Annual Letter from Solstice Project 2023

Annual Letter from Solstice Project 2023

Maya Archaeoastronomer Alonso Mendez with Anna Sofaer at Pueblo Bonito

Dear Friend,

For 40+ years the Solstice Project has been telling the remarkable story of Chaco Canyon.

Through our own original research and collaborations with educators of descendant communities and archaeologists, we have brought the extraordinary accomplishments of the Chaco culture to a wider audience. Thanks in part to our work there is a larger constituency than ever to protect this world-class cultural legacy.

Our 2000 documentary The Mystery of Chaco Canyon is still a staple on public television and is widely viewed on a variety of platforms. The film’s longevity and continued resonance is a testament to the power of the Chaco story.

We are now bringing the Chaco story up-to-date with our new film Written on the Landscape. This film documents our latest research on the Chaco region through stunning photography, state of the art visualizations, and penetrating interviews. You can view an introduction to the film here.

 

The film is roughly 90% complete, but there is still important work to be done. I am now asking our friends who care so much about Chaco to help us raise the $50,000 we need to get us over the finish line.

We are fortunate in having a $25,000 matching gift challenge from an anonymous donor who believes in the promise of Written on the Landscape. Gifts received before December 31 will essentially be doubled. Any funds raised beyond what we need to finish the film will be used for educational outreach and promotion. Together we can do it!

Written on the Landscape is scheduled to be premiered on New Mexico public television station KNME on June 20, 2024. We are also in discussion with other partners for additional launch events and the development of educational materials. We are confident the release of the film will bring awareness of the Chaco region to a whole new generation and shape the conversation around this amazing cultural legacy for years to come.
Thank you so much for your interest and support of the Solstice Project. You can make your tax-deductible donation by clicking the Donate Now button below, or if you prefer, you can mail a check to the address below.

Thank you,

Anna Sofaer
President
Solstice Project
222 East Marcy Street #19
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501

If you prefer, please mail your donation to the Solstice Project address above. Please note that the Solstice Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization and your contributions are tax deductible to the extent that the law allows.

share on facebook
Share

Forward to a Friend
Forward this Letter to a Friend

Twitter

Tweet

Written on the Landscape

Cast & Crew

With these remarkable participants, Written on the Landscape will transform understanding of the Chaco people; showing that their interests and achievements reached to the stars with a brilliant conceptual map of the cosmos on the vast arid landscape of the Chaco region. In reflections of descendant people, the film also highlights the wisdom of their choice to close Chaco and to no longer live in a hierarchy of powerful people seeking control of nature. A profoundly important message has been shared for us today as we face challenging choices with our human created climate crises.

Petuuche Gilbert

Petuuche Gilbert, of Acoma Pueblo, educator and activist, describes the moral lessons of Chaco and how people left Chaco to form new, more egalitarian and sustainable societies that exist to this day.

Phillip Tuwaletstiwa, of the Hopi Tribe, former deputy director of the National Geodetic Survey, combines his scientific research into the astronomical alignments of Chaco buildings with insights into the symbolic significance of the sun and moon as instruments for Chaco elites to gain power with their special knowledge.

Phillip Tuwaletstiwa
Paul Pino

Paul Pino, of the Laguna Pueblo, educator, and former chairman of the Laguna Tribal Historic Preservation Board explores the spiritual dimensions of the Chaco world that continue in traditions of his people today.

Elena Ortiz, of the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, an educator and daughter of anthropologist Alfonso Ortiz, speaks from personal experiences beginning in childhood, to convey cautionary lessons learned from the Chaco dominance over nature, and a move by her people to an ethos of equality. 

Elena Ortiz
Alonso Mendez

Alonso Mendez, an archaeoastronomer and artist of Maya heritage, who has done extensive work in Palenque, Mexico, shares his deep insights into Mesoamerican cosmology, drawing parallels between these traditions and Chacoan and Puebloan traditions.

Rich Friedman, archaeologist with four decades of Chaco field research, applies new technologies, such as LiDAR, to broaden our understanding of the immense scope of the Chacoans’ architecture and the significance of their system of “roads.”

