[Katie]
Yesterday we went on a tour at Chimney Rock Archaeological site near Pagosa Springs, CO. It was really amazing. I think Chimney Rock must have been a pretty important place. It is a Chacoan outlier, the farthest north and highest in elevation. The tour guide didn't really know what he was talking about so we mainly ignored him. But the sites that we walked to were interesting. I automatically looked on the ground for sherds and lithics so I found a Morrison mudstone tool, which is kinda cool. I also found a lot of sherds lying around. Apparently, Chaco can be indirectly seen through line-of-sight contact with another mesa to the south of Chimney Rock. Chimney Rock, like it seems most outliers and Chacoan buildings do, has a great view of the surrounding countryside. So Chimney Rock is pretty cool. There are two large spines of rock along this ridge. The Ancestral Puebloans built one of their great houses along this ridge so that from that point, the lunar standstill moon will rise between those two spires of rock. Amazing? Yes.

So our class went and watched the harvest moon rise last night from this great house. It is the major lunar standstill this year. It was fantastic.

Chimney Rock must have been a ceremonial place. The lunar standstill stuff is just so magnificent, and there just doesn't seem to be any other purpose for building up there other than to observe the heavens and the surrounding landscape. I think there is also evidence that there were additions in construction during and a bit before major lunar phenomena from tree ring dates like at Salmon. I think this whole lunar observation thing is really interesting because there doesn't seem to be any practical reason for it. So, of course, and this sounds cliché, it must be for ceremonial reasons. This concept is so interesting, in fact, that I am doing my thesis on it, surprise.

[Chelsea]
We arrived at Chimney Rock for a tour of the sites at 5:00pm, then the subsequent evening program at 7:00pm in which we viewed the full moon rise. The Chimney Rock Archaeological Area consists of Chimney Rock pueblo on this high mesa as well as several other outlying Ancestral Puebloan communities. It's been estimated that as many as 2000 people may have lived in this area in 1000's.

At the parking lot site at Chimney rock are several circular core-veneered, thick masonry walls forming aboveground rooms. These features have been referred to as habitation rooms due to the lack of features associated with kivas such as pilasters, a bench, and sipapu. However I am skeptical in calling these structures "pithouses" as our guide did. The structures are not designed similarly to pitstructures in that they were not dug into the ground surface and the masonry walls are far too thick for an ephemeral structure such as a pithouse. It's been explained that these "pithouses" were built aboveground because they had to build on top of bedrock and yet the contiguous nature of these circular rooms do not seem pithouse in nature either. There are several rectangular rooms attached to the structure; however, I was under the impression that pithouse antechambers were usually slab lined.

There are several features of Chimney Rock Pueblo that seem distinctly Chacoan. The masonry utilizes varying sizes of tabular stones laid out in precise courses. The L-shaped site has very large rooms and enclosed kivas, features seen in Chacoan great houses. In addition the visibility factor of the site is extremely Chacoan, utilizing dramatic topography to emphasize the structure against the landscape and maximize intervisibility between sites.

It is very curious to me that people chose to build on Chimney Rock, as the nearest viable farmland appears to be hundreds of feet below in the valley. This seems to be the same case for a reliable water source. As the area does not seem advantageous in terms of subsistence, I am lead to believe that the impetus for the settling of Chimney Rock was religious. The topography of Chimney Rock is extremely distinct against the landscape and seems as though it almost certainly must have had some sacred meaning.

[Kellam]
Yesterday we went to Chimney Rock to see the full moon program. Their volunteers were not very knowledgeable in fact they said some downright false things: Ancestral Puebloans are not descendants of the Maya, kivas are not dwellings, fossils don't date from the last ice age-the list could go on and on. (You can't see Chaco from Chimney Rock!) I wish the dude had shut his mouth as the moon was rising, his little spiel was better than the other-but largely erroneous. I was content to listen to Charles Martinez, the Ute flute player, and watch the moon rise. All things aside, though the moon was spectacular, nearly looked like a sunrise. It seemed a little counter to aesthetics to look east at dusk, but it was worth it!

Drive back uneventful-I manned the iPod. Tunes of note:
Pink Floyd-Nerve Damage and Eclipes
Neil Young-Harvest Moon

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