Tucked away on the Mesa Verde plateau, where the rugged landscape of Colorado meets Utah, lies a testament to ancient ingenuity that has stood quietly for centuries. Recently, a research team from Jagiellonian University in Poland announced findings that may irrevocably change our understanding of the Ancestral Pueblo peoples and their timekeeping practices.
Deep in Castle Rock Pueblo, a vast expanse known for its cliff-side dwellings and intricate rock art, the researchers uncovered petroglyphs that span approximately 2.5 miles. Among these, spirals reaching up to a meter in diameter stand out, believed by the team to serve as ancient calendars, marking special dates and astronomical events.
“I used to think that we studied this area thoroughly,” archaeologist Radosław Palonka remarked. “Yet, I had some hints from older members of the local community that something more can be found in the higher, less accessible parts of the canyons. We wanted to verify this information, and what we found surpassed our wildest expectations.” His team’s work suggests that higher, less accessible regions of the canyons still held secrets, belying an era thought to be well understood. With a blend of full-scale excavations, geophysical surveying, and digitalization, their search has extended to the skies, with the employment of LIDAR technology promising resolutions precise enough to potentially reveal even more carvings.
The newfound spirals cast a new light on the Basketmaker Era of the 3rd century CE, a time when the Pueblo peoples are believed to have resided in semi-subterranean pit houses encircled by wooden defenses. “The agricultural Pueblo communities developed one of the most advanced Pre-Columbian cultures in North America,” explained Palonka. The complex society was known for its construction of multi-story stone edifices, comparable to medieval townhouses or modern-day apartment blocks, as well as their rock art, ornate jewelry, and ceramics adorned with distinct motifs. “They perfected the craft of building multi-story stone houses, resembling medieval town houses or even later blocks of flats. The Pueblo people were also famous for their rock art, intricately ornamented jewelry and ceramics bearing different motifs painted with a black pigment on white background,” Radoslaw Palonka said in the statement.
This discovery raises questions about the population density in the region during the 13th century, potentially indicating that the area was far more populated than previously assumed. The implications extend into the realm of sociocultural development, as these calendars and other diagrams suggest a level of astronomical knowledge and social organization that may have been sophisticated beyond current estimates.
For now, the focus remains on mapping these ancient etchings, tracing the path of the Pueblo people’s gaze upwards to the stars, and perhaps understanding a little more about how they saw their place in the cosmos.
Relevant articles:
– Spirals Carved Into Colorado Rocks Thousands of Years …, ScienceAlert, Dec 24, 2023
– Spirals Carved Into Colorado Rocks Thousands of Years Ago Could Be Ancient Calendars, , ScienceAlert
– Discovery of ‘calendar’ rock carvings from Ancestral Pueblo in US Southwest surpasses ‘wildest expectations’, , Live Science, Dec 20, 2023
– Researchers Discover the Oldest Petroglyphs in North America, , hyperallergic.com