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2012

January 2012

Nico Ditch (occasionally Mickle Ditch or Nikker) is a six mile (9.7 km) long linear earthwork running between Ashton-under-Lyne and Stretford in Greater Manchester, England. It may have been dug as a defensive fortification, but more likely it was intended to be a boundary marker. It was constructed some time between the 5th and 11th centuries AD. In the parts which survive, the ditch is 3–4 metres wide and up to 1.5 metres deep. Part of the earthwork is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Nico Ditch stretches six miles (9.7 km) from Ashton Moss (grid reference SJ909980) in Ashton-under-Lyne to Hough Moss (grid reference SJ82819491), just east of Stretford. It passes through Denton, Reddish, Gorton, Levenshulme, Burnage, Rusholme, Platt Fields Park in Fallowfield, Withington, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy, crossing four metropolitan boroughs of present-day Greater Manchester. The ditch coincides with the boundaries between the boroughs of Stockport and Manchester, and between Tameside and Manchester as far as Denton golf course. A section is now beneath the Audenshaw Reservoirs, which were built towards the end of the 19th century. The ditch may have extended west beyond Stretford, to Urmston (grid reference SJ78299504).

February 2012

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park hosting the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the United States' most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas. Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes which remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century. Evidence of archaeoastronomy at Chaco has been proposed, with the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph at Fajada Butte a popular example. Many Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction. Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a fifty-year drought commencing in 1130.