Water Management and the Political Economy of Chaco Canyon During the Bonito Phase (ca. AD 850–1200)

Agricultural intensification is widely assumed by archaeologists to have been a catalytic factor in the development of social complexity in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, between ca. AD 850 and 1200. In this perspective, water control technology resulted in surplus food production which was controlled by elites to finance the construction of massive buildings (“great houses”). However, recent fieldwork and archival research has been unable to substantiate this view of technological innovation promoting surplus agricultural production. An alternative explanation for economic growth is social transactions involving labor rather than food.