Ancient Roads Near Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Linked to Sacred Rituals
Ancient Roads Near Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Linked to Sacred Rituals
In a find that sheds new light on the spiritual practices and belief systems of America’s ancient indigenous inhabitants, a team of researchers has discovered a network of ancient parallel ceremonial roads at the Gasco archaeological site in New Mexico, just south of Chaco Canyon. These roads were constructed by the Pueblo peoples who lived in New Mexico 1,000 years ago and earlier, and are now believed to have significant relationships to astronomical phenomena and natural landscape features revered as sacred sites.
A study of the roads led by Robert S. Weiner, a scholar of ancient religions from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, was published in Antiquity, and it describes how these ancient pathways align with the winter solstice sunrise over Mount Taylor. This mountain has long been considered a prominent marker on both the physical and spiritual landscapes of the American Southwest, by modern Native Americans as well as their ancestors.
The new research shows that the parallel Gasco Roads are longer than previously believed, and line up perfectly to connect the sunrise over the mountain on the 21st of December with natural springs where spiritual forces could be channeled. Notably, these roads don’t seen to lead to any place else in particular, making it clear that their ceremonial associations are their primary purpose.
- The Collapse of Chaco Canyon: Recent Study Challenges Drought Theory
- Was a Key Ancient Puebloan Society Ruled by Women?
The south parallel Gasco Road, with Mount Taylor clearly visible on the far horizon. (Dr. Robert Weiner/Antiquity Publications Ltd.)
Uncovering the Secrets of Chaco Canyon and the Sacred Lands of New Mexico
The archaeological complex that includes Chaco Canyon (850–1140) in northwestern New Mexico was is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is among the most researched sites of the ancient Americas. The Chacoan culture is best known for its monumental Great House architecture, which consists of multi-storied masonry buildings constructed to standardized sizes. These ancient architectural treasures were built between the ninth and the 12th centuries, and are widely distributed over a broad region known as “Chaco World,” which covers an area of 38,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) that is criss-crossed by its intricate roadway systems.
Ruins of Pueblo structure built in “Great House” style, at El Morro National Monument in New Mexico. (Rangerdavid/CC BY-SA 3.0).
Up to now, there has been little empirical investigation of Chacoan roads beyond a large-scale mapping initiative launched by the Bureau of Land Management Chaco Roads Project (BLMCRP) in the 1980s. Most who studied Chacoan roads in the past operated under the assumption that they were meant to connect the various Pueblo settlements to facilitate trade and other kinds of travel.
However, the work by the BLMCRP and others has revealed that most of these roads are limited in length and do not actually lead from one settlement to another. Instead, they seem to align with landscape features that were believed to be sacred. In fact the southern parallel Gasco Road seems to end right at a structure known as the Little Gasco Herradura, a curved or horseshoe-shaped masonry shrine built strictly for ritual uses.
Terminal point of the south parallel Gasco Road, where it climbs a low hill and stops at the Little Gasco Herradura. (Dr. Robert Weiner/Antiquity Publications Ltd.).
While the roads may have had some functional uses, they primarily signaled an interest in “sacred geography,” creating an infrastructure where ritual practices could be undertaken collectively and conveniently. Intriguingly, many of these ancient roads, and some surround structures, were intentionally aligned with solar and lunar events, demonstrating an advanced understanding of astronomy and a deep interest in the deeper meanings of celestial patterns.
The Gasco site, which is located 46 miles (70 kilometers) south of Chaco Canyon in the Red Mesa Valley near modern-day Grants, New Mexico, is the quintessential example of how ancient peoples incorporated landscape features into their belief systems, and built roads to reflect that. However, the Gasco Site is located on a parcel of Navajo Nation land surrounded by Bureau of Land Management and private holdings, creating a complex ownership situation that many researchers have struggled to navigate in their efforts to gain access to the site. As a result, new findings at the Gasco Site have been limited and therefore have rarely been considered in discussions about Chaco World and its networks of roads.
Fortunately, the authors of the new study were able to work through all the bureaucratic red tape, and they received permission from all relevant landowning parties to visit and study the site during four extended visits that took place in 2021 and 2022.
- Peculiar Petroglyph in Chaco Canyon Could Depict a Total Solar Eclipse
- Puebloans in Treeless Chaco Canyon Hauled 240,000 Trees over 75 KM for House Construction
Despite the restrictions, the Gasco site has still drawn attention, from researchers fascinated by its horseshoe-shaped structures and roads. This latest discovery was a bit unique, in that it was made using LiDar technology, which produced extensive aerial imagery that showed the outlines of structures that were very difficult to detect at ground level.
The Gasco Site is Ancient Spirituality Embodied
The findings published in the new study show how civilizations in the southwestern United States utilized the surrounding landscape as a ceremonial space, combining natural and cosmic elements. In their complex metaphysical belief systems the Earth and the Sky were part of a unified whole, with their deities acting as intermediaries who orchestrated events occurring in both.
Mount Taylor was revered by ancestral Puebloans and Pueblo Navajo tribes, forming a centerpiece on a landscape infused with purpose and meaning. The researchers were able to verify the alignment of the ancient roads with the winter solstice over the mountain, through actual onsite observation that confirmed the precision of the association.
LiDar image of the Gasco Roads plus surrounding landscape features and structures. (Dr. Robert Weiner/Antiquity Publications Ltd.)
Based on everything they learned, the researchers concluded that the roads must have been ceremonial corridors built to facilitate rituals, likely related to the sun’s annual cycles of rebirth and renewal.
As it symbolizes the longest night of the year, and the opposites between day and night and cold and heat, the winter solstice has a clear meaning. It is believed that the construction of the two parallel roads, and their respective ‘horseshoes,’ represents the dualism that is embodied by this astronomical event (and would be reflected by its counterpart, the summer solstice, when light and day dominate darkness and the light).
Thanks to the precise and detailed imagery collected by LiDar, the researchers hope to learn much more about the landscapes occupied by Pueblo populations many centuries ago, as their study of the remarkable sacred sites of Chaco World continues.
Top image: View of the northern parallel Gasco Road on the morning of the winter solstice in 2022, with Mount Taylor directly beneath the sun in the distance.
Source: Dr. Robert Weiner/Antiquity Publications Ltd.