Rich Friedman
Rob Weiner

Rob Weiner, archaeologist and doctoral candidate, explores the significance of Chacoan roads and their relationships with distinct topographic features and astronomical events. He shares his findings of Mesoamerican exotic goods and gaming pieces as powerful ritual objects in Chacoan society.

Anna Sofaer, our guide on the Chaco journey, rediscovered long-lost knowledge of the Sun Dagger in 1977. Her writings and two previous films have broadened our knowledge and understanding of this remarkable ancient civilization that left no written record, but “writing on the landscape,” to be uncovered by the Solstice Project team.

Anna Sofaer
Pat Sandoval

Pat Sandoval, member of Laguna Pueblo, retired Superintendent of Laguna Middle School, former Director of Planning and Evaluation at the SFIS, and a long-time supporter of the Solstice Project’s educational outreach. She underscores the importance of Indian youth learning the scientific achievements of their ancestors.

Adriel Heisey, pilot and aerial cinematographer, is contributing to our film striking images of Chaco Great Houses and “roads” throughout the vast expanse of the Four Corners. He says in the film that he continues to “discover new sites every day,” in some of the most surprisingly remote desert landscapes.

Adriel Heisey
David Valentine

With his expertise in archaeoastronomy and refined skills in night sky cinematography, Davd Valentine has captured magnificent imagery for Written on the Landscape. In exploring Chaco ruins in the canyon and the far reaches of the Four Corners he has also created beautiful footage of ancient architecture set in rugged desert terrains.

Christopher Beaver has produced, directed, and edited numerous films including Dark Circle that was awarded Grand Prize in Documentary at the US (now Sundance) Film Festival, and  a National Emmy in News and Broadcasting, and was short-listed for Academy Award Feature Documentary. Recently, his film, Groundwater, received Special Recognition, Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. Chris has contributed film and edited extensively our rough cut of Written on the Landscape.

Christopher Beaver

If you prefer, please mail your donation to the Solstice Project address above. Please note that the Solstice Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization and your contributions are tax deductible to the extent that the law allows.

share on facebook
Keep in Touch on Face Book

Solstice Project colleague Robert Weiner

Solstice Project colleague Robert Weiner

Archaeologists Rich Friedman and Rob Weiner with Anna Sofaer.

Rob-WeinerSolstice Project colleague Robert Weiner recently earned his Ph.D. from University of Colorado Boulder following a successful defense of his (900 page!) dissertation on Chacoan roads, which was held at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. In the fall, he will begin a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth College, where he will be affiliated with the Department of Religion. We look forward to reading the publications he will produce in the near future!

Rob Weiner

Annual Letter from Solstice Project 2022

Annual Letter from Solstice Project 2022

Archaeologists Rich Friedman and Rob Weiner with Anna Sofaer at a Written on the Landscape filming event.
Photo by cinematographer Dyanna Taylor.

My Chaco Canyon Journey

Many of you have experienced my Chaco Canyon journey through my two previous films, The Sun Dagger and The Mystery of Chaco Canyon, both narrated by Robert Redford and together viewed by more than half a million people. Audiences continue to access the films on Amazon Prime and as presented every year on PBS in New Mexico.

I’m writing you on the winter solstice, December 21, the shortest day of the year, and a day marked by the people of Chaco Canyon in works of architecture that spanned some 75,000 square miles of the American Southwest.

With a team of superb, experienced filmmakers, and extensive interviews with researchers and indigenous experts over the past decade, we are close to realizing the completion of my third film, Written on the Landscape. I am pleased to announce that with our existing funding we have completed a first assembly of a rough cut. The film reveals our latest findings about the Chaco culture and the vast expanse of its influence and interchange with peoples of Mesoamerica.

Another $50,000 is needed to add new state of the art animation and complete the editing necessary for a polished rough cut. With the formal rough cut in hand, we can approach additional sources for completion funding, distribution and marketing.

