Chaco Canyon

Like Machu Picchu (MP), the Anasazi sites and great houses of Chaco Canyon are on the World Heritage list. Chaco Canyon, located in northwest New Mexico, presents a complex puzzle of life at those times—not simply a collection of towns where people engaged in everyday routine, but perhaps an intricate web of sacred/ceremonial sites revered by the Anasazi. Society flourished there between approximately 850 and 1150 A.D., at which point the area was deserted (sound familiar?). As I learned more and more about MP and Inca culture, I found myself drawing countless parallels to this equally amazing civilization of the Anasazi, even though these two cultures flourished at different times.

Here are some of the things I found striking about the two places:

Few burials were found at either the Chaco great houses or MP. These and other findings have led experts to believe these sites were not ordinary towns. Instead, they had special religious purpose and significance.

Buildings and sites were constructed to align in certain ways, lending credence to tenants of archaeoastronomy. This refers to not only the orientation of individual structures alone and one to the other, but also alignments between sites miles apart.

For the Inca, alignments also followed sacred lines that incorporated natural surroundings like mountain peaks of religious importance. The orientations of building features (like windows or doorways) and sometimes whole structures at both MP and Chaco incorporate astronmonical events like solstices. Of particular note is the alignment of the largest of the Chaco great houses, Pueblo Bonito pictured on this page. To quote from the book, "People of Chaco," Kendrick Frazier states,

"The entire town of Pueblo Bonito is astronomically aligned. The wall that divides the Pueblo into western and eastern halves was constructed very nearly along a north-south line. The western half of the pueblo's south wall is nearly a precise east-west line."

North is known to be an important direction for Chacoans as evidenced by the Great North Road. And according to creation myths, the Pueblo people of today who are the descendants of the Anasazi, believe north is where their people emerged from the underworld unto the earth and where they return upon death. It's possible the orientation of Pueblo Bonito to these cardinal directions is in reverence to these beliefs and the great migration.

Also of note and currently under debate is the north-south meridian alignment of the three great centers in Pueblo pre-history: Chaco (850-1150 A.D.), Aztec (1110-1275 A.D., situated north of Chaco and connected by way of the Great North Road), and Casa Grandes (1250-1500 A.D., situated 390 miles south of Chaco near Chihuahua, Mexico). In their respective day, each of these sites was the largest in the region. Also, architectural landscaping at these sites, meaning the design and development of building foundations, surrounding landscape, and avenues of approach, was deliberate, perhaps lending to the monumental importance of each center. Interestingly, Casa Grandes and Chaco share similar architectural choices unique to these sites, including "...huge stone disks set beneath structural posts, 'bed platforms,' colonnades, and platform mounts" [Frazier]. All of these sites, too, were long-distance trading hubs of their time, including commerce with mesoamerica.

The Inca study of and reverence for the sun is well known. Establishing the yearly calendar by tracking the path of the sun was very likely practiced in both cultures. In MP, for example, many believe the Intihuatana was used for just that. Too in Chaco, Fejada Butte contains two mysterious petroglyphs (one large and one small spiral) located high on the shoulder of the butte. These petroglyphs are positioned in such a way as to pinpoint summer and winter solstice and the equinoxes according to how, at noon each day, daggers of light hit the cliff face in relation to the carved spirals. On summer solstice, one dagger of light pierces the center of the large spiral; on winter solstice, two daggers of light exactly flank the large spiral, and on the equinoxes, one dagger pierces the center of the small spiral and a second dagger is just off-center (right) of the large spiral. At Chimney Rock Pueblo, a Chaco Canyon outlier, there are more recent findings that indicate the Chacoans also tracked the moon's farthest north-south excursions.

Both MP and Chaco Canyon great house sites contain localized piles of pottery shards in volumes that far exceed breakage due to normal use. At MP, there are two locations: the main gate and below the Temple of the Three Windows. Many believe the breakage to be ceremonial. Of note at Chaco Canyon is the presence of pottery styles and materials from outlier sites, suggesting that Chaco great houses like Pueblo Bonita were a destination for pilgrims.

Both Inca and Chacoan civilization developed massive road systems. Researchers have discovered over 400 miles of roadway radiating out from Chaco into the San Juan basin, which many now think served not only as a means for travel connecting all the Chacoan sites and outliers, but also expressed the universe's natural order (cosmography), and instilled a sense of magnificence and awe when approaching an important regional center (a component of architectural landscaping).

Chacoan roads are surprising and mysterious in these ways. First, they seem to have been planned in advance, running in a deliberate linear direction for miles; the infrequent turn appears as an angular jog, and then the road proceeds on its linear, merry way. Second, roads are unusually wide and in some cases, two or more roads run in parallel. Travelers moved on foot, so roads of between 26 and 40 feet wide are hardly necessary. These characteristics support some of the more recent ideas about the road system as a reflection of cosmology and an integral part of the architectural landscaping.

Of particular note is the Great Northern Road, which extends for 30 miles from Chaco Canyon, maintaining a bearing within 1-2 degrees of true north, and with segments featuring two or four parallel roads. The road crosses barren desert, and then abruptly ends at a deep, inaccessible canyon, mountains looming off the horizon. A structure lies here, reminiscent of prehistoric and historic Pueblo shrines. What could this mean? The journey north might relate to the Pueblo Indian (and Anasazi ancestors') creation myth I mentioned earlier, while the journey south could be a route of pilgrimage or grandiose and symbolic approach to the great houses of Chaco Canyon.

Want to find out more? Check out the books available from Southwest Parks and Monuments Association (SPMA). These include the following: