Ancient Skywatchers at Hovenweep Castle

The Little Ruins Canyon Trail is a 2.0 mile loop at Hovenweep National Monument on the south Utah-Colorado border. The trail visits at least 10 ruins structures built by Ancestral Pueblo People who lived here until about 1300 AD.

The trail begins a short distance from the visitor center and follows around the rim of this east and west lying canyon, dipping into and crossing the canyon at the east end. The Hovenweep Castle is near the west end at the southern most of the two canyon heads.

The trail guide says there are two D shaped towers. The terrain on the canyon rim is very dry, with sage brush and a few scattered Utah Juniper trees. The stonework at the Hovenweep sites is considered to be very good and to show a variety of styles and shapes.

These structures have some T-shaped doorways, a feature seen on many of the Ancestral Pueblo sites all around the region, including at Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. Some of the smaller holes are thought to be related to observations of the sun.

The port holes that are thought to be related to sky watching are on the first story of the west side. The port hole to the right of the west side is thought to be related to the setting sun summer solstice and the port hole around the corner to the right relates to the winter solstice.

The interior of Hovenweep Castle is closed, so visitors can’t observe the beams of light themselves.

Many of the Hovenweep structures have portholes so the solar observations seem like they must have been noticed after construction.

Unit Type House on the north rim also has some portholes on the east side that catch the rising sun rays on the solstices.

Below the canyon rim where Hovenweep Castle sits is the Square Tower. The area at the canyon bottom is greener due to the seep springs and has plants, like the large Hackberry trees, that are not growing on the canyon rim.

The Square Tower shows a slight spiral, twisting slightly in a clockwise direction. The trail guide indicates that the spiral shape was for added strength or aesthetics. The guide also says there is a circular kiva associated with the tower. The location of the Square Tower near the spring may be to protect it. This practice of protecting the water resources appears to be common at the Hovenweep sites.

Ancient Skywatchers Exhibit at the Anasazi Heritage Center

Beginning November 23, 2012 and extending to April 2013, the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colorado is hosting the Ancient Skywatchers of the Southwest Exhibit.

Images by photographer John Ninnemann show how the Ancestral Pueblo people that lived in the Four Corners area prior to the arrival of European American settlers had an advanced understanding of the paths of the sun and moon. This knowledge was important in the timing of crop planting and ceremonial events.

Along the first wall when entering the exhibit there are displays on the moon and the sun and images from Mesa Verde National Park. The Mesa Verde images emphasize a particular view point marked by a small pecked basin that is south of the famous Cliff Palace. From this pecked basin the sun sets directly over the Sun Temple on the Winter Solstice. I don’t think the pecked basin is pointed out on the normal Cliff Palace tours, or maybe it off the trail and not visible.

The Sun Temple is easy to visit site on the self guiding Mesa Top Tour at Mesa Verde. The trail guide points out that there is a natural rock basin in the southwestern corner that Jesse Walter Fewkes speculated was a solar marker. No evidence of roof material was found at the Sun Temple, leading the conclusion that the structure was unfinished.

A four story tower on the south end of the Cliff Palace alcove has some artwork visible on the interior. If you aren't in a hurry at the end of the tour, you can usually wait in line to lean into a small doorway and look up.

The older trail guides for Cliff Palace describe these images as decorative but the Skywatchers Exhibit suggests that these may represent a record of observations of the moon. The exhibit has a close up picture of the artwork that gives a better view than a visitor can see on the tour.

The guided tours of Cliff Palace are usually offered from April to November. In the winter season, there are good view points from the Sun Temple and the Cliff Palace trailhead.

The second long wall has displays of Hovenweep National Monument and Yucca House National Monument. The Holly Ruins Group is one of the outlying Hovenweep sites and is located about 4 miles north of the Hovenweep Visitor Center. At the south end of the Holly Group there is an overlook of a petroglyph panel that is thought to mark the summer solstice.

On the summer solstice there is a dagger of sunlight that crosses a set of concentric circles. The exhibit has a good close up picture of the sun dagger crossing the concentric circles. The Holly Group is somewhat remote but is easy to visit.

Yucca House National Monument is a large unexcavated ruins site located south of Cortez, CO between Mesa Verde and Sleeping Ute Mountain. The sun at winter solstice appears to set on top of the toe of the Sleeping Ute when viewed from the upper Great House. The Yucca House site is easy to visit but doesn't get much publicity.

Pictures of Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico take up the third wall of the exhibit. Chaco Canyon has many examples of knowledge of the heavens. On the Penasco Blanco Trail there are pictographs that are thought to depict the Supernova of 1054 AD. There are several nearly exact north and south alignments at Pueblo Bonito and Casa Rinconda.

Fajada Butte is probably the most prominent archaeoastronomy site in the Chaco Canyon Park. Visitors can only view it from the distance but interpretive signs point out that there are three boulder slabs directing sunlight onto petroglyphs that mark the solstices and equinoxes. There are good elevated views of Fajada Butte from the Chaco Canyon Overlook Trail at the Gallo Campground.

The Anasazi Heritage Center has more information than is obvious at first glance. In the main gallery there is a table with four computers. One of the computers focuses on Chaco Canyon and the greater Chaco community. Part of the computer display discusses the Fajada Butte solar site and includes more Skywatcher pictures and discussion.

The fourth outer wall of the Exhibit features Skywatcher sites from the Cedar Mesa and Comb Ridge area of southeast Utah. The set of four images shows the sun rising close to the summer solstice along the cliffs north of the San Juan River. Other images show some of the many alcove sites in the Cedar Mesa area. The Cedar Mesa area has many interesting trails but they are mostly unpublicized.

