smaller round room, known as the Court Kiva, is lies 98 feet (30 m) to the west, in the plaza's south-central area.

Colonnade

Chetro Ketl contains a colonnade that Lekson, Thomas C. Windes, and Patricia Fournier, authors of "The Changing Faces of Chetro Ketl", describe as "possibly the defining form at Chetro Ketl or even at Chaco. It was prominent, even dominating, within the plaza." In their opinion, the colonnade, which was later filled-in with masonry to accommodate additional living space, is not only unique to Chaco Canyon, but also to Ancestral Puebloan architecture as a whole, with "no comparable features" in the region; the nearest similar structure is located more than five hundred miles away at Casas Grandes, in Mexico. The colonnade's placement and orientation to the canyon indicate that it was intended to be viewed from inside the building.

Ferdon proposed that the colonnade at Chetro Ketl was inspired by a Quetzalcoatl cult from Mesoamerica. In his opinion, the influence was brought to the region by pochteca traders, and can also be seen in the site's tri-wall structure and tower kiva, features that date to the late 1000s and early 1100s. Vivian puts him among a large group of scholars, including Charles C. Di Peso, who detect a Toltec influence in Chacoan architecture. In Lekson, Windes, and Fournier's opinion, the Mesoamerica-Chaco connection "may have been the result of an interaction mechanism of indirect contact between nuclear Mesoamerica and Chaco though northwestern Mexico", but "the development and dispersion of traits such as the colonnaded halls cannot be attributed to the Toltecs."

Construction

Chetro Ketl's north wall

Like other great houses in Chaco Canyon, Chetro Ketl was built over an extended period of time, during which the Ancestral Puebloans almost continuously added to the building, except while diverting their workforce to agriculture. Fagan identifies the period starting c. 1040 as marked by an "explosion of great house construction" that was fueled by increased rainfall in the region. By c. 1085, the Puebloans had constructed great houses at Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Alto, and Pueblo del Arroyo, during what he describes as "a time of extraordinary growth and outreach".

Trees were harvested for construction at Chetro Ketl in regular annual intervals, which contrasts with the sporadic patterns found at other sites in the canyon. Whereas a late summer and early fall harvesting cycle has been documented at other Chacoan sites, the tree felling for Chetro Ketl was undertaken during the spring and early summer. Archeologists Jeffery S. Dean and Richard L. Warren theorize that the population of the great house might have been large enough that laborers gathered structural wood during the agricultural season, or this might indicate that groups of Chacoans were dedicated to tree felling irrespective of the farming season, when most others were busy with field preparation and planting.

Building periods at Chetro Ketl by Florence M. Hawley

Second period (1030–1070; masonry types II and III)

Second period (1062–1090; masonry type III)

Third period (1100–1116; masonry types III, IV, and V)

Lekson, Windes, and Fournier date the beginning of construction at Chetro Ketl at 990; they based their estimate on 1,285 dated elements from the great house. In their opinion, Chetro Ketl was largely complete by 1070, with periodic construction occurring there until 1112, when the great kiva was remodeled.

Hawley used 143 tree-ring dates and a comparative masonry analysis to assemble a constructional history of Chetro Ketl that included three major periods: 945–1030 (masonry type I), from which no significant elements are observable, 1030–1090 (masonry types II and III), when construction and remodeling produced most of the building's extant features, and 1100–1116 (masonry types III, IV, and V), which saw renovation of existing features. According to archeologists Dean and Warren, dendrochronology indicates that "no trees were cut for use [at Chetro Ketl] after 1117." Hawley describes the latter part of the second building period as the "classic epoch" of Chetro Ketl, the period with the finest masonry, identified as type III, though types II and III overlapped during this transitional period. In her opinion, the best examples of type III masonry represent the "finest construction ever developed at Chetro Ketl".

Starting with the longest wall, the first phase produced what Fagan described as a central "rectangular room block". The first floor of the central core began two rooms deep, but was expanded to three as second story rooms were added. Several ceiling beams from a first floor room date to 1038, and construction on the second story began contemporaneously or immediately after that, but was intermittent and sectional as Chetro Ketl's growing population required more living space. By 1054, several third story rooms had been completed, and by 1060 the entire back row was three stories tall. Room 42, in the middle row, was built in 1070. The last significant construction occurred around that time, with third story additions to central kiva G in masonry style V. In Hewett's opinion, it took more than 50,000,000 sandstone blocks to complete the structure. Archeologist Mary Metcalf estimates that the project required more than 500,000 person-hours and 26,000 wood beams.

