Kin Kletso

Kin Kletso is a Chacoan Ancestral Pueblo great house and notable archaeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Nageezi, New Mexico, United States. It was a medium-sized great house located 0.5 miles (0.8 km) west of Pueblo Bonito; it shows strong evidence of construction and occupation by Pueblo peoples who migrated to Chaco from the northern San Juan Basin in the time period of 1125 to 1200 (McElmo Phase of Chacoan Architecture). From its masonry work, rectangular shape and design Kletso is identified as Pueblo III architecture by prominent Chaco archaeologists Stephen H. Lekson and Tom Windes.[1] They also argue that this great house was only occupied by one or two households. Fagen writes that Kletso contained around 55 rooms, four ground-floor kivas, and a two-story cylindrical tower that may have functioned as a kiva or religious center. Evidence of an obsidian production industry were discovered here. The house was erected between 1125 and 1130.[2]

Kin Kletso Great House in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
A color picture of a large sandstone masonry wall
McElmo style masonry at Kin Kletso

Etymology

Kin Kletso is a garbled mispronunciation of Kin Łitsooí, meaning "Yellow House" in the Navajo language.

Notes
  1. Lekson, S.H (Ed.), The Archaeology of Chaco Canyon, page 91, School of American Research Press, 2006, ISBN 1-930618-47-6
  2. Fagan 2005, p. 11.

References
  • Fagan, B (2005), Chaco Canyon: Archaeologists Explore the Lives of an Ancient Society, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-517043-1.

36.0652°N 107.9700°W / 36.0652; -107.9700



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