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Cut-in-Two Man, an Anasazi Mummy?

Is Cut-in-Two Man an Anasazi Mummy?

Is this an attempt at mummification, at preserving a body in hopes of preserving the resident spirit?

From In Search of the Old Ones, by David Roberts, part of my growing Anasazi Essentials Book Collection.

At the AMNH [American Museum of Natural History in New York City]… a scientific assistant for anthropology showed me Cut-in-Two Man [excavated by Richard Wetherill from a cave in Grand Gulch, Utah]. The lower part of the body had been cleanly severed from the upper by a sharp cut straight through the hips and abdomen (no entrails remained). Astonishingly, the two halves had been prehistorically sewn back together with an eighth-inch-thick twine made of braided human hair. —Page 43

The causes of this kind of bizarre action are indeed in the realm of fiction. It burns in the imagination.

But digging beyond this scant mention by Roberts soon becomes blindingly graphic.

Yes, Cut-in-Two Man is an Anasazi Mummy!

From a 1998 Los Angeles Times article titled “Anasazi Mummified Some of Their Dead, Anthropologist Contends“

[Wetherill] found a mummy named Cut-in-Two Man because the body had been cut through the hips and abdomen, then sewn together with twine of braided human hair. Glass-plate photos taken by Charles Lang during Wetherill’s expeditions are stored at Tulane University, where [Guido Lombardi, a Peruvian physician-anthropologist,] studied them.

He displayed photos of Cut-in-Two Man during the meeting. Wetherill once wrote Cut-in-Two Man was the victim of a knife wound, and the sewing was a crude surgical attempt to save him.

Lombardi said it is more likely that Cut-in-Two Man was eviscerated and sewn together after death to mummify his remains. “No one would survive a wound like that,” Lombardi said, adding that Cut-in-Two Man also “was much better preserved than other mummies.”

He also noted that Wetherill found dismembered arms and legs from other people placed around the mummy like offerings, also suggesting an intentional ceremonial ritual.

And then we learn about the severed Anasazi head that was sewn back on.

Lombardi also studied old photos and archaeologist Alfred Kidder’s 1919 report on a mummified “trophy head” found in a cave in northeast Arizona.

The skull had been removed from the head, then the face and scalp sewn back together, Lombardi said. The head also had an elaborate hairdo and face painting, indicating a case of intentional mummification largely overlooked since 1919, Lombardi said.

Jones, however, said intentional mummification “is not necessarily the only interpretation for a skinned head and a guy sewn back up.”

He cited controversial arguments that the Anasazi may have practiced cannibalism.

That “c” word again in context of the Anasazi: cannibalism.

The photo of Cut-in-Two Man is from a great compilation of data about exploring Grand Gulch, Utah, here.

Another brief discussion of Cut-in-Two Man is on page 80 of The Scientific Study of Mummies, by Arthur C. Aufderheide.

Were the Anasazi Cannibals?

Quick answer: Yes.

Long answer: Lifelong painstaking analysis of Anasazi bones by anthropologist Christy Turner proves that the Anasazi phenomenon saw more intense cannibalism than any surrounding Native Americans before or since. I’ll have much more to say about that.

More about In Search of the Old Ones, by David Roberts

From the back cover of the First Touchstone Edition 1997. Touchstone is a trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.

In a real-life adventure, David Roberts explores America’s great prehistoric mystery: who were the people known as the Anasazi and what caused them to abandon their homeland in AD 1300?

The Anasazi, ancestors of the Pueblo people, inhabited the Southwest for at least 5,000 years. Ruins and artifacts from their civilization have long fascinated scholars and the millions of visitors to the Four Corners region of the Southwest. David Roberts’s extensive interviews and back country travels create a richly detailed portrait of an enigmatic people.

“David Roberts gives us a happy way to explore the dusty—and usually all too dry—mysteries of the vanished Anasazi civilization. He lets us share the thrills of his own exploration of the world of the Old Ones. It’s a trip I’m glad I didn’t miss.” —Tony Hillerman

“Woven through his personal account is Roberts’s thorough, often gripping history of the region’s archaeology.” —Andrew Todhunter, The Washington Post Book World

“Roberts writes well, and his enthusiasm for exploring the outdoors, his interest in the environment, and his appreciation of both the ancient and modern cultures of the American southwest make the book an entertaining and informative work that quickly absorbs the reader in the author’s narrative.” —Jeremy A Sabloff, Nature

“[Roberts’s] enthusiasm for the history and the mystery of the Anasazi, and for the back-country trips he describes here, is catching.” —Arizona Republic

David Roberts is a contributing editor for Men’s Journal and the author of eight previous books. His articles have appeared in Smithsonian, Outside, and National Geographic. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This is background research for

The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series, coming soon!

Warning! This story contains graphic violence including cannibalism.

“I really enjoyed it. It was well-written.” —Thomas Windes, thirty-seven-year veteran Anasazi archaeologist with the National Park Service.

Raised by his beloved Sky Chief grandfather and a mysterious albino woman, Tuwa expects to become the next skywatcher.

When a strange star appears in the sky, so bright it shines during the day, the High Priest, backed by ultraviolent warriors from the South, demands blood sacrifice.

Tuwa’s grandfather, a vocal opponent of the foreigners, is murdered in a public ceremony, cooked, and served to the stunned crowd. Next in line are Tuwa’s adopted mother and the girl he loves, Chumana.

Unable to watch, Tuwa flees in a blind panic into dark wilderness where he’s rescued by a long-distance trader who collects orphans to protect him and carry his goods.

Three years later, Tuwa returns with his hardened band of orphans intent upon revenge—only to discover that the stakes are much higher than he had imagined.

Mere revenge may not be enough.

Jeff Posey writes novels inspired by the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest a thousand years ago.

“Cultures that have dramatically collapsed,” he says, “should at least compel us to dream up stories about how such things can happen.”

He does not, under any circumstances, advocate cannibalism.

Jeff’s Books on Hot Water Press

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Published on July 02, 2015 15:00

Anasazi Footwear: Shoe-Socks and Sandals

The Anasazi, and all Native Americans before the introduction of the horse by the Spanish when they arrived in the 1500s, traveled strictly by foot. If they wanted or needed to go anywhere, they walked or ran. If they wanted or needed to move a rock or a pole or a hide, they carried it.

