Kin Bineola (Kin Binola)
Kin Bineola (House with Wind? Navajo) · Kin Bineola · Kin Binola · Kin Bine'ola
Chaco Late Bonito to Post-Chaco San Juan·Chaco (ancestral Pueblo) → Mesa Verde–San Juan reoccupation·🇺🇸 New Mexico, McKinley County – south-central Chaco outwash 26 km SW of Pueblo Bonito, United States
About
About Kin Bineola (Kin Binola)
Isolated Chacoan great house outlier (c.1050–1110 CE core, Late Pueblo II, Classic Bonito phase + San Juan reoccupation c.1150) 26 km SW of Chaco proper — closest great house to Chaco that captures Chaco's empty-center road system gap. 4 habitation tiers 200 rooms? Actually great house 40 ground-floor rooms + 150 small site rooms, great kiva 18 m, road segment Chaco South Road spur. Van Dyke, Powers & Fowler BLM/Chaco Project: classic Chaco core-and-veneer, colonnaded hall, multiple building phases with tree-ring 1050 and 1080 vigas, San Juan reorientation 1120.
Why it mattersKey 'closest outlier' — defines Chaco halo 26 km radius; South Road outlier terminus.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why SW direction outlier emptiest — defensive buffer?
- 02Great house 40 rooms vs 700 — symbolic or proportional
Theories
- 01Kin Bineola as Chaco empty-theatre road marker — southeast processional terminus
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.1050–1080 CE great house; small sites 1100–1150
- Period
- Chaco Late Bonito to Post-Chaco San Juan
- Culture
- Chaco (ancestral Pueblo) → Mesa Verde–San Juan reoccupation
- Builders
- Chacoan masons then San Juan immigrants
- Purpose
- Southwest Chaco outlier and road junction granary/containment
- Abandoned
- c.1150 Chacoan withdrawal, 1200 final
- Rediscovered
- 1928 Neutral? Actually 1900s Hewett notes; 1934 Vivian Chaco Center survey
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
1934
Vivian and Reiter Chaco reconnaissance records
c.1080
Tree-ring vigas great house stage II
1975
BLM Lekson-Van Dyke chaco outlier geophysics
On the ground
Structures & features
36.0100° N · 108.1300° W · 2025 m · 3 mapped features
Kin Bineola great house
great house40-room Chaco core-and-veneer great house
36.0101° N · 108.1301° WGreat kiva (18 m)
great kiva18 m great kiva with 4 vaults
36.0099° N · 108.1299° WSouth Road spur causeway
roadChaco South Road curbed causeway 9 m
36.0100° N · 108.1300° W
Gallery