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Rob Weiner (Ph.D. ArchaeologyÌýin Progress)

My dissertation research involved documentation of monumental roads associated with Chaco Canyon (ca. AD 800-1200) in partnership with the Navajo Nation. This fieldwork revealed the consistent patterning of small architectural features along roads that block, channel, and otherwise prescribe movement, as well as offerings of broken ceramics. I also found that the roads’ termini were a mix of watery places, prominent landforms, shrines, and astronomical bodies. Ultimately, my dissertation argues that road-related practices of sensorially engaging processions and ritual races—and the powerful entities of water, land, and sky that roads engage—were central elements driving the history of Chaco.