All that walking makes me think about their feet. I’ve walked more than 3,000 trail-miles in the American West, nearly all of it wearing what the Anasazi would have considered miraculous footwear—hiking boots.

They didn’t have such a thing. So what did they wear? What Anasazi footwear have archaeologists found among the remains?

Distinctive Anasazi footwear: the shoe-sock

The warmest Anasazi footwear samples I’ve found are this shoe-sock, which looks like something my grandmother might have knitted.

From Arizona State Museum Curator’s Choice: Ancestral Pueblo Shoe–Socks, June 2013.

The curator of identify, who fails to identify themselves by name, says:

I selected these objects for two reasons. The first is simple: who doesn’t like footwear?! Visitors are frequently excited to see the shoe-socks in the conservation lab, so I wanted to give more people a chance to see them. I think that people find them interesting, in part, because these objects are easily recognizable as footwear and are aesthetically appealing. Also, the labor commitment required to gather material, process it, and construct such garments is virtually unthinkable in the industrial society in which we live today.

Two things are readily identifiable in the detailed photos on the site: the looping “knitted” cordage, and the hair or fur woven into the loops.

These shoe-socks were made of cotton cordage and were constructed by looping cordage directly around the edge of a finished sandal. The successive rows were made by drawing the free end of the cordage through the loop above it. The cordage crosses over itself in proceeding to the next loop.

This process, called looping, is also referred to as “coiling without foundation” and “knotless netting.”

Looping is a technology that existed before the use of the loom. In the ancient Southwest, looping was frequently used to make such tubular articles as bags, leggings, and socks.

Animal hairs were inserted between the individual strands, or plies, of the cordage used to create the shoe-socks featured here. This made them fuzzy (similar to a style of boots popular today) and probably helped to keep the wearers’ feet warm.

How other ancient shoes compare to Anasazi footwear

This makes me wonder about Ötzi the Iceman’s shoes. Ötzi is the oldest natural human mummy found in the European Alps, dated to 3300 BC. How does his footwear compare?

From South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, Bolzano, Italy Ötzi the Iceman’s shoes.

Ötzi’s shoes are the oldest of their kind in the world. The shoes are of a sophisticated design and consist of an inner and outer part.

The inner shoe is composed of grass netting. Its purpose was to hold hay in place which served as insulation material.

The outer part is made of deerskin. Both parts – the grass netting and the leather upper – are fastened to an oval-shaped sole made of bearskin by means of leather straps.

Unlike the sole, the uppers were worn with the fur on the outside. The shaft around the ankle was bound with grass fibres.

A strip of leather was attached diagonally across the sole in order to give it better grip. Experiments with reconstructed shoes have shown that the leather strip actually does prevent slipping on rocky ground.

The shoes are surprisingly warm and comfortable. However, they are not suitable for walking in the rain, as water soaks into them.

They look similar at first glance. But other than being a shoe fashioned from ancient material, they’re not really that much alike after all.

Most Anasazi footwear: simple sandals

Most Anasazi footwear was more simple sandals, woven most often from yucca fibers.

From Wikipedia Pueblo III Era: Other material goods

Yucca, a regionally bountiful, drought-resistant plant, was used to make many household goods. Its fibers were used for sewing, cordage and woven into blankets, clothing, sandals and baskets. Sharp barbs were used as needles or made into paint brushes. It was also used as soap and a source of food.

Cotton in Anasazi footwear

This doesn’t mention cotton fibers, which were introduced to the lands of the Anasazi beginning about 700. Surely they would have used cotton fiber for shoes, too.

From Collectors Guide Chronology of Textiles and Fiber Art in New Mexico

700-1000 Evidence of the introduction of cotton fiber to Anasazi land via trade routes through Mesoamerica. With the cotton fiber comes the technologically advanced back strap loom and the vertical frame loom.

It’s possible, of course, that cotton would be too valuable to use for mere Anasazi footwear. Perhaps they reserved cotton for other uses, which is a whole separate line of inquiry I’ll probably hope down sooner or later.

How did Anasazi footwear progress or change over time?

From All About Shoes Anasazi: The Ancient Ones

Yucca and other vegetable fibres were woven, plaited and twisted into sandals. Contrary to logical technical progression, the more elaborately woven sandals are the older examples while the coarser woven examples are more recent. This can be explained because during the 8th century, pottery skills developed which led to a decline of basketry skills.

The Anasazi produced footwear primarily from the yucca plant. Its sword-shaped leaves were beaten until only long fibrous strands were left, which were then woven and plaited into various sandal designs.

That’s interesting (and from an unexpected source). Seems the Anasazi could master only one thing at a time: Good pots equal bad shoes.

Or maybe because they had pots, they walked less? That doesn’t seem likely. Seems they would walk more carrying pots. Or walk more carrying clay to make pots and wood to fire it. No matter the era, walking was the only way the Anasazi had to get around. Or be carried. Or run.

Anasazi running sandals

Years ago, I found reference to special Anasazi running shoes the fit the ball of the foot but not the heel. I’m having a hard time finding a good reference on that again, which makes me question my memory.

But I did find this.

From the Tucson Weekly Wire The Anasazi’s Amazing Feet, by Leo Banks, June 29, 1998

Sandals in canyon country? Truth is, they might be the best way to traverse the mountains, riverbeds and rock-strewn deserts of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

Recent work by archaeologists reveals that Native Americans from 1,400 years ago wore a sandal with a sole so well-designed they’re the technological equivalent of modern-day Nikes and Adidas. Two hundred of these yucca sandals, finely woven by artisans using 22 different textile techniques, were discovered in 1930-31 by Earl Morris, an archaeologist for the Carnegie Institute, and his wife, Ann.

For much of the next half century, they languished in a drawer at Arizona State Museum in Tucson–until Kelley Hays-Gilpin, an archaeologist at Northern Arizona University, studied the so-called Prayer Rock sandal collection as part of her dissertation. That project led to a collaboration with Elizabeth Ann Morris–daughter of the original discoverers–and a third archaeologist, Ann Cordy Deegan, on a book, Prehistoric Sandals from Northeastern Arizona.

Hays-Gilpin and her co-authors studied the safety literature used by modern shoemakers and found that the Prayer Rock sandals, most likely made by the Anasazi, forerunners of present-day Hopi and Zuni people, measure up quite favorably.

