Light and shadow are rewriting the past.

For generations, spirals and abstract figures etched into canyon walls across the American Southwest were cataloged as symbolic art. They were photographed, sketched, and admired, but rarely tested against the sky. Now researchers returning to sites in and around Chaco Canyon are watching sunlight move across those carvings with instruments and software rather than intuition. As solstices arrive and shadows shift, some panels appear less decorative and more deliberate, raising questions about what their makers were tracking in stone.



