The evaluation of the three general models of Chacoan road function suggest that the roads did not function to economically integrate the region. With the notable exception of the South Road between Chaco Canyon and Hosta Butte, none of the road segments in the study area extend more than a kilometer or two, and virtually none fall even close to cost-paths that minimize travel time between communities. In contrast, almost all roads appear to fit more closely with explanations that see the roads as having served localized religious, integrative, and/or political functions (Figure 11).

Distinguishing between religious and integrative/political explanations of road function is more difficult. In a few cases, roads fit the expectations of both models. For example, one road segment in Andrews connects the Great House with a nearby cluster of habitations that also includes a Great Kiva (Figure 5), thereby meeting the expectations of both the religious and integrative models. More than likely, an improved model of road function will combine aspects of both complementary interpretations.

Was the GIS necessary to effectively perform this study? Clearly, the various models of road function would have been much more difficult to evaluate without the GIS' ability to generate cost-paths. This is especially true since the roads consisted only of short segments. At the same time, the GIS facilitated the identification of other unexpected patterns that also contribute to the issue of road function and intercommunity interaction in the northern Southwest.

An important issue that needs to be addressed, however, is the best way to evaluate the fit between the idealized cost-paths and the actual road segments. One potential method is through the use of concentric gradients representing movement away from the point of origin. For example, the grayscale backgrounds in Figures 4 and 7 represent gradients away from communities, allowing for a qualitative sensitivity analysis. In Figure 7, the road that appears to extend from Kin Ya'a to Hosta Butte at one point veers away from the idealized cost-path, but the gradient of movement costs away from the community shows that the cost to follow the road was actually very similar to the cost to follow the cost-path. Further research should be invested in methods to more objectively evaluate the fit between modeled paths and the actual prehistoric roads.

Despite the potential for improving the models and methods used in this study, the results do provide a useful evaluation of the function of prehistoric roads used by the Chaco Anasazi. Few roads seem to have been oriented towards regional interaction, with most apparently constructed to serve localized functions. This suggests that the mere presence of roads segments should not serve as a way to determine either the spatial extent of Chaco Canyon's authority or the intensity of large-scale travel and exchange in the region. Perhaps roads were actually a general Anasazi phenomenon that Chaco Canyon manifested at a larger scale through the construction of a few longer roads such as the North and South Roads. Meanwhile, the majority of communities in the northern Southwest continued to construct short roadways for their own purposes.