Their soles have the perfect tread depth for gripping and the edges point out so that water squirts away, as it does with modern tires. The soles also have multi-directional ridges to reduce slipping, and the yucca gives them flexibility.

“The Anasazi had deer, badger and elk to kill so they could easily have relied on leather moccasins, but they didn’t,” says Morris, a retired Colorado archaeologist. “In a country of cactus spines and sharp rocks, they mostly wore these open sandals. They must’ve known something we don’t.”

I’m sure I have a reference in one of my many Anasazi books. When I find it, I’ll add it here.

Meanwhile, here’s the official description of the book mentioned above.

From The University of Arizona Press Prehistoric Sandals from Northeastern Arizona, by Kelley Ann Hays-Gilpin, Ann Cordy Deegan, and Elizabeth Ann Morris, 1998

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, archaeologists Earl and Ann Axtell Morris discovered an abundance of sandals from the Basketmaker II and III through Pueblo III periods while excavating rockshelters in northeastern Arizona. These densely twined sandals made of yucca yarn were intricately crafted and elaborately decorated, and Earl Morris spent the next 25 years overseeing their analysis, description, and illustration. This is the first full published report on this unusual find, which remains one of the largest collections of sandals in Southwestern archaeology. This monograph offers an integrated archaeological and technical study of the footwear, providing for the first time a full-scale analysis of the complicated weave structures they represent. Following an account by anthropologist Elizabeth Ann Morris of her parents’ research, textile authority Ann Cordy Deegan gives an overview of prehistoric Puebloan sandal types and of twined sandal construction techniques, revealing the subtleties distinguishing Basketmaker sandals of different time periods. Anthropologist Kelley Ann Hays-Gilpin then discusses the decoration of twined sandals and speculates on the purpose of such embellishment.

What do modern reproductions of Anasazi footwear look like?

Meanwhile, I’m interested in modern comparisons or recreations of Anasazi footwear.

From Paleotool, Basketmaker-Anasazi sandals

These are sandals constructed from the narrow-leaf yucca. These designs are based on specimens preserved in caves. These might not be much to look at but they are remarkably impervious to the many sines, spikes, and other poky things found in the deserts of the west. These are two and four warp designs and the yucca is only slightly processed. The leaves should be dried prior to use and then re-wetted just before weaving. This prevents the normal loosening associated with shrinkage during drying.

Modern commercial Anasazi-inspired footwear

And, finally, we have what modern economics inevitably does to Anasazi Footwear. We have an Anasazi sandal designed by the founder of Teva, partially inspired by the work cited in 1998, Prehistoric Sandals from Northeastern Arizona.

From Sazzi, A new concept in footwear inspired by Anasazi footwear

Sazzi was inspired by the original, ancient pueblo dwelling tribes of North America – the Anasazi People.

The Anasazi, ancestors to the pueblo dwelling Native American Peoples, were truly ahead of their time. They built and lived in sophisticated cliff dwellings. They wove complex patterns. And they wore well-engineered footwear. Their sandals utilized two toe posts to stabilize their feet for the hardcore terrain of the “Four Corners Canyon Lands” region in which they lived.

Sazzi shoes offer four toe posts. Anasazi footwear, new and improved by American capitalism. But they do look pretty cool. They’re not that horribly priced, either. I might have to get me some modern Anasazi footwear: Sazzi sandals.

And no, I don’t get a kickback (so to speak) from Sazzi.

What might shoes have meant to the Anasazi?

I wrote this short piece of flash fiction while thinking about Anasazi footwear and the runners who would covet them most.

From The Witchery of Flutes: Forty-seven short dramas of Anasazi daily life.

Elk Knees

The hunter saved them and gave them to his wife, who cut and sewed them and traded them for the largest cooking pot she had ever owned. The pot trader exchanged them with a farmer for all the dried corn two of his best burden carriers could lift. The farmer traded them to the priest at the big village two days’ walk away for a promise of prayers for his crops next spring. The priest offered them as tribute to the High Priest in Center Place Canyon. The High Priest assigned them to Hongi, the fastest boy in this year’s barefoot race to the Sun Mesa and back.

“What are these for?” Hongi asked the only person he knew, the boy he’d outrun by less than a quarter mile in the race. Hongi held them by the strings of leather, the thick parts hanging down.

Poi glared at him. “Are you stupid?”

Hongi looked at the pieces of leather and back to Poi. “I don’t know what they are.”

“Have you ever seen Plumed Serpent Runners?”

“Sure. A couple times. Once.”

“Didn’t you look at their feet?”

Hongi stared blankly.

“Special sandals? Running sandals?”

Hongi looked at the pieces of leather. “These are running sandals?”

Poi closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, he held out an open hand. “I’ll show you.”

Hongi handed Poi the sandals and watched him lace the long strips between his toes and tie the ends across the tops of his feet. Then he stood up, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet under which the thickest, toughest part of the leather fitted. Then he sprinted across open scrubland between sage brush and back again.

Poi breathed hard. “They’re for running. You don’t have to slow down for rocks and sharp roots.”

Hongi looked at him, at the way he’d tied the strips of leather to his feet. “What are they made from?”

“Elk,” said Poi. “Their knees.” He bent over and began untying them. “Don’t get too used to them, though. They’ll wear out. And a guy like you who doesn’t know anything won’t likely ever get another pair.”

Poi held them out and Hongi took them with a grin on his face. Poi made a sound of disgust and jogged away. Hongi held up the running sandals to inspect them more closely, then sat and strapped them onto his feet. He ran and kept running, feeling as if he were floating over the roughness of the land. Ahead he saw two Plumed Serpent Runners heading south out of Center Place Canyon and he raced to them and passed them. They called to him and sped to catch up, but he lost them on the flats south of the Sun Mesa.

Author’s Note: The Anasazi really did have special running sandals that fit on the balls of their feet, though there is no evidence to my knowledge that they used the knees of elk. My Center Place Canyon is today’s Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. Sun Mesa is Fajada Butte. There certainly must have been runners who carried messages to and from Center Place Canyon to the many important outliers of the Anasazi culture. Hopi origins of the names: Hongi is “fast runner”; Poi is “fail to win.”

This is background research for

The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series, coming soon!

Warning! This story contains graphic violence including cannibalism.

