JORNADA RESEARCH INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES THE:
2025 Archaeoastronomy & Celestial Geometry Conference:
Understanding Astronomies
UNDERSTANDING THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT ASTRONOMIES.
A GLOBAL CONFERENCE
"Beneath Ancient Skies: Cosmology and Astronomy of Creekside Village"
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
JULY 7TH - 10TH
RUIDOSO CONVENTION CENTER
111 SIERRA BLANCA DRIVE
RUIDOSO, NM 88435
TOURS JULY 10TH
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
LENIE REEDIJK
(FROM THE NETHERLANDS)
Reedijk will be presenting on the Temples of Malta: Sirus and the Maltese Temples:
Precession imprinted in Stone, Malta, and Gozo. Dinner will be preceded by a Social Hour.
MONDAY JULY 7TH
6:00 PM
TO MAKE HOTEL RESERVATION AT THE ELEGANTE HOTEL, CALL: 575-258-5500 AND USE CODE ARCHAEOLOGY/ASTRONOMY.
BECOME A MEMBER
SPEAKERS
ALAN DART
DENISE RUZICKA
MJ SHARP
DR. RADOSLAW PALONKA
VINCENT MACMILLIAN
ROSS & MAYIA GRALIA
DR. TIMOTHY R. PAUKETAT
Dr. SUSAN M. ALT
SIMON BANTON
LENIE REEDIJK
BRYAN BATES
DAVID GREENWALD
JOHN GROH
CAROLYN KENNET
DR. DANIEL BROWN
LOGAN YORK
ANNA SOFAER
MARK RANEY
RON BARBER
ALANSO MENDEZ
DR. MORROW
GB CORNUCOPIA
&
Rock of the Sun in Chaco Canyon.
DAVID VANENTINE
DAVID PURCELL
DR. SAMUEL DUWE
RON SUTCLIFFE
J MALVILLE
ANDRES MEDINA
MICHEAL GROFE
JAMES KREHBIEL
MYLES MILLER
LARRY LOENDORF
MARK WILLIS
TIM GRAVES
SCHEDULE
- JULY 7TH
- JULY 8TH
- JULY 9TH
7:30 to 8:00 AM – RUIDOSO CONVENTION CENTER DOORS OPEN FOR SET-UP OF BOOTHS AND EXHIBITS
8:00 AM -- REGISTRATION and MEET AND GREET THE CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
9:00 - 9:15 AM Welcome and Introduction by David Greenwald
Session 1: Chaired by David Greenwald
9:15 – 9:55 AM Samuel Duwe: Becoming the Tewa World: Exploring an Ancient, Dynamic and Pragmatic Cosmology.
10:05 – 10:45 AM Mark Raney: Towards an Understanding: Stars and Ceremonial Timing in the American Southwest and Mesoamerica.
10:55 – 11:35 AM Myles Miller, Larry Loendorf , Mark Willis, and Tim Graves: Solar Orientations in Jornada Mogollon Pueblos and Rock Imagery.
11:45 – 1:00 PM LUNCH
1:00 – 1:40 PM David Greenwald and John Groh: Astronomical Associations of the Great Kiva at Creekside Village and Agricultural Intensification.
1:50 – 2:30 PM Denise Ruzicka: Astronomical Alignments at the Harris Site in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico.
2:40 – 3:20 PM Ron Barber: Stone Calendars: Seasonal Recordings of Ancient Southwest Astronomers.
3:30 – 4:10 PM Bryan Bates: A Cultural Interpretation of a Wupatki National Monument Solar Calendar.
4:20 – 5:10 PM David Purcell: An Ancestral Puebloan Solar Observatory of Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.
Social Hour 6:00 – 8:00 PM (Cash Bar through the end of dinner)
Keynote Dinner 7:00 – 8:00 PM
7:30 PM KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY LENIE REEDIJK Sirius and the Maltese Temples: Precession Imprinted in Stone, Malta and Gozo
8:00 am – DOORS OPEN/REGISTRATION/COFFEE
8:50 – 9:00 Welcome and Housekeeping: David Greenwald
Session 2: Chaired by Ron Barber
9:00 – 9:40 AM Allen Dart, Bradley E. Schaefer, and James Stamm: Astronomical Observations at Southern Arizona's Picture Rocks, Signal Hill, and Casa Grande Great House Archaeological Sites.
9:50 - 10:30 AM James Krehbiel: Sightlines and Site Lines, Ancient Astronomy in Southeast Utah.
10:40–11:20 AM Radoslaw Palonka, Ross Gralia, Maiya Gralia, and Vincent MacMillan: Archaeoastronomical Investigations of Ancestral Puebloan Rock Art in the Sand Canyon Area of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado.
11:30–12:10 AM Ron Sutcliffe: Major Lunar Standstill Architecture at Chimney Rock National Monument and Casa Rinconada at Chaco Culture National Historic Park.
