Lekson noticed that Chaco Canyon, Aztec Ruins, and Paquimé in Chihuahua sit within a few minutes of longitude of one another, hundreds of miles apart, and built at different times from one another over four centuries. His premise is it was deliberate — that the political center of the Southwest was moved north along a surveyed line and then far south, taking its rulers and its ideas with it, and that these were hierarchical societies with elites rather than the egalitarian pueblos the field prefers. Plenty of archaeologists think he’s wrong. Nobody thinks he’s boring, and the second edition takes on the objections directly. If you grab a map and look at the line connecting Paquimé through Chaco to Aztec, you can see what a tidy idea it is.
The Chaco Meridian