WEBISODE | Summer Solstice At Chaco Canyon | New Mexico PBS

www.newmexicopb... - There are several places in Chaco Canyon that mark the movement of the sun throughout the year. Casa Rinconada, one of the larger kivas in the Chacoan system, is open to the public just before sunrise during the few days of the summer solstice. During these days, the longest of the year, the sun shines through a window and into a niche.
It's controversial whether this marker was intentional on the part of the Chacoan people, who started building the kiva in 1070. When the kiva was found by an archaeological team in the 1930s, it was rebuilt. The exact size of the window is not known. Also, there are low walls surrounding the window that indicate the window may not have received light at all when the kiva was originally constructed.
Regardless of the intention on the part of the Chacoans, the canyon is a spectacular place to view the sky, both during the day and at night. There's nothing like faring the 16 miles of dirt road from U.S. 550 and getting far, far, far away from the things of modern man.

[@steveled938]

Sophisticated, how come they did not have written documents?

[@steffenrosmus9177]

They had a kind of writing called kipus.( Knots on a fine rope) Same the Inka had on Peru. Mainly teaching was done thru telling stories. And the younger listened to the elders not very common in todays America.