Through all these examples we see that sky watching played a large part in the daily life of Ancestral Puebloans. The only question is, why? Why was so much effort put into building these great houses with so much care and to such exacting standards? Why were tens of thousands of trees brought from as far away as 100 kilometres (62 miles) without the aid of animals or the wheel? Why does it seem the mid-twelfth century was a dividing line in Chacoan culture? Remember, it was prior to 1150 that the south/southeast (S/SE) orientation was predominant in local architecture and after that cardinal alignment took precedence. During this same fluorescence period calendrical stations seem to have become very important but they were typically located on sites important to their ancestors. If that weren’t enough, it seems Chaco Canyon itself may have been occupied due to its alignment with the 19 year greater lunar standstill through its southern mesa topography.
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| Tower kivas (gateways to new worlds) in Kin Kletso Great House (Author's collection, copyright 2019) |
This demonstrates the great value Ancestral Puebloans placed on commemorating the cycles of the sun and moon. Chacoans built the azimuths of sun/moon rise and set, its mid-points and extremes into their architecture on micro and macro scales. Over the centuries this reverence for time became heirophany and, therefore, impossible to ignore but not impossible to walk away from.
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| Clusters of kivas inside Pueblo Bonito (Author's collection, copyright 2019) |
All these deliberate activities help to integrate the canyon into a meaningful unification of heaven and earth - but this only brings us back to why. Why go to all this trouble? We can see the organised and predictable nature of Chacoan worship and how it lent itself to creating large festival opportunities: most likely the backbone of a vibrant economy. This economic well-being was probably based on the commerce created by the well planned arrival of pilgrims attracted to these rituals. These markets and fairs would have been large enough to allow the Chacoan system to become a clearing house for not only a variety of goods, both foreign and domestic, but also ideas and ideologies, both political and social; all of which would have helped shape the Chacoan world. This well-organised system would have created political stability for the Chacoan elite and so it was imperative that they remain relevant to their population in order to stay in power. Its not hard to see that the introduction of new traditions and the physical changes associated with them may have been one manifestation of this quest for relevancy that we can see today.
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