It's a pretty bad article based on current thinking about Chaco. I have no doubt his guide was pretty good, but I suspect his retention and understanding of wha

It's a pretty bad article based on current thinking about Chaco. I have no doubt his guide was pretty good, but I suspect his retention and understanding of what he was told got things scrambled, and then he went off on his own tangents. There's a lot of work being done tying Chaco to the broader region. The most forward thinking would be Steve Lekson's (UC Boulder) work, he proposes a migration along a meridian between Chaco, Aztec, and Paquime. I don't really subscribe to that particular view, but I am not a researcher and my opinion is worthless as far as that goes. I found much of what is written in that article to be debatable at best, fanciful at worst. I'm not sure it is worth going into it line by line. If this is a topic that interests people, books by David Roberts and Craig Childs give an excellent overview of what was going on at this time period, albeit in a very personal manner (e.g. do you care how David gets along with a hiking companion?). Then there are a significant number of books that are accessible to the lay reader without requiring you to read "methods and materials" types of research reports. But Roberts and Childs will give you the gist. I particularly like Childs' "House of Rain".