In this episode, Paul, Barbara, Phillip, and Robert discuss: 

• Why Chaco Canyon drew people for centuries, and why it continues to remain a powerful symbol of the ancient Southwest.
• What social network migration has revealed about Chaco Canyon throughout the centuries.
• How science, oral tradition, and indigenous epistemologies can better work together to interpret sacred places like Chaco.
• The importance of Chaco and the need to respect all peoples involved. 

Key Takeaways: 

• We want to be careful not to polarize the past with modern understandings of categories. For instance, the roads show how interconnected religion, politics, and economics were all interwoven.
• There are different stories and different perspectives that need to be acknowledged and treated with respect as we try to find the balance between preservation, development, and indigenous peoples.
• Chaco matters to different groups. While there may be different views on the best way to protect Chaco, the shared sentiment is that Chaco is powerful, sacred, and significant, and we should all do what we can to ensure its health.
• There are many different reasons why people may have left Chaco, ranging from droughts to astrological phenomena to clans dying out and more.

“All of us have to be very, very careful that we don't take our Western European education and template and try to lay it down on a group of people that might as well come from Venus or Mars. We don't know what they were thinking; we don't know their judgment, values, and such things. We’ve got to be careful of not trying to interpret ancestral people in our everyday framework.” - Phillip Tuwaletstiwa

Episode Resources: 

• Evaluating Chaco migration scenarios using dynamic social network analysis
• Parallel roads, solstice and sacred geography at the Gasco Site 
• Lidar Reveals Sacred Roads Near Chaco Canyon

About Dr. Barbara Mills: Regents’ Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and Curator of Archaeology at the Arizona State Museum, Dr. Mills is one of the foremost experts on the social networks, migrations, and ceremonial practices of Chacoan society. Her work integrates dynamic social network analysis, ceramic studies, and Indigenous collaboration to explore why people gathered — and eventually dispersed — from Chaco Canyon.

Connect with Barbara:

Website: https://anthropology.arizona.edu/person/barbara-mills 

About Phillip Tuwaletstiwa: A Native archaeologist and geodesist of Hopi heritage, Phillip Tuwaletstiwa collaborated with Anna Sofaer to scientifically validate the astronomical alignments of Chacoan buildings and petroglyphs. His work underscores the engineering and cosmological sophistication of the Chacoans — and his own DNA has been linked to ancestral burials within Pueblo Bonito.

About Dr. Robert Weiner: Postdoctoral Fellow in the Dartmouth Society of Fellows and a specialist in ritual landscapes, Dr. Weiner studies the roads, rituals, and cosmologies of the Ancestral Four Corners societies. His recent lidar and fieldwork at the Gasco Site reveals previously unknown parallel roads aligned with solstice sunrises and sacred mountains — transforming how we understand Chacoan movement and meaning.

Connect with Robert:

Website: https://dartmouth.academia.edu/RobWeiner   

Connect with Paul Ryer & School for Advanced Research:  

Website: https://sarweb.org/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sarsantafemultimedia 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-ryer-4a4889156