LEGO® ANASAZI!!!

Please Explore!

DRAWING BY KATHY HAMLETT

This summer I had the opportunity to explore Chaco Canyon and some of the other archaeological sites associated with the "Anasazi." ( There is a great deal of debate regarding this word as to its accuracy and correctness...but for the sake of simplicity I am using it to describe the peoples who lived in the "4 Corners" region of Arizonia, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah a thousand years ago ). The ruins found in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park are extensive and awe inspiring! Pueblo Bonito, Una Vida, Chetro Ketl, Kin Kletso and Wijiji are all found in the Chaco area.
Over a thousand years ago, hunters and gatherers lived in Chaco Canyon using temporary campsites at first...then as their lifestyle became more and more agrarian: pithouses. Eventually the pithouses were replaced with small pueblos. At Chaco, starting in the ninth century, huge multistory structures covering acres were built!

"Chacoan walls are commonly referred to as core-and-veneer. The core consists of roughly-shaped stones or rubble laid flat in adobe mortar. The core was faced with carefully selected shaped stones to make a veneer on both sides of the wall. Although veneer is used to describe these facing stones, they were more than decorative overlays. The facing stones ( veneer ) were important structural elements of the wall."

"We know a great deal about the architecture in Chaco but there is much more that we do not know, and may never know, because the archaeological record and historical accounts cannot funish the accounts."

Borrowed from a trail guide provided by the CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

We do a great deal of archaeology at the school...and have utilized Lego® elements before ( for example, Kathy once built an excellent Lego® Stonehenge ). I decided to incorporate the facts I learned about the Anasazi into the Engineering Lab at the school! Perhaps we can glimpse this civilization through its architectural record! Perhaps several students will be inspired to explore the field of archaeology!

There are at least five veneer styles identified...here they are built with Lego® elements:

TYPE I

TYPE II

TYPE III

TYPE IV

McELMO

OKAY WEBLANDERS, I CHALLENGE YOU TO EXPLORE ARCHAEOLOGY WITH LEGO® ELEMENTS!

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