Our film will document Chaco’s fast vanishing cultural landscape and awaken the public to its significance in our world today. The Chaco civilization came to fruition between 800 and 1250 AD with an incredible cultural richness and astronomical knowledge that carries moral lessons for our own era. The story of Chaco suggests that perhaps a civilization can become too powerful and contain within its achievements, the seeds not of destruction but rather a remarkable moral reawakening toward a more sustainable and egalitarian society.

You may have seen Chaco in the news lately, as Secretary Deb Haaland has called for Congressional approval of a 10-mile radius around Chaco Canyon for protection from oil and gas drilling and development. We have uncovered a wealth of new knowledge about the Chacoan people who have been greatly undervalued, in part, because they left us no written record. The record, as we show, is literally “written on the landscape.”

Our film documents archaeological evidence that reveals a far larger Chacoan region that has gone largely unrecognized and requires greater protection than the initial Congressional allocation. We seek to promote protection and acknowledgment of this world treasure in our own “backyard.”

See below our cast and crew in the production of Written on the Landscape.

Please join me by contributing however generously you can in our effort to complete Written on the Landscape and share the wonders and lessons of the ancient Chaco people with a national and international audience.

Thank you,

Anna Sofaer
President
Solstice Project
222 East Marcy Street #19
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501

If you prefer, please mail your donation to the Solstice Project address above. Please note that the Solstice Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization and your contributions are tax deductible to the extent that the law allows.

share on facebook
Share

Forward to a Friend
Forward this Letter to a Friend

Twitter

Tweet

Written on the Landscape

Cast & Crew

With these remarkable participants, Written on the Landscape will transform understanding of the Chaco people; showing that their interests and achievements reached to the stars with a brilliant conceptual map of the cosmos on the vast arid landscape of the Chaco region. In reflections of descendant people, the film also highlights the wisdom of their choice to close Chaco and to no longer live in a hierarchy of powerful people seeking control of nature. A profoundly important message has been shared for us today as we face challenging choices with our human created climate crises.

Petuuche Gilbert, of Acoma Pueblo, educator and activist, describes the moral lessons of Chaco and how people left Chaco to form new, more egalitarian and sustainable societies that exist to this day.

Petuuche Gilbert
Taft Blackhorse

Taft Blackhorse, a member of the Diné, is an archaeologist with extensive knowledge of Chaco. He shares his people’s understanding of Chaco sites, and the power of The Gambler who enslaved people, manipulating them with gambling and Datura, to build the Great Houses of Chaco.

Phillip Tuwaletstiwa, of the Hopi Tribe, former deputy director of the National Geodetic Survey, combines his scientific research into the astronomical alignments of Chaco buildings with insights into the symbolic significance of the sun and moon as instruments for Chaco elites to gain power with their special knowledge.

Phillip Tuwaletstiwa
Paul Pino

Paul Pino, of the Laguna Pueblo, educator, and former chairman of the Laguna Tribal Historic Preservation Board explores the spiritual dimensions of the Chaco world that continue in traditions of his people today.

Elena Ortiz, of the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, an educator and daughter of anthropologist Alfonso Ortiz, speaks from personal experiences beginning in childhood, to convey cautionary lessons learned from the Chaco dominance over nature, and a move by her people to an ethos of equality. 

Elena Ortiz
Alonso Mendez

Alonso Mendez, an archaeoastronomer and artist of Maya heritage, who has done extensive work in Palenque, Mexico, shares his deep insights into Mesoamerican cosmology, drawing parallels between these traditions and Chacoan and Puebloan traditions.

Rich Friedman, archaeologist with four decades of Chaco field research, applies new technologies, such as LiDAR, to broaden our understanding of the immense scope of the Chacoans’ architecture and the significance of their system of “roads.”

Rich Friedman
Rob Weiner

Rob Weiner, archaeologist and doctoral candidate, explores the significance of Chacoan roads and their relationships with distinct topographic features and astronomical events. He shares his findings of Mesoamerican exotic goods and gaming pieces as powerful ritual objects in Chacoan society.

Anna Sofaer, our guide on the Chaco journey, rediscovered long-lost knowledge of the Sun Dagger in 1977. Her writings and two previous films have broadened our knowledge and understanding of this remarkable ancient civilization that left no written record, but “writing on the landscape,” to be uncovered by the Solstice Project team.

