In the tenth century AD, a remarkable cultural development took place in
the harsh and forbidding San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico. From
small-scale, simply organized, prehistoric Pueblo societies, a complex
and socially differentiated political system emerged that has become
known as the Chaco Phenomenon. This study combines information on
political evolution with archaeological data to produce a
sociopolitically based model of the rise, florescence, and decline of
the Chaco Phenomenon.