Prehistoric roads play an important role in defining both the extent and cultural features of the Chaco Anasazi, a seemingly centralized tradition that emerged in the northern Southwest between A.D. 900 and 1150. Characterized by monumental Great Houses and subterranean Great Kivas, the so-called "Chaco phenomenon" was focused on Chaco Canyon, where a concentration of these architectural features has been identified. This is also the location from which a number of prehistoric roads appear to emanate and extend over northwestern New Mexico (Figure 1). Because projections of these roads seem to connect surrounding areas of Anasazi habitation with Chaco Canyon, scholars often see them as having served an economic function for reducing the costs of moving food, pottery, construction materials, prestige goods, and people between far-flung Chacoan communities (e.g., Betancourt et al. 1986; Ebert and Hitchcock 1980; Judge 1984; Mathien 1991; Powers 1984; Wilcox 1993; Windes 1991).

More recently, however, archaeologists have begun to propose other explanations for the Chacoan roads. These new models are based on ceramic evidence that the Chaco Anasazi may not have been as well-integrated as was previously assumed (Sebastian 1992; Toll 1991). A reexamination of the roads has also revealed that many roads may not have actually connected communities with one another or even with Chaco Canyon (Nials et al. 1987; Roney 1992). Similarly, the identification of road sections in areas far beyond the traditionally defined borders of the Chaco system has led to a reevaluation of the degree of integration that these features might represent (Roney 1992; Vivian 1996:9-10). This has resulted in alternative explanations that see roads as having served religious (Fowler et al. 1987; Sofaer et al. 1989), integrative (Roney 1992), and perhaps political functions (Kantner 1996) on a local level.

This study hopes to contribute to this debate by providing a case study from a relatively small area in the southern San Juan Basin approximately 50 km. from Chaco Canyon. Numerous roads have been identified in this area (e.g., Nials et al. 1987), but most are only short fragments that may or may not have once been longer. Through the use of Geographic Information System technology, this study evaluates the possible functions of these fragments by modeling the paths that roads should have taken given the three general approaches to explaining Chaco road function: economic, religious, and integrative.