Ancient Culture Prompts Worry for Arid Southwest

Chaco Canyon is a stark and breathtaking ruin, nestled under soaring, red sandstone cliffs. It resembles the condition of the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru.

For climate scientists Jonathan Overpeck and Julie Cole, it was worth the journey — kids and all — to experience this remote corner of northwestern New Mexico.

GB Cornucopia, a park ranger, is taking the two professors from the University of Arizona on a tour of the site of a major climate catastrophe. Here in New Mexico, a civilization grew and thrived for centuries before disappearing in the face of a 50-year drought.

"Well, once a lot of people lived here, or at least came here to visit and then they went away, and they have a lot of ideas why, but no one knows for sure," Overpeck explains. "And one of the reasons we think they went away was, in part, because it got dryer. And it got so dry that it was difficult to live here."

An Ancient Culture — Vanished

Over the course of 300 years, people known as the Anasazi built more than 150 large buildings under these cliffs; but whether they were living quarters, temples, or something else entirely is a mystery.

Cornucopia leads the family toward the ruins of one of the most impressive of these structures, a house called "Bonita."

"Some have referred to this as the edge of downtown Chaco," Cornucopia says. "By [the year 1200 or 1300] everybody was gone. The original builders' last set of building phases was in the mid-1100s."

Bonita was once four or five stories tall. The walls look like intricate mosaics — a testament to the engineering and artistic talents of the Anasazi. Little is known about these people, but they were traders, astronomers and above all else, master builders.

It's easy to draw parallels from Chaco to life in the Southwest today. Once again, there's a thriving civilization. Once again, people are completely dependent on scarce water resources and there's the threat of a devastating drought.
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