“I really enjoyed it. It was well-written.” —Thomas Windes, thirty-seven-year veteran Anasazi archaeologist with the National Park Service.

Raised by his beloved Sky Chief grandfather and a mysterious albino woman, Tuwa expects to become the next skywatcher.

When a strange star appears in the sky, so bright it shines during the day, the High Priest, backed by ultraviolent warriors from the South, demands blood sacrifice.

Tuwa’s grandfather, a vocal opponent of the foreigners, is murdered in a public ceremony, cooked, and served to the stunned crowd. Next in line are Tuwa’s adopted mother and the girl he loves, Chumana.

Unable to watch, Tuwa flees in a blind panic into dark wilderness where he’s rescued by a long-distance trader who collects orphans to protect him and carry his goods.

Three years later, Tuwa returns with his hardened band of orphans intent upon revenge—only to discover that the stakes are much higher than he had imagined.

Mere revenge may not be enough.

Jeff Posey writes novels inspired by the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest a thousand years ago.

“Cultures that have dramatically collapsed,” he says, “should at least compel us to dream up stories about how such things can happen.”

He does not, under any circumstances, advocate cannibalism.

Jeff’s Books on Hot Water Press

Photo credit

“Sandal-12thcentury ChacoCanyon NM USA”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandal-12thcentury_ChacoCanyon_NM_USA.jpg#/media/File:Sandal-12thcentury_ChacoCanyon_NM_USA.jpg

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Published on June 25, 2015 15:00

The Anasazi Buildings of Chaco Canyon: Largest “Apartments” in World

The Anasazi buildings in Chaco Canyon were the largest apartment-style structures in the world until 1882

Among the Anasazi buildings in Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Bonito (“pretty village” in Spanish) may have been the largest multifamily single-structure dwelling on the planet until the Navarro Flats (aka Spanish Flats) apartment was built in New York City in 1882. How large was it? When was it built? How many man-hours of labor did it take? So much it’s hard to imagine…

How big is Pueblo Bonito?

From Wikipedia: Pueblo Bonito Description

The site covers 3 acres (1.2 ha) and incorporates approximately 800 rooms. In parts of the village, the tiered structure was four and five stories high.

From the cliffs above, Pueblo Bonito, like many Anasazi buildings, looks like a giant D-shaped structure, with the straight line of the D oriented almost precisely east-west.

When was an apartment-style building larger than Pueblo Bonito constructed?

From People of Chaco: A Canyon and Its Culture, by Kendrick Frazier

In April 1920 the National Geographic Society’s research committee decided to send an archaeological reconnaissance group to Chaco Canyon to determine whether a detailed examination of a Chaco Canyon ruin should be undertaken. The Society arranged to have the Smithsonian give [its thirty-four-year-old curator of American archaeology Neil M.] Judd a three-month leave of absence to direct the reconnaissance. Judd made the trip and was intrigued by what he found. From the very first he found Pueblo Bonito to be extraordinary…. As he later wrote for the National Geographic: “No other apartment house of comparable size was known in America or in the Old World until the Spanish Flats were erected in 1882 at 59th Street and Seventh Avenue, New York City.” —Page 44

As an aside, the story of the Spanish Flats apartment building, more correctly named Navarro Flats, is both interesting and tragic.

From Ephemeral New York, “New York’s most spectacular apartment building,” December 7, 2013

The seven-bedroom duplexes had as much as 7,000 square feet of floor space, including a drawing room, library, and billiards room (but only two bathrooms per apartment).

Each $20,000 duplex was part of one of eight townhouses within the complex.

Some apartments sold, but mostly, New Yorkers didn’t bite. In 1888, de Navarro was fending off lawsuits from mortgage holders, and the enormous complex met with foreclosure.

By the 1920s, it was gone—replaced by newer luxury residences the Hampshire House and Essex House.

A sad ending to a magnificent structure. Much like Pueblo Bonito, though it lasted much, much longer.

When was Pueblo Bonito built and occupied?

Anasazi Timeline. Pueblo Bonito…was built by the Ancestral Puebloans, who occupied the structure between AD 828 and 1126. From Wikipedia. Image Jeff Posey.

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Published on June 23, 2015 15:00

The Anasazi Sun Dagger of Chaco Canyon

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, runs northwest-southeast. Fajada Butte rises prominently at the southeastern end, about three miles from the complex of Anasazi sites that include Pueblo Bonito, Kin Kletso, and Chetro Ketl.

During the summer, the sun sets roughly behind Fajada Butte from the perspective of the Pueblo Bonito complex. To the ancient ones, this must have been far more significant than we mere moderns can imagine.

On the flanks of Fajada Butte is the infamous Sun Dagger, a spiral pecked into the face of the butte’s cliff beneath three giant slabs of broken rock just below the southeastern summit. On the summer solstice, the longest day of the year on or around June 21, a dagger-shaped light that shines between the slabs of stone precisely pierces the center of the spiral.

During the equinoxes, a dagger of light lies halfway between the center and outer circle of the spiral. And during the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, a pair of daggers touches the left and right outer lines of the spiral.

It is, in short, a sundial of staggering proportion.

Seeing is believing

Better than any description is seeing the sunlight dagger move across the spiral inscription.

Short 23-second excerpt from Carl Sagan’s, “Cosmos, Episode 3: The Harmony of the Worlds,” c. 1980.

How it was discovered

From Wikipedia, “Sun Dagger site”

In 1977 the artist Anna Sofaer visited Chaco Canyon as a volunteer recording rock art. There she recorded petroglyphs on Fajada Butte at what is now called the Sun Dagger site, now perhaps the most famous site in Chaco Canyon, located at a southeastern facing cliff near the top of Fajada Butte. She noted three large stone slabs leaning against the cliff which channel light and shadow markings onto two spiral petroglyphs on the cliff wall. On her second visit she saw a “dagger of light” bisecting one of the spirals. At about 11:15 a.m. on the summer solstice a dagger-shaped light form pierces the larger of the two spirals. Similar sun daggers mark the winter solstice and equinoxes. At one extreme in the moon’s eighteen- to nineteen-year cycle (the lunar minor standstill), a shadow bisects the larger spiral just as the moon rises; and at its other extreme, nine-and-a-half years later (the lunar major standstill), the shadow of the rising moon falls on the left edge of the larger spiral. In each case these shadows align with pecked grooves. Due to the slabs settling, the “dagger of light” does not cross through the center of the spiral anymore during the summer solstice.

