> The massive ruins of Chaco Canyon reminded the modern Americans who first encountered them of the Aztecs. Given their love of clean straight lines, symmetry, and order, and their penchant for monumentality, a more apt parallel to the Anasazi, I think, would be the old Romans. Like the Roman colony, Pueblo Bonito was built to a plan.

Either he doesn't know the aztecs, or any other culture from the region. He had to go to Rome, discounting other great cities like Tenochtitlan (Aztec, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan), Teotihuacan (Toltec? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan), Palenque, Chichen-Itza, Tikal from the Mayans, or Monte Alban from the Zapotec people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Alb%C3%A1n)....

The writer of the article is ignorant, and the comparison to Rome is offensive.

There's a lot of work being done tying Chaco to the broader region. The most forward thinking would be Steve Lekson's (UC Boulder) work, he proposes a migration along a meridian between Chaco, Aztec, and Paquime. I don't really subscribe to that particular view, but I am not a researcher and my opinion is worthless as far as that goes.

I found much of what is written in that article to be debatable at best, fanciful at worst. I'm not sure it is worth going into it line by line.

If this is a topic that interests people, books by David Roberts and Craig Childs give an excellent overview of what was going on at this time period, albeit in a very personal manner (e.g. do you care how David gets along with a hiking companion?). Then there are a significant number of books that are accessible to the lay reader without requiring you to read "methods and materials" types of research reports. But Roberts and Childs will give you the gist. I particularly like Childs' "House of Rain".