The center of the exhibit floor features Chimney Rock, the Yellow Jacket Pueblo, and the V-Bar Ranch. Chimney Rock between Bayfield and Pagosa Springs, CO has been elevated to National Monument Status in 2012. There are two short trails at Chimney Rock with the Great House Pueblo Trail appearing to be closely associated with the Lunar Standstill. The largest north and south difference between where the moon rises during its monthly cycle occurs on a regular 18.61 year cycle that is known as the Lunar Standstill.

There is a large Great House ruins site with a good view of the Chimney Rocks. This is an unusual high elevation location for a large structure and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it to be here except for these Skywatcher observations. This is an easy site to visit.

Yellow Jacket Pueblo is the largest known ruins site in the Mesa Verde region. Tours of the Yellow Jacket Pueblo are offered usually three times per year during the summer months. The tours are publicized and arranged at the Anasazi Heritage Center.

One of the interesting features of the tour is the solar monument that appears to line up with the Lizard Head formation in the San Miguel Mountains that are near Telluride.

The V-Bar V Ranch is near Sedona, Arizona has a petroglyph site with 1032 glyphs on 13 panels. It is believed that part of the petroglyph site is a solar calendar that would have aided the agricultural activity in the area.

Not included in the exhibit, but part of greater Mesa Verde is the Mancos Canyon area of Ute Mountain Tribal Park. There is a special Sun Calendar Tour, usually offered in late May that visits several monuments and petroglyph panels that are also thought to be related to the Ancient Skywatchers.

Yellow Jacket Pueblo

The Yellow Jacket Pueblo is the largest known Ancestral Pueblo village in the Mesa Verde region. The 100 acre Yellow Jacket site is located mostly on property owned by the Archaeological Conservancy.

 There are usually two or three free tours offered during the summer that are publicized and arranged through the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colorado.

The site sits in the upland area between two arms of upper Yellow Jacket Canyon. Looking at the site from the parking area, it is overgrown with sagebrush without any of the 42 roomblocks with 600 or more rooms, 192-195 kivas, or 18 towers immediately apparent. The elevation is about 6800 feet.

The tour starts by walking for about 0:20 minutes through the sagebrush to the south end of the site. The main sites are thought to have been built and occupied from 1050 to 1300 AD and may have supported up to 1500 people. It is not apparent walking across the site, but many of the kivas and rows of room blocks has precise east and west alignments.

Several rubble piles sites and many pottery shards are visible before arriving at a southwest side canyon rim where a small petroglyph is visible under a rocky ledge. Across the canyon from the petroglyph was a sagebrush hilltop that is thought to be a Basketmaker site, but it is outside of the preserve property.

Near the petroglyph site there is a very large rubble pile structure. On one side there is a standing monument that is thought to have a summer solstice alignment with the Lizard Head formation and other peaks in the San Miguel Mountains that are visible about 50 miles away in the distance. We saw two other similar monuments that had fallen over.

The highlight site is known as the Great Tower Complex on the northeast side of the pueblo. The large tower-kiva is 23 feet across and is part of castle like compact structure that may have been located to protect the spring water source for the area.

There may be several shrine structures along the east side of the site near the canyon rim, but we missed seeing them. The concept of shrine is somewhat vague and there aren't any interpreted shrine sites in the Mesa Verde area that I know of. They seem to be semi-circular east facing sites where offerings to the spirits or forces of nature are made.

The Great Tower Complex has been partially excavated several times but has been back filled such that no standing walls are visible. This complex appears to have built relatively late in the history of Yellow Jacket, around 1240-1280 AD)

There is some surface water visible below the cattails and there is some rubble visible near the spring. In addition to the springs as a water supply, there are the remains of check dams along the drainages to catch surface runoff.

Further down the same canyon, there are rubble piles below the rim. The structures protecting the water source are thought to be part of a trend in the mid thirteenth century as rising population put more demand on the resources. Along with the rest of the Mesa Verde region, Yellow Jacket was abandoned by about 1300 AD.

The Yellow Jacket site has a possible great house and great kiva on the north end of the site, outside the reserve boundaries and can only be viewed from a distance. It is thought that Chaco Canyon influenced people appeared here around 1080 AD.

There are several exact alignments at Yellow Jacket that are similar to the alignments found at Chaco Canyon.The total hike took 2:00 hours on late July morning.

Solstice Panel on the Holly Ruins Trail

The Holly Trail is a 4.0 mile route from the Holly Ruins Group south to the campground near the Hovenweep National Monument Visitor Center on the south Utah and Colorado border. Just past the Holly Ruins Group is a small petroglyph panel that is thought to be connected with Ancient Skywatchers and the summer solstice.

The Holly Ruins Group is at the head of a small canyon with a seep springs providing water. Several of the structures here are perched on boulders. The terrain is rocky and dry with scattered Utah Junipers and sagebrush on the rim and greener in the canyon bottom.

Just past the ruins group, there is a short side trail to the petroglyph overlook point. There are steep cliffs below the overlook and no easy way to get close to it.

The petroglyph is on the underside of a large boulder that has broken open. The natural arrangement of the rock is such that a beam of light hits the panel at sunrise for a few days around the summer solstice. In some cases man made portals are made for these observations, but here a natural portal was used.

To the left it looks like there is a spiral and maybe a series of arcs. To the right there appears to be some concentric circles. The trail guide says there are some wall segments and rubble but these aren't visible from the overlook.