Great house (pueblo)

Whereas the term "great house" typically refers to structures in Chaco Canyon, they are also found in more northerly locations in the San Juan Basin, including the Mesa Verde region.

They were designed and constructed to provide shelter to inhabitants in an arid climate and had protective walls and small windows.

[1] The earliest examples of structures similar to great houses have been found along the Mimbres River in New Mexico.

[2] Archeologists differ as to their purpose, but they might have been residences for large numbers of people, or ceremonial centers that only priests occupied.

Archeologist Stephen H. Lekson has proposed that they might have been the palaces of Puebloan royalty, particularly those found at Chaco Canyon.