12:20 – 1:30 PM LUNCH
1:30 – 2:10 PM Cherilynn Morrow and GB Cornucopia: Rock of the Sun in Chaco Canyon.
2:20 – 3:00 PM J. McKim Malville: The Supernova of 1054 and Major Lunar Standstills at Chimney Rock.
3:10 – 3:50 PM GB Cornucopia and Davd Valentine: The Astronomy of Chaco Canyon and Beyond.
4:00 – 5:15 PM Anna Sofaer: Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon.
5:15 – 6:15 PM Dinner on Your Own
6:15 PM Depart for Creekside Village
8:00 PM Return to Convention Center
8:45 PM Gather at Hotel Bar/Lobby Nightcap
8:00 am – DOORS OPEN/REGISTRATION/COFFEE
8:30 – 8:40 Welcome and Housekeeping: David Greenwald
Session 3: Chaired by Michael Grofe
8:40 – 9:20 AM Timothy R. Pauketat and Susan M. Alt: The Roots of Greater Cahokia’s Celestial Geometry, Mississippi Valley, USA.
9:30 – 10:10 AM Logan York: Hopewell: A Look to the Stars.
10:20–11:00 AM Andrés Morgan Medina: The City as a Representation of the Cosmic Order in Central Mexico and the Oaxaca Zone: Teotihuacan and Monte Alban.
11:10 – 11:50 AM Michael Grofe: Sidereal Calculations in the Dresden Codex Lunar Table.
12:00 – 12:50 AM Alonso Mendez: Centering The World: The Astronomy of Creation at Palenque.
12:50 – 1:30 PM LUNCH
Session 4: Chaired by Carolyn Kennett
1:30 - 2:10 PM Carolyn Kennett: Moonlit Monuments: Exploring the Lunar Standstill Season in the Bronze Age Granite Uplands of Southwest UK.
2:20 - 3:00 PM Simon Banton: The Astronomy of Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, UK.
3:10 – 3:50 PM Daniel Brown: Shadows and Meaning – Exploring a Standing Stone at Gardom’s Edge, Peak District, UK.
4:00 – 4:40 PM MJ Sharp: Megalithic Imagery as Contemplative Portals, Cornwall, UK.
4:50 – 5:00 PM Concluding Statements and Announcements.
5:30 PM Silent Auction Closes
JULY 10TH ACTIVITIES
Join us for "Ancient Skies, Modern Eyes"
JULY 10TH 2025 from 10am - 5pm
New Mexico Museum of Space History
This free public event, co-hosted with Jornada Research Institute, explores the intersection of ancient astronomy and modern space science.
- Free admission for all attendees
- Guest speakers and Q & A sessions on topics of Archeoastronomy and all things night sky
- Hands-on activities with tactile asterisms of the July night sky by MSH Educators
- No Giant Screen Films or LIVE Star Shows on this day
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to explore the wonders of astronomy through both ancient and modern perspectives!
MORE ABOUT OUR JULY 10TH PRESENTERS
JOAN PRICE
is a Research Associate at Jornada Research Institute, a non-profit organization located in the Tularosa Basin. She has an extensive background in the study of Native American images and symbolism and spent several years studying Indigenous groups here in the Southwest, having gathered considerable experience studying the petroglyphs at Three Rivers.
Celestial Jaguar: Maintaining the Balance of Night and Day at Three Rivers Petroglyph Site
A presentation of one of the most striking images of a feline zoomorphic figure at Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. A significant number of felines at Three Rivers Petroglyph Site have been identified as jaguars. The largest of all these, etched on a monumental stone roughly in the center of the mile and one half long ridge of a basaltic upthrust of richly decorated standing stones, faces the southern horizon. The decoration etched on this jaguar and the southern exposure suggest it served as a guardian of the southern skies from Winter solstice sunrise to Winter Solstice sunset moving north along the horizon to Equinox sunrise and sunset, all significant points on prehistoric celestial calendars of the daytime movement of the sun. In addition, the southern exposure features the nighttime vision of Pleiades and the Three Stars (of Orion) following in the revolving movement of the nighttime sky. These points of light are depicted together with an endemic single line design identified by a Hopi tribal cultural advisor as “Soulmate” in a clearly balanced position on the stone with the Great jaguar. The cluster of points (the Pleiades) and the three stars of the belt of Orion) have been as the important signals for nighttime song ceremonies in prehistoric Pueblo Indian kiva practice.
Time: 10:15 AM | 11:00 AM Presentation
11:00 AM | 11:30 AM | Q & A's
ANNA SOFAER
is the founder of the Solstice Project, a non-profit organization that studies the archaeoastronomy of the Ancient Pueblo people of the American Southwest and other ancient cultures. She is perhaps most associated with the discovery and recognition of the Sun Dagger, an astronomical marker associated with solar and lunar cycles located on Fajada Butte in Chaco Culture National Historical Park. She conducts research and produces films based on her research throught the Solstice Project based in Santa Fe.
