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USA – Pagosa Springs - New ways of thinking about the twin spired stone formation near Pagosa Springs, Colo. It has been long considered a northeasternmost frontier — and highest elevation of any Puebloan site — of Chacoan culture.Turner, 39, is spending this summer conducting ceramic analysis at Aztec Ruins for her master's thesis."I came to start looking at Chimney Rock more from a theoretical standpoint," Turner said by phone on Wednesday. "I was interested in it thinking of what frontiers and borderlands are like. They're often places where there's an exchange — shared languages, customs, ideas." In April, Turner traveled to the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Austin, Tex., to present the culmination of her two years' worth of research and field work at Chimney Rock in her paper, "Frontiers Reconsidered at Chimney Rock."President Obama gave the Puebloan site a national monument designation in 2012. Turner thinks that the 4,726 acre site was an active cultural center — not a mere 'Chacoan outlier' — more than 1,000 years ago. Situated on a high mesa at the southern edge of the San Juan Mountains the site is more complicated than is often thought, she said. "It's not Chaco imposing its ideas on others but rather it's a two-way interaction," Turner said. "They keep their old ways and develop new ways. It makes sense if you think about what borders are like in our world. There's a community that was living on top of the mesa and two components — local people and Chacoans — both had an impact. I'm interested in differences." One element of Chimney Rock that Turner sees as evidence for new theories on the multiple applications and extensions of polyculture at the site is the use of the natural rock formations as a celestial observatory. The rock spires and great house there are ideal spots to track the movement of the sun and the moon, she said. "There's the lunar maximum, when the moon is at the furthest point on the horizon, and from the Great House you can look out at these two spires and the moon rises between them," she said. Also called a Major Lunar Standstill, for three years, "this spectacular sight, which occurs every 18.6 years, is believed to have influenced construction of the Chacoan-style Great House atop Chimney Rock's high mesa," the national monument's website reads. "Whether coincidence or planned, the Great House Pueblo is a natural observatory for the MLS."
http://www.daily-times.com/four_corners-news/ci_26162513/new-theories-chimney-rock-explored-at-aztec-ruins
INDE – Gawilgarh - A team from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has discovered more than 71 decorated rock shelters in the Gawilgarh hills of Betul district in Madhya Pradesh and the Dabka reserve forest areas in the Amravati district of Maharashtra. With this discovery, the number of rock shelters discovered in the area in the last three days has gone up to 226. Preliminary studies indicate that early man might have inhabited these shelters, which are comparatively secluded before gradually moving towards larger colonies. The decorated rock shelters spread across the Gawilgarh hills have been divided into twenty one groups and their nomenclature derived from either the village nearby or any shrine or locally known landscape of the area. The discoveries have indicated that the shelters were occupied from the Upper Paleolithic to the Historical period and Mesolithic, Chalcolithic periods. Different types of tools fashioned from materials like chert, chalcedony and agate have been collected from near and within the shelters. Two miniature pots of dull redware too were discovered. Nandini Bhattacharya Sahu, superintending archaeologist, who led the excavation told HT: “The discovery of 226 decorated rock shelters, till date, in the Gawilgarh Hills forms one of the major finds in India in the 21st century.”
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/asi-discovers-more-than-71-decorated-rock-shelters-in-mp-maharashtra/article1-1239963.aspx