Ancient Astronomy of the Southwest

LOCATION: Prescott Public Library
SPEAKER: Professor Bryan Bates, Coconino Community College
COMMENTS: Professor Bates shared his research from Wupatki National Monument, Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde National Parks and other sites. Humans have long observed the night-time sky, often asking probing question about the different patterns they see among the stars (constellations), why some stars wander (planets) and what forces are driving the change as well as stability of certain celestial objects. In the Southwest, the ancestral Puebloan people have a long history of observing the sky and recording  their cosmology through petroglyphs and stories. Professor Bates has had the good fortune to research numerous ancestral sites and attempt to discern what the ancestral Puebloan people may have been observing and how they used the information they extracted from their observations.