AURA

Although I think Chaco is a much more environmentally friendly way to inhabit nature than spreading living quarters all over the landscape, The Anasazi shows even this approach comes at a price. I guess this stuff has been going on forever. Here’s a bit from

Scott A. Elias, The Ice-Age History of Southwestern National Parks (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), pp. 162-163:

"It might seem that the droughts documented from A.D. 1150 onward caused the demise of pinion pine [surrounding Chaco Canyon].

"[However, paleobotanists Julio] Betancourt and [Tom] Van Devender … drew the conclusion that the people of Chaco Canyon simply used up the available pinion pines, along with junipers, as firewood. The edge of the pinion-juniper woodland had retreated from Chaco Canyon itself to Chacra Mesa, some 20 km to the east.… Betancourt and Van Devender noted that this woodland has not yet recovered from the Anasazi harvesting it suffered 800 years ago.…

"(When ranchers cut down large tracts of pinion-juniper woodland to improve forage for cattle, they may be working under the assumption that these woodlands will bounce back quite easily once the cows move on to other lands. The history of the Anasazi at Chaco indicates that this may be a false assumption.)

Besides using the local trees for fuel, … the Anasazi had to go up to 75 km (45 miles) into regional mountains to get [spruce and fir for the] … estimated 200,000 trees . . . used to make the ten major pueblos at Chaco Canyon.

I’m glad Sine added the links I told him about for Chaco. Click away.

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