The pecked spiral is obviously of human origin. But what about the slabs? Were they a natural fall that just happened to create a shaft of light, later taken advantage of by an Anasazi rock artist?

Apparently not.

The Sun Dagger slabs appear to have been manhandled

From Anna Sofaer’s The Solstice Project, “A Unique Solar Marking Construct,” by Anna Sofaer, Volker Zinser, and Rolf M. Sinclair.

Several pieces of evidence rule against the slabs’ having fallen into their present positions naturally. First, the slabs would have had to move 2 m and more horizontally while the center of gravity of the three together fell only about 80 cm vertically. In particular, the center of slab three by itself is now only 30 cm lower than when it was attached to the cliff. Second, there are no impact marks, either on the cliff face or on the inner edges of the slabs, to suggest a collision. Third, the cliff face above the original location of the slabs shows that another rock mass had broken away from there. This higher rock could not have broken off before the slabs did. Had it broken off with (or after) the slabs, it would have prevented them from falling naturally to their present location. There is no evidence today of this rock mass. Indeed the absence of rubble near the slabs is unusual on the butte, where fallen rock is found below other such cliffs. Fourth, the slabs are set firmly in place on a rocky ledge and are partially supported by buttressing stones. We conclude that moving and setting the slabs in their present position involved deliberate human intervention.

So, let’s get this straight. The Anasazi skywatchers moved these slabs, which are “roughly rectangular (2 to 3 m high, 0.7 to 1 m wide, and 20 to 50 cm thick) and weigh about 2000 kilograms each.” That’s nearly 4,500 pounds each, more than two tons apiece. That’s about how much the average American automobile weighs.

Did they do this with precise engineering intent? Did they nudge the slabs slowly with long timber wedges and levers until they achieved the orientation of light they wanted? Or did they merely knock them loose, let them fall, clean up the mess, and then adapt to the resulting light patterns?

Maddeningly we will never know.

The Sun Dagger Explorer: a digital Sun Dagger adventure

For a video of the impressive digital recreation of the interplay of sunlight and moonlight on slabs and spiral on Fajada Butte on exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, see “The Sun Dagger Explorer.”

The Sun Dagger no longer works

Unfortunately, the sun dagger effect has been lost. From the Exploratorium page on “Fajada Butte”:

Alas, it’s no longer possible to see the Sun Dagger in action. In 1989, the rock slabs shifted—possibly from increased erosion due to too many visitors—and the effect was spoiled. Today, the site is closed to visitors.

What it might have been like

I wrote this short piece of flash fiction while thinking about the Sun Dagger of Fajada Butte.

From The Witchery of Flutes: Forty-seven short dramas of Anasazi daily life.

Calendar of the Sun Dagger

The rite of passage for young sun watchers took years. Only certain types of boys were suited for it, the daydreamers and loners, the ones who did not mind spending too long alone.

Since a child, Sunala had stood apart. While other boys raced and chased one another, he sat in quiet places and watched shadows. When no one looked, as if they would care, he took cold charcoal from the edges of fires and filled pouches that he carried with him. He made rounds to a dozen places where the shadows spoke to him and he marked their progress through the year with black charcoal marks.

For his manhood ritual, the chief skywatcher sent Sunala on a two-year mission to find a new place to mark the shadows of the sun.

Sunala sat cross-legged on a cliff thinking large, imagining rock cairns across the canyon floor to mark the annual march of shadows. Then something else caught his attention. The Sun Mesa rising like a tree stump from the center of the canyon—how the light played across it. For days he sat and watched, living off the most meager handfuls of parched corn. Surely, he thought, pinpoints of light moved among the dark recesses of the rock piles on the sides of Sun Mesa.

In the first dim light of the next day, he rose and hiked to the mesa. He circled it three times, and the next morning he climbed and squeezed inside a tight chamber made by three slabs of fallen rock.

The first year, he merely watched the natural daggers of light that played against the cliff face inside his little chamber. He grew gaunt and weak, caring little for food and drink.

The second year he made careful marks with charcoal.

The third year, without regard to the end time of his coming-of-age ritual, he began tapping with hard river stones to make permanent marks upon the cliff face. He calibrated his markings with the sounds of celebration he heard from the villages that meant solstice and equinox times.

Over the next five years, he refined his work into a precise solar calendar that marked every significant phase of the year, and he came back to the village and presented himself to the Chief Skywatcher, who had grown old and blind.

For two weeks, Sunala sat with the Chief Skywatcher and described his sun dagger calendar. A delegation of skywatchers came from other villages and he took the youngest and most lithe to the spot and for ten years they watched it and finally declared it sacred, the work of inspiration from the Sun God himself.

When the Chief Skywatcher died, the delegation elected Sunala to the position. He carefully observed the young boys of the village and each year chose one to be the keeper of the Sun Dagger Calendar, while he remained in the village and slowly came to appreciate the abundance of food and the company of women, until he became old and blind, and the young ones took over for him while he imagined the daggers of sunlight playing over the spirals he had cut into the living stone of the Sun Mesa.

I wrote that years ago. Today I might imagine it a little differently. Heck, in fifteen years, I might write it in ways I can’t even imagine today. But I leave it as I wrote it, just as I might leave an Anasazi pot where I found it without touching or moving it. Some things just need to remain as they were originally laid down.

This is background research for

The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series, coming soon!

Warning! This story contains graphic violence including cannibalism.

“I really enjoyed it. It was well-written.” —Thomas Windes, thirty-seven-year veteran Anasazi archaeologist with the National Park Service.

Raised by his beloved Sky Chief grandfather and a mysterious albino woman, Tuwa expects to become the next skywatcher.

When a strange star appears in the sky, so bright it shines during the day, the High Priest, backed by ultraviolent warriors from the South, demands blood sacrifice.

Tuwa’s grandfather, a vocal opponent of the foreigners, is murdered in a public ceremony, cooked, and served to the stunned crowd. Next in line are Tuwa’s adopted mother and the girl he loves, Chumana.

Unable to watch, Tuwa flees in a blind panic into dark wilderness where he’s rescued by a long-distance trader who collects orphans to protect him and carry his goods.

Three years later, Tuwa returns with his hardened band of orphans intent upon revenge—only to discover that the stakes are much higher than he had imagined.

