LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Chaco Canyon: New Mexico
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Located in New Mexico, Chaco Canyon is one of the most extensive prehistoric ruins in America. For years archaeologists have assumed that Chaco was primarily an ancient trading center. Now, this nationally broadcast film (narrated by Robert Redford and first aired on PBS,) shows that Chaco was instead a complex ceremonial center, harmonized by extraordinary astronomical alignments of buildings and roads, and elegant light and shadow markings. Aerial and time lapse footage, computer modeling, and interviews with scholars show how the Chacoan culture oriented and located its major buildings in relation to the sun and moon.
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Chaco Canyon is a magical place in a semi remote area in the Four Corners area of New Mexico. Anasazi ancestors lived here over a thousand years ago. People came to the Canyon from miles around to join together in ceremony and celebration. Unlike many sacred sites in North America, Chaco has been preserved and protected by its remote location. You can actually go inside of many of the buildings.
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Chaco Canyon, located in northwest New Mexico, is perhaps the only site in the world constructed in an elaborate pattern that mirrors the yearly cycle of the sun and the 19-year cycle of the moon. How did an ancient civilization, with no known written language, arrange its buildings into a virtual celestial calendar, spanning an area roughly the size of Ireland? Why did this society, ancestors of today's Pueblo Indians, choose to establish the center of their world in the middle of such an arid, barren land? And why, after constructing buildings the size of the Roman Coliseum, did these same people deliberately seal them and abruptly leave? These enigmas have puzzled archaeologists for centuries. This program presents substantial evidence that the Chacoan people expressed a complex solar and lunar cosmology in their magnificent architecture.
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High up on Fajada Butte (shown above) at the mouth of Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico's desert, three sandstone slabs lean against the rock wall looking almost as if they had slid into place. They did not. Nearly a millennium ago the Anasazi, probably ancestors of today's Pueblo people, constructed an amazing "observatory" which marks the summer and winter solstices, the spring and fall equinoxes, and the Moon's most northerly and southerly rising points during its nineteen year cycle. As evidenced by Fajada Butte, the world's only known archeological site to mark all of these significant astronomical events, Native Americans were outstanding observational scientists prior to Columbus's arrival in the New World.
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The weather in Chaco Canyon is inconsistent and unpredictable. Temperatures can fluctuate over 60 degrees during a twenty-four hour period. As with much of New Mexico, precipitation may be localized and one end of the canyon will experience a downpour while the sun blazes and rainbows appear five miles to the east. Due to this irregular weather pattern, reconstructing prehistoric climatic conditions or advising visitors about tomorrow's weather is difficult. Climatic data, such as the chart below, should only be used as a general guide.
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Chaco Canyon is located in northwestern New Mexico, roughly 50 miles south of Farmington. It can be reached from state route 44 from the north, and from interstate route 40 from the south. Either way, the last 20 to 25 miles are driven over graded dirt roads.
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