Chaco Tribe May Have Looked to Stars

High above Chaco Wash, hidden among the rabbit brush and prairie grass, ochre rocks the size of small trucks tease astronomers and archeologists with petroglyphs and clues to ancient mysteries.

The rocks on Chacra Mesa and the massive cliffs miles away across the canyon to the northeast may hold further evidence that the Chacoans used astronomy to guide their farming and religious ceremonies.

Two days after the spring equinox, 11 students from the University of Colorado explored a part of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park open only to researchers. The students, part of University of Colorado professor J. McKim Malville’s “Ancient As- tronomies of the World” class, were joined by park rangers from Mesa Verde National Park and Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

The group hiked to meet astronomer Tony Hall at the first large rock with petroglyphs as a faint tease of sage hung in the breeze.

The sun rises on the winter solstice, the first day of winter, in a notch across the canyon and is aligned with a rock to the north of the petroglyphs, says Hall, making the case that the rock next to him was a sun observation point.

“There are very few objects in line with the sun when it rises,” Hall says.

Hall points out four holes on the rock. Malville quizzes his students on which constellation the markings represent.

“Corvus,” Malville confirms, also known as the Crow in Greek or the Man with His Feet Ajar in Navajo culture. “This is consistent with early Navajo rock art.”

Also consistent with Navajo art are the Yei’ii symbols on the rock, Hall says.

Those, and the ancient Zia symbol dominating the rock face, are in the same condition as when they were first found and documented in 1849, Hall adds.

Another rock, 100 feet to the northeast, has a spiral similar to rock inscriptions atop Fajada Butte and other inscriptions throughout the canyon, Hall says, which could make it part of the Chacoan culture.

“All of the rocks would seem to be related to equinoxes and sunrises,” Hall says.

G.B. Cornucopia, a seasonal ranger at the park, says there is a strong Navajo presence in this part of the canyon, a 200-foot climb to the top of Chacra Mesa.

Malville, Cornucopia and Greg Munson, a ranger based at Mesa Verde National Park, agree that the six- and eight-sided cairns were likely early Navajo lookout stations.

“Watch out for rattlesnakes,” Cornucopia warns at the start of a scramble through rocks near the top of the cliff.

At the top of the mesa, students stop at a figure-8-shaped depression in the ground.

It may be a big kiva, the round and sometimes underground ceremonial chambers associated with the ancient pueblo people, or a pit house. “It says huge pit house to me,” Munson says, adding that there is no evident masonry.

To the east, ants, perhaps as busy as the ancient Indians were in the valley 1,000 years ago, have built a mound. Scattered across the top are tiny beads that Munson explains came from the ocean, evidence that the Chacoans traded with others far distant.

Another part of Chacra Mesa, reached by a two-mile hike into the valley and again onto the butte, safeguards additional petroglyphs and more evidence of astronomical observation, Malville says.

Along the trek, students--as they have all day--take compass and global positioning satellite readings. At the base of the cliff atop the mesa are several small grinding areas, depressions about a foot long and 6 inches wide.

Malville says these are characteristic of Mesa Verde and other sites to the north and were unlikely for food preparation.

“They point in the direction of the rising sun,” he says. “Therefore, the theory is these are for offerings. This is really one of the small number of sites in Chaco where they point towards the sun.”

It’s clear to the students that this is better than book learning.

“Coming to a place like this, you’re getting a whole new insight,” says student Lisa Burger. “Seeing what they built up in such a harsh land, it’s amazing how much they accomplished.”