The passage claims that the Anasazi communities in Chaco Canyon used their surplus production to
According to some scholars, humansocioeconomic strategies can be divided into"efficient" systems, with little to no growth inLinepopulation and production, and "power" systems,(5)marked by population expansion, highproduction, and surpluses. In the AmericanSouthwest, the earlier Anasazi, a group ofancestral Pueblo Native Americans, formed"efficient," small-scale agrarian communities with(10)relatively small population growth and low energyproduction and consumption. They built smalldomestic structures, farmed lightly on thelandscape, and moved hearth and family whenthe need arose.
(15) In contrast, the later Anasazi communities ofChaco Canyon farmed more intensively andproduced surplus foods. This surplus supportedthe construction of "great houses," multistorystructures exalting a flourishing class of leaders.(20)This emergent class of social elite was able tomanipulate the economic surplus and labors ofits agrarian cohorts, who lived in small, humblehomesteads scattered around each "greathouse." (25) Most archaeologists believe that favorable weather conditions during the ninth century fostered this shift in Anasazi society from one of efficiency to one of power. Over the next two centuries, surplus corn and free trade fueled an(30)economic expansion that came crashing down with a series of serious droughts. Chaco Canyon can be described as an experiment in power politics and overheated economic growth, ananomalous blip in the otherwise efficient and(35)environmentally conservative Anasazi habitation of the Southwest.