Our July 16th meeting will feature club member Jeff Phillips speaking about archaeoastronomy, the study of astronomy-related archaeological sites. About his talk, Jeff writes:

“On June 21st, the summer solstice, more than 20,000 people gathered at Stonehenge in England to watch the Sun rise in alignment with the massive sarsen stones. These stones were carefully aligned to the Sun by the native people of England nearly 5,000 years ago.

“Few people realize we have our own monuments to Archaeoastronomy here in the United Sates. In Chaco Canyon in Northwest New Mexico, the ancient people of our country built a series of massive stone buildings, some of them four or five stories tall and covering several acres. These buildings were made of stone and some of them are still standing even though they were built a thousand years ago. Many of these buildings are aligned to the solstice or to the equinox, and some are even aligned to the Soros Cycle, the so called Lunar Standstill that only happens every 18 years. As Hopi researcher Phillip Tuwaletstiwa explains, ‘We have no idea how their thinking went, unless you look at the astronomy.’

“I had a chance to visit Chaco this spring, unfortunately during the day. These ancient buildings are very impressive, the largest buildings ever built in North America prior to the 19th century. These are not apartment buildings as you might think at first glance, they are ceremonial structures, built to celebrate the cycles of the Sun and Moon and Stars. Archeologists can be reluctant to admit that stone age people had a real relationship to science, but the buildings speak for themselves.”

Come listen to Jeff take a fascinating dive into our past. The meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, July 16th at the Eugene Science Center planetarium, 2300 Leo Harris Parkway in Eugene (behind Autzen Stadium).