Colorado Getaways

Chimney Rock Mystery May Be Related To Lunar Cycle

PAGOSA SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4) ― Each year the non-profit group Colorado Preservation makes a list of the state's most endangered places. This year that list includes Chimney Rock in Chaco Canyon.

Chimney Rock consists of two sandstone towers perched 1,000 feet above the valley floor. The Chaco people were ancestors of the modern Pueblo who ventured north to the canyon 1,000 years ago.

"The site is full of enigma," archaeologist Julie Coleman said. "We don't fully understand why it was constructed, what its function was … there isn't a whole lot of evidence that there was a lot of year-round occupation here. That's another factor that leads to the idea that perhaps it was a ceremonial ritual site."

And those rituals appear to be linked to the lunar cycle.

"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 1090's," Coleman said.

The lunar standstill occurs every 18.6 years when the moon reaches the end of its northern migration in the sky. When the moon rises from this standstill, it fills the view from the Great Kiva at Chimney Rock.

"We don't understand its full importance, but we know that they were tuned into that," Coleman said. "And that they understood it."

Chimney Rock was discovered in the 1920s after archaeologists found lower ruins. They spent the next 60 years studying and reconstructing as much of the site as they could.

Now the site is on the endangered list because of the attention it draws.

"At sites like this that are exposed and used for tourism, we expect a certain amount of loss," Glen Raby with U.S. Forest Service said. He has run Chimney Rock for the past 28 years.

"If a rock falls off, we can replace it, but that costs money," he said.
That money is getting harder to come by and it cannot be feasibly raised by increased attendance. Tours are offered from May 15 through Sept. 30, but it's not just the length of the season that is problematic.

"One of the things that is a limiting factor is the physical size of the site," Raby said. "We can't pack that many people up here."

Raby is realistic about saving historical places.

"We know that you can't preserve everything. We can't live in museums, but a place like Chimney Rock, which has a concentrated area with so much that is still here, needs more attention than we probably afford to give it."

"Most of what people have built over the millennium has been lost. We don't have but a fraction of it left, so it is good to save what we have left."

(© MMVIII CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)