Elite ‘Dynasty’ at Chaco Canyon Got Its Power From One Woman, DNA Shows

They were interred in what’s been described as “the richest burial known in the Southwest” — 14 men and women buried over the course of 330 years in the same crypt, some accompanied by pieces of pottery and pendants, others lavished with thousands of turquoise and shell beads.

Their resting place was a chamber deep inside Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the so-called “great houses” in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon.

And new analysis of DNA from the 14 sets of remains shows that these elites weren’t merely members of the same influential class — indeed, they were all members of the same extended family, a “dynasty” that traced its ancestry to a single woman.

Western Digs