Time and Patience: the Most Powerful Warriors. Part Six

    Our quest for calendrical stations continues on the western end of Chaco Canyon.  Peñasco Blanco was rumoured to have a calendrical station marked by standing stones (according to Cosmo Mindellef in 1891) but the area can’t be found today.  Even further west, approximately five kilometres, is another great house: Casa del Rio.  This relatively small house (21-27 rooms), strangely, has produced the largest refuse pile of any other Chaco Canyon house.  It is along the Great West Road and has signs across the site of increased pedestrian traffic which may indicate avenues of ritual procession.  Additionally, the amount of refuse being dumped here decreased in/around 1100AD - just when a resurgence of building in Chaco Canyon proper began.  This all may suggest that Casa del Rio was a very important early festival site.  Visually, from Casa del Rio the Winter Solstice sun would have risen over a shrine on West Mesa named 29SJ 1088 - which sits on the highest feature on the southeastern horizon from Casa del Rio.  Additionally, use of selenite reflectors or fires would allow for instantaneous notification over the eight plus kilometres distance into downtown Chaco(Signal Towers, another topic for another entry).  

    The last category has to do with the larger application of Chaco Canyon itself as an observatory.  Recent data concerning this was uncovered by Anna Sofaer, Robert Weiner and William Stone and published in 2016 in The Science of Time 2016, entitled, Inter-Site Alignments of Prehistoric Shrines in Chaco Canyon to the Major Lunar Standstill.  

Satellite imagery showing location/inter-relationship of Chacoan shrines relative to the major Lunar standstill (taken from Inter-Site Alignments of Prehistoric Shrines in Chaco Canyon to the Major Lunar Standstill, 2016)

This paper outlines the discovery of numerous masonry shrines spanning the distance of five to 15 kilometres which are aligned to the major lunar standstill.  This hypothesis is re-enforced by Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis of the spatial distribution of these sites and includes precise geodetic coordinates determined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geodetic Survey.  This data clearly shows these shrines and their inter-relationships along azimuths to the rising and setting moon at its major standstill. 

Azimuths between Chacoan shrines in previous image ((taken from Inter-Site Alignments of Prehistoric Shrines in Chaco Canyon to the Major Lunar Standstill, 2016)

    Overall, the evidence for calendrical stations in Chaco Canyon is overwhelming.  It is for us to try to decipher what they mean and what their role was in Chacoan culture.  It would seem that Chacoans did their best to improve calendrical precision by increasing vigilance in broader patterns across the ground while improving the speed of reporting to the central authorities.  With this in mind, we should ascertain that calendrical reporting was of paramount importance in the canyon.  Whether this was simply for projecting best corn and bean planting dates or used as a force multiplier in their quest for regional economic dominance may never be known.

Time and Patience: The Most Powerful Warriors. Part Five

    The calendrical station is our last subject concerning archaeoastronomy in Chaco Canyon.  This most recent subject is one of great controversy due to the willingness (seemingly) of some investigators to use irrelevant information in a relevant manner in order to aggrandise the Chacoan culture (alla Keynesian economics).  There is no need for that as Chacoan astronomy and its resultant culture are mind-boggling.  We will stick to facts alone in this article.

    Chacoans watched the sky, day and night.  Ethnographic proof is evident in every Pueblo tribe extant today and some are more ardent watchers than others but every tribe has astronomers.  This overwhelming commonality speaks volumes about the importance of the sky to Ancestral Puebloans.  

Super nova pictograph below Penasco Blanco.  Thought to be from an event in 1054 when an imploding star was visible during the day.
(Author's collection. copyright 2019)

Calendrical stations, simply put, are specific locations from which to track celestial activity across the sky.  Besides being a nice, relaxing pastime, this activity is the key to successfully charting solar activity as it relates to the time of year and - in a larger sense - when to conduct certain activities, like the planting of crops.  Properly conducted, this activity also allowed the Chacoan hierarchy to prepare the masses for upcoming festivals.  This would allow pilgrims travelling from satellite regions to be on time as well as markets to be prepared for the pending events: markets which strengthened the economy of the Chacoan World and re-inforced the validity of its ruling class.

    In Chaco Canyon there are several examples of calendrical stations and they are all linked to the fluorescence period.  In large part, these sites are associated with winter solstice prediction and are located near the Wijiji and Kin Kletso Great Houses as well Headquaters Site A (a backfilled site near Una Vida Great House).

   The original construction of Kin Kletso was completed by 1130AD (approx) and contains both anticipatory and confirmatory markers of the Winter Solstice.  Aligning the southern wall of Kin Kletso with the base of the cliff to the southeast gives a 16 - 17 day anticipation of the solar event and sighting the northern wall against the same cliff base indicates the day of the solstice itself.  Additionally, a large boulder near the north wall may have been the original calendrical station prior to construction.

