Chaco Canyon – Lynne Kelly

Chaco Canyon gets even more intriguing

Doors in the lowest level of Pueblo Bonito. Image: L.Kelly

Nowhere I visited during the research for my PhD and two subsequent books had an impact on me as profound as Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, USA. Standing inside the largest of the Great Houses, Pueblo Bonito, was awe-inspiring. Great Houses were massive buildings many storeys high and of the most astounding stonework. But they weren’t primarily ‘houses’ or residences. Chaco was a ceremonial centre – a place where knowledge was imparted and maintained for the extraordinary Ancestral Pueblo culture. I didn’t see nearly enough of the Canyon in my much-too-brief visit.

I didn’t visit the Great House of Penasco Blanco which was constructed in stages from around 900 to 1125 AD. Dates are pretty accurate in the Canyon due to the atmospheric dryness which preserves the wood thus providing excellent chronology from it, known as dendrochronology.

Retired US educator, Dr Sarah (Sally) Wither, wrote an intriguing email.

“I read Memory Code last spring, but I had forgotten that you mentioned Chaco Canyon. We visited there last week and when I saw unique stones sticking out of a wall in a way that may have led to a kiva. I immediately wondered if they might be memory stones. They were quite different from the stones used to build the walls and they were different from each other. This was at Penasco Blanco an unexcavated remain.”

Below are Sally’s photos. She sent higher resolution, so more detail is available. I cannot make any judgement on the idea, but it certainly makes sense. I’d love to go back there and talk Sally’s question over with the South-West Pueblo people and archaeologists.

Images of Penasco Blanco. (c) Sarah Wither.

The launch is happening – June 30

The launch is now available for booking. The end of the long haul is really happening.

I will be giving a talk first on the memory methods and how to apply them in your own life.

So excited!

The Memory Code – Table of Contents

cover-The-Memory-Code-400

The Memory Code is often referred to, by those asking me about it, as ‘your Stonehenge book’. I have no doubt that the ideas about the purpose for Stonehenge will attract much of the attention, but it is only one chapter in 12. So I have put the Table of Contents below so you can see the extent of the book. It covers more ground than Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies, but without all the academic justification.

I have had a great deal of contact in recent weeks from the memory community, including memory champions on three continents! I have also been asked to write an academic essay for Rounded Globe on indigenous memory methods and implications for contemporary thinking. It will be titled Grounded: indigenous knowing in a concrete reality and free for all. This is part of the move for academics to communicate beyond the expensive academic journals and paywalls. Taxpayers pay for the research – taxpayers should have access to it.

The Memory Code will be published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in July, and by Atlantic Books in the UK and Pegasus Books in the US early next year. The audio rights have also just been sold, so I’ll update here when all the paper work has been done. Allen & Unwin are working extremely hard on my book, and I am delighted by everything they have done.

THE MEMORY CODE – TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 – Encyclopaedic memories of the elders

Chapter 2 – Memory spaces, large and small

Chapter 3 – Memory spaces in a modern world

Chapter 4 – A journey through time

Chapter 5 – The ever-changing memory spaces at Stonehenge

Chapter 6 – The megalithic complexes of Avebury and Orkney

Chapter 7 – Newgrange and the passage cairns of Ireland

Chapter 8 – The tall stones and endless rows of Carnac

Chapter 9 – The unparalleled architecture of Chaco Canyon

Chapter 10 Giant drawings on the desert floor at Nasca

Chapter 11 Memory spaces across the Americas

Chapter 12 Polynesian navigators create a unique world on Easter Island

Epilogue

The Memory Code

2016 is to be a big year. My next book, The Memory Code, is the culmination of eight years of intense work. To feel that I had the authority to make the claim that I have a new theory for the purpose of enigmatic prehistoric monuments around the world, I needed the peer review of a PhD and then the Cambridge University book, Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies. That is all done.

The Memory Code will be published by Allen & Unwin in July 2016 and later by Atlantic Books in the UK. The book is very different from the academic version. There is obviously less academic referencing. Stonehenge and Chaco Canyon are still prominent, but I have added more about Avebury and Orkney and a whole new chapter on the amazing stone rows and other structures at Carnac in Brittany.

3-IMG_2302-pb-quipu5-1000 — An Inca khipu, a knotted cord memory device

Interestingly, the questions after talks and in emails have often been about the actual memory methods used by indigenous cultures and how to implement them in modern life. Hence Chapter 3, Memory spaces in a modern world, came into being, explaining exactly what it is like to use these methods. I am working on My 25 Memory Experiments constantly and loving it.

The adaptability of the Inca khipu / quipu in my own experiments astounded me. That experience enabled me to better understand how the non-literate Inca managed a vast empire without writing, every bit as powerful as the contemporary cultures in the Americas, the literate Aztec and Maya. So there is now an entire chapter on the Americas, which took a lot more research. The incredible glyphs known as the Nasca Lines deserved a chapter of their own.

P1010758-hill-heads-1000 — Easter Island moai on the side of the mountain. (c) Ian Rowland.

Similarly, it was through further research on the Pacific cultures, that of the Pacific Navigators, the New Zealand Maori and the Rarotongans that I came to understand the critical nature of using genealogies in organising Pacific knowledge systems. That unlocked the purpose of Easter Island’s statues.

These are the chapter headings for The Memory Code:

Chapter 1 – Encyclopedic memories of the elders
Chapter 2 – Knowledge encoded in spaces large and small
Chapter 3 – Memory spaces in a modern world
Chapter 4 – A journey through time
Chapter 5 – The ever-changing memory spaces at Stonehenge
Chapter 6 – The megalithic complexes of Avebury and Orkney
Chapter 7 – Newgrange and the passage cairns of Ireland
Chapter 8 – The tall stones and endless rows of Carnac
Chapter 9 – The unparalleled architecture of Chaco Canyon
Chapter 10 – Giant drawings on the desert floor at Nasca
Chapter 11 – Memory spaces across the Americas
Chapter 12 – Polynesian navigators create a unique world on Easter Island