Issue date: 3/10/09 Section: News

Jim Krehbiel, center, chair of the Ohio Wesleyan University fine arts department, speaks to Eastern music professor Peter Hesterman, left, and Charleston native Ruth Riegel, right, about art prints he made from pictures taken in the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico following his lecture titled "Art and Archaeoastronomy: Anasazi Astronomical Shrine Sites" on Monday night in the Lecture Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center. (Erin Matheny/The Daily Eastern News)

Twenty-one down, 160 to go. That is the mindset of Charleston native Jim Krehbiel as he continues his research of the ancestral Pueblo people, or Anasazis.

Krehbiel, the chair of the fine arts department at Ohio Wesleyan University, spends his summers exploring the canyons of Cedar Mesa, Utah, where he has studied 21 sites the Anasazi people were known to live.

Krehbiel became most fascinated with the ancient astronomical viewing shrines prevalent in the sites he visited. Throughout his research, he has found 17 different viewing sites, which the Anasazis used to determine the winter solstice, summer solstice and a number of other astronomical alignments they used to determine time and judge when to have different ceremonies.

He spoke about the phenomenon in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Monday night as part of the International Year of Astronomy's events, which was put on collaboratively by the deparment of physics and the department of art.

"Nothing (in these areas) was rebuilt, reconstructed or stabilized," Krehbiel said. "It's all very well unknown.

"There are supposedly great lengths of distance with nothing up there, nothing around you, nothing worth seeing. Well I've got news for you: There's a lot out there."

Jeff Boshart, professor of art, was one of the organizers of getting Krehbiel to speak on campus. He has known Krehbiel for a number of years and discussed getting him to speak for Eastern's International Year of Astronomy events when he found out Krehbiel's work was almost ready to be published.

"(Krehbiel) has been avidly pursuing the Indians of the Southwest," Boshart said.

Eastern history instructor Rick Riccio attended the presentation because he lived in Arizona for five years and had visited many of the sites Krehbiel spoke about.

"One of the things I found interesting is that (the astronomical findings) are a common phenomenon rather than a unique one," Riccio said. "I thought Chaco Canyon was unique, but it turns out a lot of them are associated with astrological alignments."

Krehbiel said the Anasazi people were amazing to be able to mark off the astronomical sites without the use of writing or instruments.

"You have to give them credit for being observant and looking," he said. "People now, you ask them the most basic questions and they don't know because they don't look. They just sit inside. It's not surprising we're that remote compared to these people."


Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7942 or cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.

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