Between 1896 and 1901, the Hyde Exploring Expedition, funded by collectors Talbot Hyde and Fred Hyde Jr. of New York City, conducted extensive excavations in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Directed by George H. Pepper of the American Museum of Natural History and staffed by Colorado rancher Richard Wetherill, the expedition's efforts focused on the iconic site now known as Pueblo Bonito, a monumental structure of up to five stories in height that is estimated to contain approximately 800 rooms constructed and used from the mid-AD 800s into the AD 1100s. The Hyde Exploring Expedition excavated 190 of those rooms using methods that were sophisticated for the late nineteenth century but that pale in comparison to modern techniques. Consequently, although an enormous amount of material was removed from Pueblo Bonito—and indeed much was learned about the structure and its use from these excavations—many questions remain unanswered about Pueblo Bonito and Chaco Canyon.
A little over one century after the Hyde Exploring Expedition ceased its excavations in Chaco Canyon, archaeologist Patricia L. Crown and colleagues from the University of New Mexico (UNM) launched an innovative project to reexcavate select areas of Pueblo Bonito. Initial efforts in 2004 focused on the curious mounds in front of the building that were originally trenched by a 1920s National Geographic Society expedition. Crown's reexcavation work is perhaps best known for the discovery of cacao residue in fragments of unusual ceramic vessels known as “cylinder jars,” which together suggest a strong link between the US Southwest and Mesoamerica during the Chaco era (Crown, The Pueblo Bonito Mounds of Chaco Canyon: Material Culture and Fauna, 2016; reviewed by Susan C. Ryan, American Antiquity 84:768–769, 2019).
In 2013, the UNM team moved its efforts into Pueblo Bonito itself. It reexcavated “Room 28,” in which the Hyde Exploring Expedition discovered a cache of 112 intact cylinder jars representing the majority of this type of vessel found anywhere in the US Southwest. Crown's primary goal in reopening Room 28 was to better understand the contexts in which cylinder jars were used and stored in order to reconstruct their role in Chacoan society and culture. The House of the Cylinder Jars is the final published report of these reexcavations and the analysis of the architecture and materials that Crown and her team identified in Room 28.
The House of the Cylinder Jars is organized much like a field report, with Crown authoring the opening chapter that introduces the history of investigation of Room 28. It outlines the specific questions about cylinder jars and the rituals in which they are assumed to have played a role, and it summarizes the strategies that the UNM team used during the reexcavations. The subsequent 10 chapters discuss the results of the project, beginning with an analysis of the architecture and then proceeding through the different classes of artifacts—including ceramics, chipped and ground stone, ornaments, textiles, faunal remains, archaeobotanical remains, and historical artifacts. Chapters about each are written by UNM team members and other experts responsible for the analyses. A concluding chapter by Crown synthesizes the detailed information presented in the book and provides a discussion of what the archaeology of Room 28 indicates about the Puebloan occupation of Chaco Canyon. Most of the chapters do not limit their analyses to Room 28, often including data from and discussion of nearby rooms excavated by Pepper and others. This is especially important for understanding the evidence of burning that destroyed Room 28 and several surrounding rooms toward the end of Pueblo Bonito's occupation.
Although The House of the Cylinder Jars does often read like a field report, with some of the repetition and detail that comes with that format, the opening and especially the concluding chapters are engaging contributions to our understanding of Pueblo Bonito and Chaco Canyon. The individual chapters also present valuable information, and even a well-versed Chaco expert will find much of interest. For example, the chapter on ceramics brings together data from many sources to provide an unparalleled analysis of cylinder jars, including the evidence of their “mutilation” that is interpreted as a “retirement practice” for these ritual vessels. A chapter dedicated to turkey eggshells and gastroliths provides a novel assessment of turkey husbandry at Pueblo Bonito. And many other details provide much food for thought, such as the curious paucity of artiodactyl remains and the abundance of cattail and cholla pollen in Room 28. For scholars interested in Chaco Canyon and the ancient history of the US Southwest, The House of the Cylinder Jars is an indispensable addition to their library.