Anna Sofaer
Pat Sandoval

Pat Sandoval, member of Laguna Pueblo, retired Superintendent of Laguna Middle School, former Director of Planning and Evaluation at the SFIS, and a long-time supporter of the Solstice Project’s educational outreach. She underscores the importance of Indian youth learning the scientific achievements of their ancestors.

Adriel Heisey, pilot and aerial cinematographer, is contributing to our film striking images of Chaco Great Houses and “roads” throughout the vast expanse of the Four Corners. He says in the film that he continues to “discover new sites every day,” in some of the most surprisingly remote desert landscapes.

Adriel Heisey
David Valentine

With his expertise in archaeoastronomy and refined skills in night sky cinematography, David Valentine has captured magnificent imagery for Written on the Landscape. In exploring Chaco ruins in the canyon and the far reaches of the Four Corners he has also created beautiful footage of ancient architecture set in rugged desert terrains.

Christopher Beaver has produced, directed, and edited numerous films including Dark Circle that was awarded Grand Prize in Documentary at the US (now Sundance) Film Festival, and  a National Emmy in News and Broadcasting, and was short-listed for Academy Award Feature Documentary. Recently, his film, Groundwater, received Special Recognition, Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. Chris has contributed film and edited extensively our rough cut of Written on the Landscape.

Christopher Beaver

If you prefer, please mail your donation to the Solstice Project address above. Please note that the Solstice Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization and your contributions are tax deductible to the extent that the law allows.

share on facebook
Keep in Touch on Face Book

Recent research and progress

,

The Solstice Project will present its recent research and progress on its film production — Written on the Landscape — conveying the remarkable expanse of the Chaco Culture throughout the Four Corners on Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. The presentation will also be available to watch live via Zoom.

The presentation, “Update on Chaco Solstice Project,” will be given by Anna Sofaer, President of the Solstice Project, Chaco researcher, archaeoastronomer and film producer, and Richard Friedman, archaeologist, geologist, geospatial sciences specialist, and Research Associate with the Solstice Project.

The Solstice Project’s new imagery from LiDAR and photogrammetry reveals — in more detail than ever before — multiple replications of Chacoan Great House/Great Kiva complexes and ‘road’ relationships in this vast and rugged terrain. They will show how the pattern in Chaco Canyon of alignments of monumental buildings and roads to solar and lunar events is repeated at sites up to 140 miles from the canyon. Prevalent throughout the Chaco World are striking relationships created between the built environment and distinctive land forms, as well as an integration of the cosmos. This ancient cosmography resonates deeply with Puebloan and Diné traditions of holding maps of their spiritual concepts on the landscape.

This research suggests great power at the hub of the culture: at Pueblo Bonito in particular. Puebloan and Dine traditions convey that the Gambler dominated Chaco, forcing people to construct the roads and buildings. There was a presence of dark forces — and “conflicts between good and evil.” At the conclusion of the talk, a member of Acoma Pueblo will convey in a filmed interview the choice of his people to stop the ancestors’ control of the natural forces and return to a more reciprocal relationship with nature: a poignant message for us today.

Click here for the Zoom link to watch the presentation.
https://www.sjbas.org/

Solstice Project on PBS KNME  Colores , 1/15 – New Insights on Chaco

Solstice Project on PBS KNME Colores , 1/15 – New Insights on Chaco

Dear Friends,

 

When asked why I and my colleagues stay so deeply engaged with Chaco, over decades, I talk about new compelling evidence that this ancient culture brilliantly mapped a vast region of the American Southwest with their cosmology — holding in their mind’s eye writing on the landscape. These new insights resonate deeply with the Puebloan people today who have shared that “roads” are spirit ways and perceive land as sacred.

Visit our beautiful new web site: www.solsticeproject.org

518 Old Santa Fe Trail
STE 1 #511
Santa Fe, NM 87505

©Adriel Heisey  Chimney Rock Great House,  92 miles north of Chaco Canyon, perched on a precipice in the southern Rockies; at lower left of photo