Day 72: Chimney Rock National Monument is on a mountain ridge in southwestern Colorado where Ancestral Puebloans lived during about 925-1125. High on the ridge are the remains of many pit houses of the people who farmed in the nearby valley. Their kivas were above ground, unlike at Mesa Verde, because the soil was so thin above the bedrock.
Higher, where the ridge is very narrow, is Great House Pueblo, a building complex constructed of sandstone block and mortar in the late 1000s. The excellent quality of the masonry is similar to that found in Chaco Canyon.
When the two tall rock formations at the summit of the ridge, Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, are viewed from Great House Pueblo, the gap between them frames the position of the lunar standstill, an alignment that occurs every 18.6 years. One of the exterior walls of Great House Pueblo aligns with the solstice and another with the 1054 crab nebula supernova. These astronomical alignments suggest that Great House Pueblo was built primarily for ceremonial purposes.
Wow is that so interesting.