The following is an except from the winning grant submission. Follow the link at the bottom to see the full document.

I was fortunate to receive a NMAC grant to conduct research on Diné fortresses on Chacra Mesa, historically referred to as “pueblitos.” These fortresses are located near Chaco Canyon and Pueblo Pintado, NM (Figure 1). The grant supported lodging and travel, including driving from our base camp in Cuba, NM to the sites, and I am very grateful for this support. Our fieldwork took place over three weeks in October (October 7–25, 2025).

Chacra Mesa forms the southeastern flank of Chaco Canyon (Figure 1), a major cultural center of the Ancestral Puebloans from 850 to 1250 CE, known for its monumental great houses and extensive trade networks. While Chaco Canyon lies within northwestern New Mexico, Chacra Mesa is located just outside the Dinétah, the ancestral homeland of the Diné, located to the northeast (Figure 2). The Dinétah played a central role in early Diné cultural development (Towner 1996), but Chacra Mesa provides a distinct and valuable perspective for examining Diné interactions with Puebloan groups, Utes, and Spanish colonists.

The Diné connection to Chaco Canyon is understudied, and fortress sites from the Gobernador Period (1630–1765 CE) may represent some of the earliest Diné settlements in the canyon area. While defensive fortresses in the Dinétah are well documented, those outside this region remain less understood. In the mid-1700s, Diné communities on Chacra Mesa constructed sandstone masonry fortresses to defend against Ute raids and encroaching Spanish colonists. Unlike similar structures in the Dinétah, which often served as both defensive and habitation sites, fortresses on Chacra Mesa appear to have functioned primarily as lookout points along trade and migration routes (Vivian 1960; Brugge 1986; Van Dyke et al. 2023; Winnicki 2023). Residential dwellings, or hogans, were typically located nearby (Dykeman 2023; Vivian 1960).

While the fortresses themselves have been well documented, my research focused on the surrounding communities: where people lived, how long they occupied these areas, and how they interacted with neighboring groups. We re-recorded four Diné fortress areas previously documented by Gwinn Vivian in the 1960s, searching for discrete forked-stick or masonry hogans. Our goals were to better understand community structure, occupation patterns, and site function. We collected cores and cross sections for dendrochronology and collected gray ware ceramics for petrographic analysis. These analyses will help determine whether ceramics were locally produced or acquired through trade.