Mere revenge may not be enough.

Jeff Posey writes novels inspired by the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest a thousand years ago.

“Cultures that have dramatically collapsed,” he says, “should at least compel us to dream up stories about how such things can happen.”

He does not, under any circumstances, advocate cannibalism.

Jeff’s Books on Hot Water Press

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Published on June 16, 2015 15:00

The Anasazi Timbers of Chaco Canyon: A Quarter-Million Hand-Carried Logs

Where did the Anasazi timbers and logs of the builders of Chaco Canyon come from?

Chaco Canyon is, and has long been, in what is essentially a treeless desert. Yet as many as a quarter million logs, weighing an average of 600 pounds each, were carried (not dragged—there is no evidence of scarring) by people power from sixty or more miles away. The ancient ones had no beasts of burden or wheels for carts. Yet they invested their limited calories in one of the largest ancient logging projects known among the ancients.

The implication is as stupefying to imagine as it is obvious: Each tree was laboriously pounded with stone axes until it toppled, the limbs were pounded away, and the great trunks lifted by a team of men and transported for five, or six, or even ten days until they arrived at their destinations in Chaco Canyon. Harvesting, processing, and delivering Anasazi timbers for the great buildings was an undertaking that compares to modern logistical practices of complex construction projects.

Here’s what we know about Anasazi timbers

From People of Chaco: A Canyon and Its Culture, by Kendrick Frazier

Kendrick Frazier, the author of several books and the former editor of Science News, writes:

The numbers of trees required, and the distances from which they had to be brought, are astonishing. Especially so when we remember that the Chacoans had no metal tools or wheeled carts. Using a cconstant of beams per squre meter of roof, [archaeologist Stephen] Lekson estimates that the large sites in Chaco Canyon required more than 215,000 trees. (Others, using different assumptions, have estimated 200,000 trees, so we can be confident this number is general reasonable.) The vast majority of these beams did not come from the area around Chaco. Most probably came from the forests behind Kin Ya’a, some thirty-five miles to the south, Pueblo Pintado, some twenty miles to the east, or perhaps Skunk Springs, some fifty miles to the west. —Pages 179-180

Other research indicates most of the logs came from much farther away.

From National Geographic, “Ancient Timbers Reveal Secrets of Anasazi Builders,” by Bijal P. Trivedi, September 28, 2001

Some of America’s earliest high-rise architects lived in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Here these Anasazi designers and engineers built 12 great houses up to five stories high with hundreds of rooms. However, where the Chaco residents harvested the lumber for these enormous buildings is a question that has stumped archaeologists. Now scientists have found a way to let ancient timbers tell their secrets.

Geochemist Nathan English, of the University of Arizona, has developed a chemical test to determine the origin of these trees.

“Like people, trees are what they eat,” says English, who analyzed the wood from the Chaco dwellings.

The 12 Chaco dwellings together contain about 200,000 wooden beams that were used to construct the roofs. But Chaco Canyon is an almost treeless landscape that was certainly never the source of the timber.

When English analyzed the strontium ratios from the timber used to construct the houses, they matched those from spruce and pine trees located on mountaintops up to 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Chuska and San Mateo mountain ranges.

It is amazing that the Chaco dwellers carried thousands of these enormous logs—most of which measured about 5 meters (15 feet), about 22 cm (9 inches) in diameter and weighed about 275 kilograms (600 pounds)—for up to one hundred kilometers, said English.

“These findings amplify our suspicions that these people were tremendously well organized and socially powerful,” says archaeologist Jeffrey Dean, also of the University of Arizona. It takes a lot of determination and coordination to harvest logs from up to 100 kilometers away and bring them back to the village, he added.

English’s team also found wood within single rooms that came from both the Chuska and San Mateo mountains, and that trees from different great houses were harvested in the same year.

This suggests that the 12 communities were interconnected and may have collaborated in harvesting and stockpiling the wood as a community resource.

“We know that these people imported pottery, turquoise, and food so maybe they also had arrangements with other communities to deliver logs,” Dean suggested.

What are we seeing here? A very complex society through which goods (and, presumably, services) flowed considerable distance, all carried by human feet.

A little more precision from Scientific American

From Scientific American, Ancient Timber Hints at Anasazi’s Socioeconomic Relationships, by Kate Wong, September 25, 2001

To construct their prominent, multistoried great houses—enormous masonry pueblos, each of which contained several hundred rooms—the Anasazi used more than 200,000 conifer trees. Conventional wisdom holds that because Chaco Canyon itself lacks trees, the builders probably first exhausted nearby timber resources and then turned to trees in the surrounding mountains, located 75 to 100 kilometers away. But an analysis of the strontium isotope signatures in the ancient construction beams and those in living trees from three nearby mountain ranges reveals a different story. Nathan B. English of the University of Arizona and his colleagues found that, in fact, Chaco residents used wood only from some of the mountain ranges early in the construction process, perhaps because of a greater availability of desirable conifer saplings.

Although the three ranges—the Chuska, San Mateo and San Pedro mountains—are equidistant from Chaco Canyon, the team linked the ancient beams to two of the mountain timber sources: the San Mateo and Chuska mountains. This finding, the team writes, “suggests that selection of timber sources was driven more by regional socioeconomic ties than by a simple model of resource depletion with distance and time.”

The wheels of commerce were turning even before banking and currency appeared in the American Southwest. A powerful class resided in Chaco Canyon, high priests, master architects and builders, and chief skywatchers, along with their apprentices and support staffs. Cooks and cleaners and weavers and hide tanners and pottery makers and stone masons—and one and on, with all the social layers and human interactions, and all the rage and jealousy and ambition and base interests that drove them. All these were at play in Chaco Canyon.

What might it have been like to see a great log carried?

Excerpt from The Last Skywatcher Series

Vingta pointed to a place off the trail for them to stand and wait as the procession passed. The drummer and carriers ignored them, as they must, giving themselves and their spirits entirely to the mission of carrying the sacred log. Vingta counted fifty-eight men, each man sweating and struggling to hold the largest log he’d ever seen carried. Behind them walked another drummer matching the beat of the front drummer, and behind streamed another sixty or so men who would periodically trade out with the carriers without letting the log touch the ground, all the way to the canyon. Behind those men, about a hundred women and children followed with burdens high on their backs, many with tumplines that looped around their foreheads.

