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<< Our Photo Pages >> Chimney Rock - Great House - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in The Southwest

Submitted by bat400 on Wednesday, 26 September 2012  Page Views: 14362

Multi-periodSite Name: Chimney Rock - Great House Alternative Name: Chimney Rock National Monument
Country: United States
NOTE: This site is 70.441 km away from the location you searched for.

Region: The Southwest Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Durango, CO  Nearest Village: Pagosa Springs, CO
Latitude: 37.191667N  Longitude: 107.306389W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Creative Commons : Moonrise at Chimney Rock Photo credit: US Dept of Agriculture (Vote or comment on this photo)
The Great House ruins are the northernmost Chaco Culture settlement for the Ancestral Puebloan people (Anasazi.) The building has been sited to align the twin spires of Chimney rock with the moonrise during the 18.6 year Lunar Standstill cycle.

The Great House and ninety other building sites near Chimney Rock lie within the San Juan National Forest. The Great House is exemplary in the care taken to build it, with evenly spaced runs of quarried sandstone blocks. The building complex was build around 1000AD during the amazing explosion of Chaco Culture influence in what is now New Mexico and parts of Arizona and Colorado.

The rock itself is over 535 million years old, and offers 75-mile panoramic views of the local area. The Ancient Pueblo People site, designated on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, was a community inhabited between Durango and Pagosa Springs about 1,000 years ago with about 200 rooms. Rooms in the buildings were used for living, work areas and ceremonial purposes. The site is located within the San Juan National Forest Archaeological Area on 4,100 acres of land. Between May 15 and September 30 the Visitor Center is open and guided walking tours are conducted daily.

Since the 1960s, Dr. Frank Eddy of the University of Colorado and others have studied the site, and research continues. Utilizing the provisions of the Antiquities Act, U.S. president Barack Obama elevated the archeological site to the status of a national monument on September 21, 2012.

A small cabin visitor center is staffed by volunteers from mid May through the end of September. The site may only be visited in a guided walking tour.
Chimney Rock website with slideshows, maps, and events.

Note: Chimney Rock becomes newest US National Monument
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Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Creative Commons : The Great Kiva is located within the Chimney Rock Archaeology Area in the San Juan National Forest in Archuleta County Colorado. Experts believe this to have been built circa 1084 by the early Puebloan people. It would have originally bore an adobe plaster exterior. The structure was rebuilt in 1972. Author 000jaw (Vote or comment on this photo)

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Andy B : The Chimney Rock formation seen from the Great House Photo Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation (Vote or comment on this photo)

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Andy B : The Chimney Rock formation Photo Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Andy B : Photo Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation (Vote or comment on this photo)

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Andy B (Vote or comment on this photo)

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Creative Commons : Chimney Rock in the San Juan National Forest in Southwest Colorado was designated a national monument on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Chimney Rock was home to the Ancestral Pueblo People about 1,000 years ago and is culturally significant for Native American tribes. The site is deeply spiritual to the Pueblo people and other tribes. Ancestors used the rock to see "lunar standstills". Photo credit:...

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Creative Commons : Creative Commons Photo by Graeme Churchard

Chimney Rock - Great House
Chimney Rock - Great House submitted by Creative Commons : Chimney Rock in the San Juan National Forest in Southwest Colorado was designated a national monument on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Chimney Rock was home to the Ancestral Pueblo People about 1,000 years ago and is culturally significant for Native American tribes. The site is deeply spiritual to the Pueblo people and other tribes. Ancestors used the rock to see "lunar standstills". Photo credit:...

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"Chimney Rock - Great House" | Login/Create an Account | 6 News and Comments
  
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Chimney Rock becomes newest US National Monument by Andy B on Wednesday, 26 September 2012
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President Obama named a new national monument on Friday: Chimney Rock in southwestern Colorado. With two sandstone spires soaring from a mesa, not only is Chimney Rock a spectacular place; it also provides a fascinating glimpse into the ancient people who lived in that region more than 1,000 years ago.

The moon usually rises south of the stone towers at Chimney Rock, but every 18 or 19 years, the moon rises directly between the two huge pillars. This feature seems to have been especially important to a society known as the ancestral Pueblo people. They built their largest building — what archaeologists call their "great house" — to have a perfect view of this astronomical wonder.

Archaeologist Steve Lekson says that this great house is actually still standing at Chimney Rock, and it is a remarkable sight. "The location is just stunning," he says. "And then they architecturally positioned themselves on that ridge out near those two huge pillars to make that thing really impressive."

As a tall, square, 40-room palace with ornate masonry, the great house is the centerpiece of the settlement. The house's design stands apart from the simple, circular houses where farmers and commoners would live.

Chimney Rock is the third national monument President Obama has created, the distinction owing to this feature's rich heritage and natural scenery. As a national monument, the area surrounding Chimney Rock will now see more protection, and also more money.

The monument was one of many outposts of the much larger Chaco Canyon settlement in northern New Mexico, about 55 miles away. An experiment done by a high school student, and the discovery of fireboxes at both sites, led archaeologists to believe that the settlements were able to communicate with smoke signals.

"[The student] had her mom stand at one end, down towards Chaco, and she flashed mirrors at Chimney Rock, or vice versa," Lekson says.

Brenda Todd is one of the experts who has argued that Chimney Rock was a colony of Chaco. Before she started studying Chimney Rock for her Ph.D., she got a taste of its magic. In 2006, she hiked up to the great house at Chimney Rock and watched the lunar standstill. "We saw the moon rise between the pillars that night, and it was pretty amazing," she says.