Mystery of Chaco Canyon: Unveiling the Ancient Astronomy examines the deep enigmas presented by the massive prehistoric remains found in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico.
The film describes how the ancient Chacoan people designed and built ceremonial buildings in a complex celestial pattern between 850 and 1150 AD. Various examples are shown, and scholars discuss how the Chocoan people designed, oriented and located their complexes in relation to the sun and moon. Pueblo leaders discuss their ancestry to the Chacoan people, regard Chaco Canyon as a sacred place where their ancestors lived and discuss the significance of Chaco to the Pueblo world today.
Time: 12:15 PM | 1:00 PM Film
1:00 PM | 1:30 PM | Q & A's
DR. CHERILYNN MORROW
NASA PUNCH Outreach Director, Southwest Research Institute is a solar astrophysicist by academic training, a NASA Educator and Chaco Canyon interpreter by vocation. Her work highlights connections between the high-tech realm of NASA and the everyday beauty and wonder of the natural world. She has combined her duties at NASA with her interests at Chaco Canyon through an arts-integrated public outreach program that includes introducing the public to archaeoastronomy. During the last four years, PUNCH Outreach has touched hundreds of thousands of people in the US Southwest and across the Nation with engaging outreach products and events aligned with the theme of Ancient and Modern Sun-Watching. Chaco Canyon, NM is representative of the theme’s “ancient” dimension due to its world-class evidence for solar observation by Ancestral Puebloan people, and to Cherilynn’s 20 years of Chaco affiliation as a culturally attuned volunteer interpreter and archaeoastronomy research associate.
Rock of the Sun in Chaco Canyon – Home to a Petroglyph Representing a Stormy Solar Corona
A presentation based on the discovery of an unusual petroglyph that may be associated with the 1097 total solar eclipse during a solar storm in the corona. Chaco Canyon is home to a World Heritage historical park with abundant evidence for Sun- and Moon-watching by the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived there a thousand years ago. Dr. Morrow directs a team who has made the most extensive photographic and photogrammetric documentation of this site to date in a cross-culturally collaborative and respectful manner. The eastern and western facets of the Rock of the Sun offer compelling evidence for ancestral Sun-watching techniques that track time and seasons. The southern facet features a beautiful and peculiar petroglyph created by Ancestral Puebloan people. The hand-sized sandstone glyph is circular with looping streamers all around the periphery. If correctly identified, the glyph would be the first known impression of a solar storm in an enduring medium. Interpretation of historic and contemporary images of the solar corona as well as Chaco pottery designs are used to help evaluate this solar interpretation for the petroglyph.
Time: 2:00 PM | 3:00 PM Presentation
3:00 PM | 3:30 PM | Q & A's
DAVID GREENWALD
is the Director of Jornada Research Institute and Director of the Tularosa Canyon Archaeological Program, an ongoing archaeological study of Jornada Mogollon settlement, water management and celestial observations. Dave started investigations at Creekside Village 12 years ago, focusing on a great kiva. The kiva proved to be more than a great kiva; it also functioned as a prehistoric observatory, used to monitor the movement of the sun and moon and to track time by monitoring celestial movement along the eastern horizon. Although it is an incredible discovery, it is not the first such site discovered in this area.
Beneath Ancient Skies: Cosmology and Astronomy of Creekside Village
A short film produced to document the Creekside Village great kiva as an astronomical observatory. The film discusses how the kiva was used to track various celestial objects and why prehistoric farmers followed the celestial changes so closely. Additionally, the sites of Wizard’s Roost and Wally’s Dome recorded in the late 1970s by Peter Eidenbach and Mark Wimberly re-examined as other astronomical observation sites.
Time: 4:00 PM | 4:45 PM Video
4:45 PM | 5:00 PM | Q & A's
SPONSORS
CORPORATE SPONSORS
PLATINUM
GOLD
SILVER
BRONZE
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION SPONSORS
PURPLE RIBBON
BLUE RIBBON
RED RIBBON
YELLOW RIBBON
IN-KIND SPONSORS
INDIVIDUAL SPONSORS
PURPLE RIBBON
Linda and Allen Schalk
David and Dawn Greenwald
RED RIBBON
Robert and Lucinda Berglund
Adriana Kajon and Vickie Shields
Remick Landon Ham
YELLOW RIBBON
Victor Paalvast
Dennis and Mary Kaufman
GENERAL
Peter Pilles and Ann Worthington
CONTACT
For more information about the conference please contact:
David H. Greenwald
Archaeologist, Founder & President Jornada Research Institute & Conference Chairperson
Judith C. Esparza White
Historic Preservation Cultural Revival Advocate & Assistant