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While investigating a web site in the US Southwest , archaeologists discovered a series of ancient rock carvings that early Native Americans may have used as a calendar .
The situation , bed as the Castle Rock Pueblo , is on the Mesa Verde plateau straddle the Colorado - Utah border and is best known for the Ancestral Pueblo settlement that are carved into the surrounding canon wall , allot to astatement .
Among the artworks, archaeologists discovered a series of spirals that may have been used as a calendar.
The Ancestral Pueblo were a group of Indigenous peoples who inhabit the Castle Rock Pueblo from about the 1250s to 1274 , according to a 2020 report in the journalAntiquity .
" The farming Pueblo residential district explicate one of the most advanced Pre - Columbian culture in North America,“Radosław Palonka , an archeology professor at Jagiellonian University in Poland who led the probe , said in the assertion . " They hone the craft of progress multi - story stone houses , resembling medieval town houses or even subsequently blocks of flat . The Pueblo people were also famous for their tilt art , in an elaborate way ornamented jewelry and ceramic bearing different motifs paint with a black pigment on white background . “Related : Earliest grounds of Maya fortune telling calendar discovered in ancient synagogue
During their investigating , the archeologist fall upon a serial of petroglyphs ( rock cutting ) chiseled into the canyon rampart high above the cliff settlement . The carving , which let in spiral stretch more than 3 feet ( 1 meter ) in diameter , uphold across more than 2.5 miles ( 4 kilometers ) , according to the statement .
" I used to opine that we studied this area good , conducting full - scurf excavations , geophysical surveying and digitalisation , " Palonka said in the program line . " Yet , I had some hints from older members of the local biotic community that something more can be found in the higher , less approachable parts of the canyons . We wanted to swear this selective information , and what we found outmatch our wildest expectation . "
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Researchers think the Ancestral Pueblo used the panels as a calendar for " astronomic watching " and to record " special twenty-four hours , " including the summer andwinter solsticesand the spring and autumnequinoxes , accord to the statement .
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