Visitors to the new national monument won't get to view that astronomical sight for many years. In the meantime, though, there's lots to learn there about the people who lived in the American Southwest.

Listen to the report at NPR
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/21/161583836/chimney-rock-becomes-newest-national-monument
[ Reply to This ]

Chimney Rock: Chaco or not? by bat400 on Monday, 13 July 2009
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Submitted by coldrum ---

After a hiatus of more than three decades, archaeologists once again are conducting excavations on the Great House Pueblo high atop a knife-edge mesa at Chimney Rock Archaeological Area in the San Juan National Forest. The twin towers that give Chimney Rock its name stand beside the knife-edge mesa where the Great House Pueblo sits.

"It's a chance to have a new look at this site, because archaeology has really advanced in the last few decades," said San Juan National Forest Archaeologist Julie Coleman.

Steven Lekson, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, is heading the effort. Although often it is hard to find archaeological students willing to conduct field work on a tight budget, he said the allure of Chimney Rock has made this project financially feasible.

"People are beating down doors to do this work for free because Chimney Rock is so famous," he said.

One of the site's claims to fame is its possible tie to the major lunar standstill, an astronomical phenomenon marking the end of the moon's northern migration cycle. Every 18.6 years from the vantage point of the Great House, the moon will rise within a narrow window of sky framed by the giant rock spires that give Chimney Rock its name.

Earlier research at Chimney Rock conducted by Kim Malville, professor of astrophysical, planetary and atmospheric sciences at the University of Colorado, proposes that periods of construction at the Great House corresponded with the dates of historic lunar standstills.

"Based on research from the 1970s, we do think it was constructed in time for the major lunar standstill in 1076, and we think it was rebuilt in time for the next lunar standstill in the 1090s," Coleman said. The current excavations may help clarify a connection.

"We've found pieces of burned beams we can carbon-date to help verify whether the major building episodes here correspond with lunar standstills," said Brenda Todd, a University of Colorado graduate student working on the project as part of her dissertation.

A fixation with solar and lunar cycles is something many associate with the ancient architecture found at New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The archaeologists working at Chimney Rock hope to unearth other clues as to whether it was, indeed, part of the Chacoan world.

"We've found hundreds of tiny ears of burned corn we can chemically source to reveal nutrients in the soil where it was grown," Lekson said. "We speculate that corn was grown all over the Four Corners to be transported to Chacoan cities."
Past studies have indicated that timber from the forests around Chimney Rock may have been used in the construction of the Aztec and Salmon ruins near Farmington.

Despite these clues, Chimney Rock's inclusion in the Chacoan culture is still debated.

"Is it real Chaco? We're north of the so-called 'Adobe Curtain' at the New Mexico border, and some archaeologists still say no," said Jason Chuipka, a former CU graduate student working on the excavation.

The Colorado archaeologists onsite, however, are convinced of the connection. They say Chimney Rock was beautiful and unique, and therefore, coveted.

"With Chimney Rock, it's location, location, location," Todd said. "Of course, the Chacoans had to claim it."

For more, including stabilizing the ruin, see the Durango Herald.
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Dancers Celebrate Heritage at Chimney Rock by Anonymous on Monday, 23 June 2008
The Mexican feather dancers are not part of the Pueblo peoples. They do not sing their dance is not a prayer, it is a war dance with very agressive drum beats. They should not dance in the kiva it is an insult to the pueblo peoples
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Dancers Celebrate Heritage at Chimney Rock by bat400 on Tuesday, 31 July 2007
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Submitted by coldrum ---
History came to life in full color Saturday at the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area, as 160 dancers from the Hopi, Zuni, Aztec and Pueblo tribes arrived to participate in the Native American Cultural Gathering and Dances.

Resurrected in 1995, the annual event revives a tradition many centuries old.

"When it started (in 1995), it was the first time moccasins had touched this ground in over 900 years," said Caroline Brown, a founder of the Pagosa Springs-based Friends of Native Cultures, which sponsors the event and several similar dances at archaeological sites throughout the Four Corners.

More than 200 curious spectators watched and danced along with traditional native dance groups at the site where American Indians lived and traveled hundreds of years before European explorers came to the region.

Brown said the Friends of Native Cultures was formed to educate people, native and otherwise, about the true cultural and historical significance of archaeological sites now managed by federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

"I kept hearing that the people who lived at these sites disappeared, but they didn't disappear," Brown said. "They migrated to Hopi, to Zuni, to the Rio Grande Pueblo. We felt they should be telling their stories, not necessarily just archaeologists telling those stories. What we try to do, and it's the dancers who do it, is try to give people a different window to look through here. It's not just a pile of rocks - it's a living place. People lived here."

For more, see the Durango Herald.
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Chimney Rock - Article from the New York Times: by bat400 on Tuesday, 10 October 2006
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Where the Moon Stood Still, and the Ancients Watched

The great Chaco civilization, trading partner of the Maya, established a far-reaching sphere of influence in the North American desert a millennium ago. Among the most remote and mysterious of their outposts was Chimney Rock, in what is now the very southwest corner of Colorado, 90 miles from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the center of the culture.

Why did the Chaco people — the Anasazi, or “ancestral Puebloans,” as their descendants prefer — build an enormous ceremonial Great House at Chimney Rock, so far from home, 1,000 feet above the nearest water supply and at the base of immense sandstone spires?

It was not until two decades ago that archaeologists arrived at an explanation that most now accept: the Chaco people built the Great House as a lunar observatory precisely aligned to a celestial event that occurs just once in a generation.

More, with pictures: New York Times (Travel Section)

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