Sojourn: Chimney Rock

Almost a month ago, Á and I visited Chimney Rock, the northernmost known outpost of the Ancestral Puebloan Indians. They lived in the Chimney Rock area from 850 - 1125 A.D.

The first thing to know about the Ancestral Puebloans is that we know almost nothing about them — definitively. The APs didn't write, so it's hard say anything about their understanding of astronomy, agriculture, masonry, or anything else that fits our academic tradition's standards of legitimacy. But it is almost certain that Chimney Rock was an observatory for people watching the sky.

Approaching from Highway 151, we could see (from right) Chimney Rock, Castle Rock, and, barely visible on the low hump, a fire lookout from the 1950s. The lookout sits beside a Puebloan Great House, a dozen-roomed structure of intricate stonework.

The APs could observe a unique celestial event from the Great House. Each month the full moon rises in a slightly different place, migrating to the south for 9 and 1/4 years, then swinging back to the north for the same amount of time. At each pole of its migration, the bulbous moon will rise in the same place for a three or four months at a time — a total lunar standstill.

At Chimney Rock, the slot of sky between the two towers of rock mark the northernmost point of the rising moon's movement. From the Great House, the APs could watch the moon "stand still" every 18 and 1/2 years.

This unique orientation, a convergence of the geologic forces that shaped the area and the celestial patterns above it, make it more than likely that the APs watched the sky from here. Its exposed position would have given them an excellent view of the sky, and the irregular horizon would have provided plenty of reference points to note the position of rising stars.

Further evidence is found in the Great House itself, which archaeologists have determined was built in two phases eighteen years apart — the same period between standstills. The seam in the construction above is a result of this piecemeal process. Notice the interlaid rocks of different sizes, a style of masonry also found in Chaco Canyon, the center of AP culture 90 miles to the South of Chimney Rock.

In the above view from the Great House, the most distant ridge is a mesa on the northern edge of Chaco Canyon. These lines of site and numerous outdoor hearths on make it clear that the APs used fires to communicate over the vast distances between their settlements. A group of high school students recently recreated these line-of-sight communications by sending messages with mirrors between Chimney Rock and Chaco.

What was the relationship between Chaco Canyon, Chimney Rock, and the hundreds of other AP sites around the Four Corners area? The Great House at Chimney Rock is formed of the same complicated masonry as many of the structures in Chaco, but the eight separate settlements lower on the mountain and on neighboring ridges are of a rougher construction. People lived in them; no one lived permanently in the Great House. Was Chimney Rock a colony of Chaco? An outpost for an isolated priest-astronomer class? A pilgrimage site? (the great house was plastered in white, making it visible for miles) Uncertainty defines a visit to these sites, especially as a white tourist with no cultural connection to the APs.

Another view towards Chaco. Stern signage is another part of the tourist experience. But try as we might to efface our presence, there are signs of modern life everywhere.

Indeed, the "ruins" are kept up for visitors by a crew of trained archaeological construction workers. My friends S and E used the phrase "Preserved State of Decay," which I can't get out of my mind.

Companions on the tour of the lower buildings. Note the blockier masonry, which lacks the contrasting small and large stones of the Great House.

Manos y metatates, analogous to mortar and pestle, for grinding corn.

Signs of life more ancient. Fossilized crustacean tunnels in the limestone.

The people grew squash, beans, and corn in the valley below Chimnery Rock; at the ranger station someone had planted the same crops. The ranger there was the resident expert, clarifying my questions about the site and its relationship to other AP places and to modern Puebloans. I asked him what cultivars the plants were, whether they were the same ones farmed here so long ago. "Nah," he replied. "I got the seeds at the hardware store!" I appreciated his humor, rare in a world of ruin tourism where preciousness and (contrived?) respect are the norm.

The greatest mystery of the APs is why, 800 or so years ago, they decamped to the "pueblos" in which they now reside. (Nambe is one of them, and I drive through two others on my way to Santa Fe). Archaeologists demand reasons: a solar eclipse near the time of their departure; signs of conflagration within the buildings, set by attackers or as purification before exit; changing climate and the Little Ice Age. We don't know.

Our tour guide, Susan, quoted Puebloans on a tour as saying, "What do you mean? They left when it was time to leave."

An unexcavated building site.

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Most of this information was from the guided tour and from talking with volunteer rangers, but I looked at the sites below for refreshers:

http://www.chimneyrockco.org/historynew.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans#Anasazi_as_a_cultural_label