Visibility, Monumentality, and Community in the Chacoan Community at Kin Bineola, New Mexico

Abstract

Chacoan great houses have been described as providing "ritual" or "integrative" venues and as "monumental" in scale and in the amount of labor required for their construction. This study takes the approach that part of the function of community, monumental, or ritual structures is to transmit meaning and that an examination of visibility connections between these structures and small habitation sites in the surrounding community may provide information about the role of these messages in daily practice. Survey data from the Chacoan community at Kin Bineola, New Mexico is analyzed in a GIS environment using a model of visibility and distance developed for this project. The results show that, contrary to expectations, the great house is much less visible than a less monumental "Chacoan structure." Shrines, small structures interpreted as having a ritual function, are by far the most visible, suggesting a more complex relationship between monumentality and visibility.