Casa Rinconada is the largest great kiva in Chaco Canyon. Although great kivas are often built into the plazas of great houses like Pueblo Bonito, Casa Rinconada's great kiva stands alone as a ceremonial and civic center for nearby villages. The villages along this trail are more modest than the monumental Chacoan great houses, yet both the great houses and villages were built and occupied during the same period. Hundreds of these small villages and communities have been discovered clustered around Chacoan great houses. The role of the great houses is not clear, but they may have served central ceremonial, economic, and administrative purposes that the small village communities supported.