    

Kin Kletso looking SW from canyon rim.  Previous calendrical station is the large rock (on canyon floor) in upper right picture in line with structure's north wall (Author's collection.  Copyright 2019)

    In the eastern end of Chaco Canyon is another great house: Wijiji.  This location was apparently built in one effort in 1110AD (approx) and was never occupied, lending credence to the supposition that it was created specifically as a calendrical station and fuelling speculation that this was an effort to revitalise a faltering religio-economy.  This great house exhibits signs of both anticipatory and confirmatory  stations in its architecture as well as in the surrounding terrain.  When standing at the northwest corner of the structure looking southeast, there is an apparent notch on the distant horizon.  16-17 days prior to the Winter Solstice sees the sun rising from just North (left) of this notch and the sun rises just to the South (right) of this notch on the solstice itself.  It is the preponderance of these visual astronomy references in Late-Bonito Phases great houses that is most interesting.  This site at Wijiji is impressive due to the number of calendrical stations in its vicinity.  To the East of Wijiji, there are boulders at three different locations that, coupled with a horizon foresight, act as calendrical stations for Winter Solstice, both equinoxes and Summer Solstice.  There is evidence that these sites were used subsequently by Pueblo tribes as well.

Time and Patience: the Most Powerful Warriors. Part Four

Another manifestation of Archaeoastronomy extant in Chaco Canyon is Cardinal       alignments.  North-South and East-West building orientations predominated during the flouresence period in the canyon (1000-1175 AD circa) and were so important by that stage that, in the case of Pueblo Bonito, an existing great house was expanded upon and re-oriented from the original S/SE floorpan to North-South alignment.

(Imagery courtesy of Google Earth)

    As opposed to the ancestral veneration as the basis for the S/SE orientation, I have found no clear ethnographic reasons for the cardinal alignment.  In fact, our concept of the cardinal directions would not have existed for the Chacoans; their understanding of the world was not like ours.  Perhaps the emerging reliance upon North-South alignments during the fluorescence stemmed from Chacoan understanding of the rotation of the cosmos through direct observation.  Long term observation of their revolving skies may have brought them to the conclusion that the cosmos rotates from a single point on either end of their world (North-South).  Their daily observation of the sun’s patterns - either through direct monitoring, horizon calendars or employment of a gnomonic device (see part two) - would have given them a good understanding of what we call East-West and, together, these concepts could have been employed to revitalise a flagging theocratic civilisation based upon this new cosmic concept.  

    These rumination aside, we are left with only the facts. The reasons for these orientations are not clear, there appears to be no utilitarian reason for the cardinal alignment (much less its sudden importance) and there are no topographical restrictions that would require construction to adhere so closely to these alignments.  The collection of solar heating may have been a factor in general south facing construction but there is nothing extant to insinuate such strict adherence to a cardinal azimuth.  Recent archaeological activity in Chaco Canyon suggests that even at the height of its fluorescence, Chaco Canyon had a rather small population that population surged at intermittent periods.  This suggests a religious employment of the site and would explain why the area was so well organised and such care was taken in its large-scale construction.  In this scenario (religious centre) the attention to detail would make sense if these great houses were built as physical manifestations of Ancestral Puebloan’s cosmic concept.  If this idea were true, even the act of building the great houses would have become an act of faith or contrition.  An idea like that may be reason enough for individuals without knowledge of the wheel and no beasts of burden construct an intricate road system over which to transport tens of thousands of trees from distances of up to 80km for use in construction of these houses.

    The question is what happened to cause a change in construction management? During this fluorescence period - when a surge in great house construction took place - almost every building exhibits signs of cardinal point orientation and there are several cases of inter-site alignment along the cardinal points as well, which indicates an even greater level of civil engineering on behalf of the Chacoans.  The construction of several buildings within Chaco between 1040 and 1160 AD (finish dates) demonstrate a clear premeditation on behalf of the Chacoan leadership to inter-relate their construction developments with regards to their cosmic concept.  Pueblo Alto, New Alto, Tsin Kletsin and Casa Rinconada are all flourecence era construction that are not only built with respect to the N-S alignment but are also aligned to each other despite their positions being separated by almost five kilometres.   Pueblo Alto, finished in ~1040AD, with an internal alignment of 178.9º is directly North of Tsin Kletsin.  Tsin Kletsin, finished in ~1115AD and due South of Pueblo Alto - constructed with an internal alignment of 178.7º.  Interestingly, these two great houses are outside of the canyon proper, on the mesas North and South of the canyon and in sight of each other; leading to conspiracy theories concerning warning stations and internal strife.  New Alto is a smaller great house within sight of, and directly to the West of Pueblo Alto.  This New Alto great house was constructed in approximately 1130AD and is directly North (and also within sight of) Casa Rinconada.  Casa Rinconada is located in Chaco Canyon (away from other great houses) and was constructed in ~1060AD and has an internal alignment of 180.1º.

    Through all of this the enigma remains (or deepens) because as cardinal alignment began to supersede S/SE orientation as the predominant expression of archaeoastronomy in Chaco Canyon, we see that same S/SE orientation become predominant in the Totah Region of the Chacoan world.  This region was at the northern end of the Great North Road and the destination for many during the initial abandonment of Chaco Canyon.  This simultaneous shift seems to indicate a rift in cosmic concepts.  Perhaps those that believed in the old ways moved North and built Aztec and Salmon Great houses along with their associated outliers while the “new” philosophy of cardinal alignment took over in the Chaco core.  

The New Year

We are off to a Big Bang this season.  Tune in next week for more on time itself...