“Have you seen a skinny potter girl?” Uva asked, but the women ignored her.

“It’s forbidden to speak until the log arrives in the canyon,” whispered Vingta.

A string of older children followed the burden-carrying women. A girl, her face dirty, stopped and stared at Vingta and Uva until an older boy took her hand and jerked her away.

Then they were gone, the silence of the valley broken only by the rushing stream, dust hanging in the air from the stir of passing feet.

“That was really strange,” said Uva.

Vingta bristled. “Strange how?”

She looked at him. “A whole village carrying one log. Seems a little crazy.”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not, this is normal. The trees have spirits, so it’s not just carrying a log or kicking a ball. It’s conveying the spirit of the tree to the canyon where the spirits of light and shadow intermingle. It’s a celebration, an offering, a prayer. A magnification of the spirit of the great tree, an honor for everyone involved.”

“It’s a payoff,” she muttered.

“What do you mean by that?” He was irritated, though he didn’t really know why. The canyon priests and warriors offended his sensibilities, too. He at least had the sense to acknowledge the value of such an enormous tree spirit.

“What happens to them if they don’t send their dead tree?”

He didn’t want to answer that. Just because the authorities in the canyon sometimes punished a village or two for not paying adequate tribute didn’t negate the spiritual power of a log ceremony. But how could he explain all that to a foreign girl with improper hair and no manners?

She studied his face while he didn’t answer, and finally she pulled her lips back into a thin smile. “That’s what I figured.” Then she hefted the pack and began walking.

This only scratches the surface of a reality as grand and glorious (and as full of drama and romance) as our own. I’m reaching my arms as far around it as my storytelling mind will imagine.

This is background research for

The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series, coming soon!

Warning! This story contains graphic violence including cannibalism.

“I really enjoyed it. It was well-written.” —Thomas Windes, thirty-seven-year veteran Anasazi archaeologist with the National Park Service.

Raised by his beloved Sky Chief grandfather and a mysterious albino woman, Tuwa expects to become the next skywatcher.

When a strange star appears in the sky, so bright it shines during the day, the High Priest, backed by ultraviolent warriors from the South, demands blood sacrifice.

Tuwa’s grandfather, a vocal opponent of the foreigners, is murdered in a public ceremony, cooked, and served to the stunned crowd. Next in line are Tuwa’s adopted mother and the girl he loves, Chumana.

Unable to watch, Tuwa flees in a blind panic into dark wilderness where he’s rescued by a long-distance trader who collects orphans to protect him and carry his goods.

Three years later, Tuwa returns with his hardened band of orphans intent upon revenge—only to discover that the stakes are much higher than he had imagined.

Mere revenge may not be enough.

Jeff Posey writes novels inspired by the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest a thousand years ago.

“Cultures that have dramatically collapsed,” he says, “should at least compel us to dream up stories about how such things can happen.”

He does not, under any circumstances, advocate cannibalism.

Jeff’s Books on Hot Water Press

Photo credit

Main image of schematic of Chacoan buildings: “Chacoan construction features” by National Park Service – Lekson, Stephen H. 1984 Great Pueblo Architecture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Publications in Archeology 18B, Chaco Canyon Studies. National Park Service, Albuquerque; page 16.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

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Published on June 11, 2015 15:00

Mesa Verde Mummy Lake: Not a Lake

Mesa Verde Lake Not a Lake After All

Mesa Verde Mummy Lake: Reservoir or Ritual Space? Composite photo by Jeff Posey

An interesting study about the Anasazi in Mesa Verde National Park (link to National Park Service site), Colorado, was recently released. See it here on LiveScience.com: ‘Mummy Lake’ Used for Ancient Rituals, Not Water Storage

In Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park, a large 1,000-year-old structure long thought to be an Ancestral Puebloan water reservoir may not have been built to store water after all, a new study suggests.

In the new study, researchers analyzed the hydrologic, topographic, climatic and sedimentary features of Mummy Lake and the surrounding cliff area. They concluded that, contrary to what previous research had determined, the pit wouldn’t have effectively collected or distributed water.

There’s a similar, though much smaller, open-air round house (kiva seems the wrong word when it’s ground level and there’s no top) at Chimney Rock National Monument (link to official national monument site) near Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Chimney Rock National National Monument Open-Topped “Kiva”? Composite photo by Jeff Posey

Ceremonial Roads

The most interesting part to me is this section near the bottom of the article:

Two decades ago, researchers studying the Manuelito Canyon Community of New Mexico discovered the Ancestral Puebloan population had an evolving ritual landscape. Over the centuries, the Manuelito people relocated the ritual focus of their community several times. Each time they moved, they built ceremonial roads to connect their retired great houses and great kivas to the new complexes.

Benson and his colleagues suspect the same thing happened at Mesa Verde. Mummy Lake was built as early as A.D. 900, around the same time as the rest of the Far View group of structures; Cliff Palace and Spruce Tree House, on the other hand, date to the early 1200s. The researchers think the community relocated to the latter structures between A.D. 1225 and 1250, and connected their past with their present using the ceremonial roads.

We know, of course, about the road system in Chaco Canyon (link to the Solstice Project site). On the surface, therefore, this sounds highly plausible.

Was it Really Religious?

But we always must imagine this kind of thing with caution. Since the beginning of archaeology, there has been a tendency to classify anything we don’t understand as “ritual,” which has a religious connotation. It very well could be this is simply a place where they held dances and plays or wrestling matches, and it was more entertainment than religious.

This is background research for

The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series, coming soon!

Warning! This story contains graphic violence including cannibalism.

“I really enjoyed it. It was well-written.” —Thomas Windes, thirty-seven-year veteran Anasazi archaeologist with the National Park Service.

Raised by his beloved Sky Chief grandfather and a mysterious albino woman, Tuwa expects to become the next skywatcher.

When a strange star appears in the sky, so bright it shines during the day, the High Priest, backed by ultraviolent warriors from the South, demands blood sacrifice.

Tuwa’s grandfather, a vocal opponent of the foreigners, is murdered in a public ceremony, cooked, and served to the stunned crowd. Next in line are Tuwa’s adopted mother and the girl he loves, Chumana.

Unable to watch, Tuwa flees in a blind panic into dark wilderness where he’s rescued by a long-distance trader who collects orphans to protect him and carry his goods.