Roadways

Prehistoric roads and great houses in the San Juan Basin, superimposed on a map showing modern roads and settlements

On the mesa behind Chetro Ketl is an ancient road that leads to Pueblo Alto. Several ancient roads meet at the location, which is central to Chaco's ruins. Although the greater significance of the structure is unknown, archeologist Tom Windes estimates that it housed five to twenty families during the late 12th and early 13th centuries. There are low masonry walls nearby that are similar to the ones that enclose Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Bonito, and Pueblo del Arroyo, and Fagan believes that this might indicate a symbolic connection between the mesa and the canyon floor. Chetro Ketl and Pueblo Bonito are located equidistant from a north-south line that bisects Chaco Canyon from Pueblo Alto to Tsin Kletsin.

In 1982, archeologist Robert Powers noted that, because "the roads enter Chaco Canyon near the locations of several of the large- and medium-sized Chacoan structures", the area might represent a locus of control, or what Fagan calls "the apex of Chacoan power". Fagan believes great houses like Chetro Ketl dominated outlying communities in the area, and in 1993 archeologist David R. Wilcox proposed that a state-level society might have developed at Chaco, with an administrative center at Pueblo Bonito or Chetro Ketl. In the opinion of archeologist Frances Joan Mathien, the number of warrior-class individuals that would have been needed to support such a state − Wilcox estimated 500–1,000 − precludes his theory, and Wilcox is assuming "greater Chacoan organizational complexity than any other scholar to date".

Agriculture

The land east of Chetro Ketl contains one of the canyon's best-known examples of Ancestral Puebloan farming. Approximately 20 acres (8.1 ha) of land were divided into plots measuring 75 feet (23 m) by 45 feet (14 m), with parallel irrigation canals that supplied water to individual parcels. Several archeologists have disputed this interpretation, suggesting that the area might be the location of an unfinished great house, or it could have been used for mixing mortar or raising frogs and freshwater shrimp.

Soil analysis indicates that the field received water from both Chaco Wash and side canyons. Chaco Canyon is watered by winter storms and localized summer rains that fill the arroyos. Chaco Wash is deep, and it drains to the water table located 20 feet (6.1 m) below the canyon floor. Vivian notes the presence of farming terraces on the mesa wall behind Chetro Ketl that might have been used for growing specialized crops such as tobacco. Judd identified canals running from Pueblo Bonito to Chetro Ketl that probably carried drainage water.

Abandonment

They didn't abandon this place. It is still occupied. We can still pray to the spirits living in these places from as far away as our pueblo. The spirits are everywhere. Not just the spirits of our ancestors, but tree spirits and rock spirits. If you believe that everything has a spirit, you will think twice before harming anything.

 —Puebloan oral tradition

The Ancestral Puebloans relied on regular rainfalls to sustain their agricultural society. This proved challenging in Chaco Canyon even with consistent precipitation. By c. 1130, the rains had diminished and the maize crops that the Chacoans depended on had begun to fail, as the region increasingly suffered from the effects of a fifty-year drought. Fagan states that by 1140 "Chaco was finished". He cites a study of twelfth-century burials in the Gallup, New Mexico area that indicates as many as half of the people who lived during the drought died before the age of eighteen, with 60 percent of all deaths occurring before age thirty-five. The study estimated that for every woman, four children were needed to sustain the agriculture workforce.

The turning point for Chacoan culture prior to the widespread crop failures of 1130 were the especially dry years of 1090 to 1095, when emigration from Chaco Canyon increased significantly and Puebloan construction in outlying regions, particularly at Mesa Verde, began to flourish. Despite rapid de-population in the canyon, Windes believes that Chetro Ketl's great kiva might have been remodeled and used during the late 1100s and early 1200s. Ceramic evidence indicates that the building's last inhabitants abandoned it by 1250. Archeologists John R. Stein, Dabney Ford, and Richard Friedman believe that the presence of a haphazardly applied layer of rubble veneer to ceremonial areas in Chetro Ketl's great sanctuary indicate an "organized closure" that probably included a "termination ceremony".

Deterioration

Chetro Ketl from the mesa top, facing west (2008)

In 1983, Lekson and McKenna noted that since the re-discovery of Chetro Ketl in the early 19th century, the building's "pace of dissolution increased alarmingly", and it "has deteriorated at a faster rate over the last century and a half than in the previous six". They note that "early observers saw a great deal more standing ... than we do today." Chetro Ketl's wooden elements have proven especially vulnerable in an area that lacks tree cover, with soldiers, cattlemen, and transients "stripp[ing] the beams from Chacoan ruins"; the balcony was still present in 1901, but by 1921 the beams had been removed by people scouring the canyon for wood. The process of uncovering beams during excavation has further hastened their deterioration. Chaco Wash, which deepens and widens during summer rain showers, also threatens the canyon's ruins.

