Pueblo Bonito photo by William Stone

Join Anna Sofaer & The Solstice Project

Beyond our Films and Into the Canyon

Together, let’s explore and experience the ancient history of a complex and still mysterious culture.
Please RSVP by August 15 to hold your spot. Space is limited to ensure an intimate and immersive experience. To RSVP contact Mary Langdon at [email protected]

Pueblo Bonito photo by Adriel Heisey

The Trip Itinerary

The experience begins Friday at noon at the Park Campgrounds with a welcoming lunch and introduction by Anna Sofaer.

Expert Talks and Guided Tours & Starlit Conversations

The afternoon presentation will include a tour of Pueblo Bonito as featured in Written on the Landscape, and after dinner, a tour of the night sky by Davd Valentine.

On Saturday morning and afternoon, we will explore Pueblo del Arroyo, Chetro Ketl, and Casa Rinconada, view the petroglyphs, hear the sounds resonating from the canyon’s amphitheater, and learn about the connection between the Mayans of Mexico 2,000 miles away and the Chacoans.

Following dinner that evening, Richard Friedman will enhance the day’s explorations with a video presentation about the discovery of the massive roadways and their extensive reach.

Camp in Comfort

Two nights to relax in comfortable camping accommodations, all gear provided by us. Enjoy delicious food in a serene, natural setting: 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners.

Screening the film, Written on the Landscape

A private screening in Santa Fe for those joining the trip, with editor and co-writer Christopher Beaver and producer Anna Sofaer.

Transportation

From Santa Fe to the Canyon will be available for those who wish to have it for the three hour trip.

*Note: The guided trips involve moderate physical activity and walking short distances in the canyon. However, participants who want to view the canyon Great Houses from the mesa above will be guided on a separate excursion involving some climbing.

Your experts and Guides for this Once-In-A-Lifetime Excursion

• Archaeoastronomer Anna Sofaer, founder of The Solstice Project and film producer, will share her 45 years of studying Chaco astronomy and archaeology, with new evidence of the Chacoans’ intricate geometry in their monumental structures.

• Archaeologist Richard Friedman will provide an in-depth view of Chaco’s magnificent Great House architecture and enigmatic roads, showing many features he recently discovered with LiDAR.

• Cinematographer Davd Valentine, specializing in archaeoastronomy sites of the southwest, will share his expansive knowledge of the night skies, across several cultures.

• Archaeologist Dr. Rob Weiner will share his remarkable documentation of ancient ‘roads’ throughout the 70,000 square mile expanse of the Chacoan world.

• Educator Petuuche Gilbert, historian of Acoma Pueblo, who has deepened our understanding of Puebloan history with Chaco, will share his concerns and thoughts about learning from his ancestors’ relationship to Chaco.

• Mayan archaeoastronomer Alonso Mendez will talk about newly discovered connections between Chaco and Mesoamerica and deep parallels in beliefs and traditions across the border.

Written on the Landscape Screening
Immediately following Christopher Beaver, the film’s editor and co-writer, will be in conversation with Paul Barnes, CCA Artistic Advisor, and answer audience questions. (Due to a prior commitment Anna Sofaer will not be in attendance.)
Center for Contemporary Arts, CCA, 1050 Old Pecos Trail. Tickets available here.

SPECIAL EVENT! [SOLD OUT]
Producer Anna Sofaer and The Solstice Project will host the Premiere Screening of Written on the Landscape followed by a Food & Wine Reception, at which Anna, the Solstice film team, and Puebloan film participants will be in conversation with the audience. Center for Contemporary Arts.

Chaco‘s Story Speaks to Us Today: Panel Conversations
10 am-noon: How Vast the Chaco World: Seeing and Creating from Above
1 pm-3 pm: Tropics to Desert: Power in the Land and ‘Roads’
4 pm-6 pm: Chaco a Center of Dualities — Sun and Moon, Light and Dark: Learning from and Protecting Chaco
Center for Contemporary Arts, CCA, 1050 Old Pecos Trail. Exodus Space.
No tickets required, seating will be first come, first seated. RSVP here to indicate your attendance at these panels.

The Center for Contemporary Arts will screen Written on the Landscape, The Sun Dagger, and The Mystery of Chaco Canyon, throughout the week, June 7 – June 13. Please visit CCA’s website for times and details.

Written on the Landscape Premiere Screening
Immediately followed by a presentation and audience Q&A with Producer Anna Sofaer, and film team members, Petuuche Gilbert, Rich Friedman, and Rob Weiner.
Concert Hall, Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive, Durango.
Free admission, no tickets required.

Written on the Landscape Premiere Screening
Immediately followed by a presentation and audience Q&A with Anna Sofaer and Petuuche Gilbert from the Pueblo of Acoma. Preregistration is encouraged. Co-sponsored by the New Mexico Academy of Science.
New Mexico Museum of Natural History, 1801 Mountain Rd NW Albuquerque, NM 87104 Tickets, $8, are available here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Archaeologists Rich Friedman and Rob Weiner with Anna Sofaer.

Solstice 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

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.

Click here to see our trailer!

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.

Click here to listen to Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma Pueblo

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.