From great kivas to great houses: Community formation and social dynamics in the southern Chuska Valley, New Mexico

• Chacoan outlier communities represent an in situ development of social complexity.
• We use a competition model to examine trends in settlement and economic organization.
• Competitive emulation is attributed to the Figueredo great house construction.

Understanding the sociopolitical contexts behind the construction of outlying Chacoan great houses requires a close examination of the relationships between great houses and their neighboring communities. Changes in household-ritual organization and socioeconomic interactions within the Figueredo great house community are used to examine the emergence of social complexity in the southern Chuska Valley. Long-term trends observed in settlement and economic organization are evaluated using a competition model to understand the social dynamics of local community development. Various lines of evidence suggest the residents of the Figueredo community comprised a multiethnic population that maintained a series of diverse socioeconomic interactions across the Four Corners region.