Final Conclusions: The Controversial Answers To The Anasazi Mystery

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

I've been talking about the fantastic cliff dwellings in the canyon lands of the American Southwest and the riddle of what forced the inhabitants to abandon them around 1285, never to return.

Canyon De Chelly. I like this photo because it reveals how massive the canyon is. You can barely see the settlement:

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In yesterday's post we found out that there was terrible fighting among themselves, between settlements or villages.

It gets worse

As disturbing as their findings are, one of the scientists(a Biochemits) who'd been studying bones for 30 years claimed that there wasn't just battles and massacres in the settlements but also cannibalism.

He'd even developed six criteria for detecting cannibalism from bones.

I know this is a gruesome topic but I also know my readers are mature enough to handle it...

• the breaking of long bones to get at marrow
• cut marks on bones made by stone knives
• the burning of bones
• “anvil abrasions” which resulted from placing a bone on a rock and pounding it with another rock
• the pulverizing of vertebrae
• “pot polishing”...that was a sheen left on bones when they were boiled for a long time in a clay pot

The stuff hit the fan

His findings caused a great deal of criticism and outrage of course. Not to mention highly offended ancestors. His critics said that his criteria wasn't enough to conclude 100% that cannibalism had occurred.

They said the only way to be 100% certain was if human tissue was found in human excrement.

Well, guess what?

This biochemist, Richard Marlar from the University of Colorado and his team did just that. They found human coprolite ..which is fossilized excrement.

There's a new word for you sir @dandays ...coprolite. I bet not many people know what that is!

Anyway, when they analysed it they found a human protein called myoglobin, which occurs only in human muscle tissue. So there you have it. They also found it in cooking pots and utensils.

I reckon they were driven mad by starvation

Of course, cannibalism has been found all over the world and this isn't a one-time discovery, it was fairly common in times of famine.

And that's what this period of time was. Plants and animals were scarce because of the 23 year drought.

The surviviors fled South to the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and North to Northern Arizona. They left their magnificent structures and many excellent pictographs.

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The ancestors of the Anasazi are the Hopi and Zuni nations and they've done a remarkable job of preserving their culture.

They still dance their traditional dances and still pray to their own gods, the children speak the language of their ancestors.

Here are a few of the pictographs left in the canyons:

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The Ancestral Puebloans were great artists and their ancestors continue making some of the most beautiful pottery in the world using the exact same methods and designs:

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Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas