Night and Darkness in Chaco Canyon

Summary

This is an abstract from the "After Dark: The Nocturnal Urban Landscape & Lightscape of Ancient Cities" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Chaco Canyon, an ancient monumental center in the Four Corners (ca. AD 800-1200), has long been a locus of charged nighttime activity. Visitors today are awed by the clear, dark, and vast night skies, and archaeoastronomical research at Chaco has revealed an extensive settlement design reflecting celestial movements. Investigating nighttime at Chaco requires a multidisciplinary approach that combines archaeology, ethnography, sensory studies, psychology, and cross-cultural research. I employ these methods to consider the role of darkness within Chacoan architecture; nighttime activities and the temporality of gatherings governed by moonlight; and commemorations of transitionary moments between day and night. Special attention is given to a theme in Navajo oral traditions of female individuals in ancient Chacoan society who were restricted from setting foot in sunlight. I consider this motif from mythographic, ethnological, and archaeological perspectives. Combining data and imagination, the study of night reveals not only novel aspects of the archaeology of Chaco, but a domain of experience shared by humans worldwide.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• After Dark: The Nocturnal Urban Landscape & Lightscape of Ancient Cities   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24244