Between AD 800-1200, Indigenous peoples in the North American Southwest constructed hundreds of 9-meter-wide roads associated with the religiopolitical center at Chaco Canyon. In this talk, I present insights derived from a five-year investigation of Chacoan roads that combines archaeological fieldwork, LiDAR, collaborative partnerships with descendant Pueblo and Diné people, and theories of relationality. I develop an argument for understanding Chacoan roads as religious landscape architecture rather than merely functional infrastruture. Specifically, I focus on three puzzling aspects of Chacoan roads: their articulation with various geological phenomena, the presence of hundreds of broken pottery fragments along some segments, and the fact their concave beds would fill with water after rainfall.