According to Lekson and McKenna, the once prominent trash mound has been "all but destroyed by repeated trenching and by re-channeling a small arroyo that runs between it and Chetro Ketl". Treasure hunting, livestock grazing, and National Park Service stabilization efforts have also contributed to the degradation of Chetro Ketl, as have deep excavations, making rivers more prone to flooding. Archeology was responsible for the catastrophic effects of the 1947 flood in the vicinity, which destroyed the walls of twenty rooms and collapsed 40 feet (12 m) of the north wall. It also toppled the tallest remnants of the great house. According to Lekson and McKenna, "the visible building is far from pristine. Most walls have undergone generations of structural and cosmetic treatment ... Chetro Ketl is an artifact deteriorating before our eyes. If the reader is inspired to questions that cannot be answered by the present study, be advised that Chetro Ketl's ability to answer in detail is slowly, but surely, disappearing."

Bibliography

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• Jolie, Edward A.; Webster, Laurie D. (2015). "A Perishable Perspective on Chacoan Social Identities". In Heitman, Carrie C.; Plog, Stephen (eds.). Chaco Revisited: New Research on the Prehistory of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. University of Arizona Press. pp. 96–130. ISBN 978-0-8165-3160-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lekson, Stephen H. (January 1, 1983). "Preface and Acknowledgments". In Lekson, Stephen H. (ed.). The Architecture and Dendrochronology of Chetro Ketl. pp. xxxix–x1. ASIN B000YMNT48.
• Lekson, Stephen H. (January 1, 1983). "Appendix C". In Lekson, Stephen H. (ed.). The Architecture and Dendrochronology of Chetro Ketl. pp. xxxix–x1. ASIN B000YMNT48.
• Lekson, Stephen H.; Windes, Thomas C.; Fournier, Patricia (2007). "The Changing Faces of Chetro Ketl". In Lekson, Stephen H. (ed.). The Architecture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (Chaco Canyon Series). University of Utah Press. pp. 155–78. ISBN 978-0-87480-948-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lekson, Stephen H.; McKenna, Peter J. (January 1, 1983). "Introduction: Chetro Ketl and this Study". In Lekson, Stephen H. (ed.). The Architecture and Dendrochronology of Chetro Ketl. pp. 1–10. ASIN B000YMNT48.
• Lekson, Stephen H.; McKenna, Peter J. (January 1, 1983). "Excavation Notes". In Lekson, Stephen H. (ed.). The Architecture and Dendrochronology of Chetro Ketl. pp. 11–49. ASIN B000YMNT48.
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• Mathien, Frances Joan (2003). "Artifacts from Pueblo Bonito: One Hundred Years of Interpretation". In Neitzel, Jill E. (ed.). Pueblo Bonito: Center of the Chacoan World. Smithsonian Books. pp. 127–42. ISBN 978-1-58834-131-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Metcalf, Mary P. (2003). "Construction Labor at Pueblo Bonito". In Neitzel, Jill E. (ed.). Pueblo Bonito: Center of the Chacoan World. Smithsonian Books. pp. 72–9. ISBN 978-1-58834-131-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Plog, Stephen (2015). "Understanding Chaco: Past, Present, and Future". In Heitman, Carrie C.; Plog, Stephen (eds.). Chaco Revisited: New Research on the Prehistory of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. University of Arizona Press. pp. 3–29. ISBN 978-0-8165-3160-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Reed, Paul F. (2004). The Puebloan Society of Chaco Canyon. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32720-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Simpson, James H. (2003). McNitt, Frank (ed.). Navajo Expedition: Journal of a Military Reconnaissance from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Navaho Country, Made in 1849. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3570-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Stein, John R.; Ford, Dabney; Friedman, Richard (2003). "Reconstructing Pueblo Bonito". In Neitzel, Jill E. (ed.). Pueblo Bonito: Center of the Chacoan World. Smithsonian Books. pp. 33–60. ISBN 978-1-58834-131-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Vivian, Gordon; Reiter, Paul (1980). The great kivas of Chaco Canyon and their relationships. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-0297-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Vivian, R. Gwinn; Hilpert, Bruce (2012). The Chaco Handbook: An Encyclopedic Guide (2 ed.). University of Utah Press. ISBN 978-1-60781-195-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Vivian, R. Gwinn; Watson, Adam S. (2015). "Reevaluating and Modeling Agricultural Potential in the Chaco Core". In Heitman, Carrie C.; Plog, Stephen (eds.). Chaco Revisited: New Research on the Prehistory of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. University of Arizona Press. pp. 30–62. ISBN 978-0-8165-3160-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Windes, Thomas C. (2003). "This Old House: Construction and Abandonment at Pueblo Bonito". In Neitzel, Jill E. (ed.). Pueblo Bonito: Center of the Chacoan World. Smithsonian Books. pp. 14–32. ISBN 978-1-58834-131-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• National Park Service – Chetro Ketl
• Chaco Research Archive – Interactive map of Chetro Ketl
• Chaco Research Archive – Images of Chetro Ketl