Did the inability of the Anasazi to obtain and trade turquoise contribute to the demise of the Chacoan culture?
The role of turquoise in Chaco Anasazi society is sort of hard to figure out. Basically, all of the turquoise found in Chaco Canyon (which represents about 90% of all turquoise found in *all* prehistoric contexts in the SW) came from the Cerrillos mines near Santa Fe. It seems unlikely that given its distance from the mines, that Chaco Canyon had any direct control over turquoise. So it would have been relatively easy to cut Chaco off from the source. On the other hand, it’s not clear what significance the turquoise had for the Chacoans. Some people have argued that it served like money for “purchasing” basic goods needed by the Chacoans. Or others argue that it was used as a kind of payment in the various political machinations of the Chacoans. The problem with both these arguments is that if these hypotheses were true, you’d expect to find more turquoise elsewhere in the Anasazi world, and so far, we haven’t. So the turquoise issue is still wide open. Some time ago, I started a resea