Three years later, Tuwa returns with his hardened band of orphans intent upon revenge—only to discover that the stakes are much higher than he had imagined.

Mere revenge may not be enough.

Jeff Posey writes novels inspired by the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest a thousand years ago.

“Cultures that have dramatically collapsed,” he says, “should at least compel us to dream up stories about how such things can happen.”

He does not, under any circumstances, advocate cannibalism.

Jeff’s Books on Hot Water Press

The post Mesa Verde Mummy Lake: Not a Lake appeared first on Jeff Posey.

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Published on June 09, 2015 15:30

Anasazi Gods and Belief Systems

There Were Many Anasazi Gods

We do not really know what the Anasazi believed. But the world is full of those who think they know. (Including me when I write my historical fictional Anasazi worlds.)

This site, a bit on the amateur side, expresses the conventional wisdom of what the Anasazi believed: Anasazi Belief Systems on “YOUR GUIDE TO THE ANASAZI INDIANS!” Highlights:

The Anasazi were worshipers of many gods, in other words, polytheistic. This meant that the Anasazi had spiritual figures for everything, like rain, crops, animals, etc. An example would be their Creator, also known as ” The Grandmother.”

By tracking the passage of the stars and planets, the Anasazi predicted the coming and going of the seasons. With this knowledge, they prepared ceremonial and rituals to be in harmony with nature. They believed that if these rituals and ceremonies were done properly, they would receive sufficient rain, rich harvests, successful hunts, and good health. Along with these beliefs came the basis for their origins. This is such as their origins in long hunting and gathering, can be inferred from their horned masks, rock art deer, and big-horn sheep images.

The Anasazi had a matriarchal society, which is society dominated by women. Even though women ran society, their spiritual society seemed to be dominated by men, with men figures being portrayed as men and women. From this, the rise of Kachinas [JP: Kachina religion arrived in Anasaziland around 1325], or spirit beings that were their ancestors who in which brought rain, came about.

In Anasazi society, different segments of society were given different spiritual roles to play out. These roles were important to the well-being of the community, so these roles were held in high regard. Some examples of roles they could have had were ” Summer people and Winter people”. However, due to the fact that archaeology doesn’t reveal much information about these roles, we can not be certain what roles the Anasazi had.

Shamans are thought to be a part of the Anasazi spiritual society. Shamans, by definition, are those who are thought to have had a spiritual connection to good and evil spirits. They were, in society, marked as people with physical deformities, epileptic seizures, and/or hallucinations. Shamans are known to look for visions, usually that pertain to healing, warfare, hunting, fortune-telling, and more. However, the process to see these visions included using intoxicants, hypnotic chanting, dancing, or pain to reach the spirit world.

We Will Never Truly Know

The only evidence we have for what the Anasazi believed is from the work of archaeologists and ethnologists who study oral history. While some of what this article reports may be true, it’s more speculation than fact.

This is background research for

The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series, coming soon!

Warning! This story contains graphic violence including cannibalism.

“I really enjoyed it. It was well-written.” —Thomas Windes, thirty-seven-year veteran Anasazi archaeologist with the National Park Service.

Raised by his beloved Sky Chief grandfather and a mysterious albino woman, Tuwa expects to become the next skywatcher.

When a strange star appears in the sky, so bright it shines during the day, the High Priest, backed by ultraviolent warriors from the South, demands blood sacrifice.

Tuwa’s grandfather, a vocal opponent of the foreigners, is murdered in a public ceremony, cooked, and served to the stunned crowd. Next in line are Tuwa’s adopted mother and the girl he loves, Chumana.

Unable to watch, Tuwa flees in a blind panic into dark wilderness where he’s rescued by a long-distance trader who collects orphans to protect him and carry his goods.

Three years later, Tuwa returns with his hardened band of orphans intent upon revenge—only to discover that the stakes are much higher than he had imagined.

Mere revenge may not be enough.

Jeff Posey writes novels inspired by the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest a thousand years ago.

“Cultures that have dramatically collapsed,” he says, “should at least compel us to dream up stories about how such things can happen.”

He does not, under any circumstances, advocate cannibalism.

Jeff’s Books on Hot Water Press

The post Anasazi Gods and Belief Systems appeared first on Author Jeff Posey.

View more on Jeff Posey's website »

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Published on June 04, 2015 15:26

The Term “Anasazi” Appeared in 1936

The Term “Anasazi” Came into Use in 1936

Roberts doesn’t elucidate much, at least in this passage. But we’ve been using the term “Anasazi” for less than a hundred years. From In Search of the Old Ones, by David Roberts, part of my growing Anasazi Essentials Book Collection.

…the term “Anasazi” did not become current until 1936…. —Page 31

I guess before then, they were simply known as “them old bones.”

Wikipedia has this to say

The Navajo people, who now reside in parts of former Pueblo territory, referred to the ancient people as Anaasází, an exonym meaning “ancestors of our enemies” although it is now used in the term “ancient people, or “ancient ones.” Hopi people used the term Hisatsinom to describe the Ancestral Puebloans.

Dictionary.com supports Roberts

Term introduced in 1936 by U.S. archaeologist Alfred V. Kidder (1885-1963) < Navajo ʾanaasází ancient inhabitants of the Pueblo ruins, literally, aliens’ ancestors (‘ anaa- enemy, alien + -sází ancestor(s), ancestral)

High Country News has a short critique of the term “Anasazi” that is worth reading.

Highlights:

A thousand years ago, when their civilization arose in the Southwest, the people who built these great stone structures did not call themselves Anasazi. The word did not even exist: It was created, centuries later, by Navajo workers who were hired by white men to dig pots and skeletons out of the desert. It’s a word that recently has fallen out of favor.

What is wrong with “Anasazi”? For starters, it is a Navajo word unrelated to any of the Pueblo peoples who are modern-day descendants of the Anasazi. But more than that, the word is a veiled insult.

For a long time, it was romantically — and incorrectly — thought to mean “Old Ones.” It actually means “Enemy Ancestors,” a term full of political innuendo and slippery history.

In Navajo, ’Ana’í means alien, enemy, foreigner, and non-Navajo. ’Anaa’ means war. Sází translates to something or someone that was once whole and is now scattered, a word used to describe the final point of corporeal decay, as a body turns to bones and is strewn by scavengers and erosion.

From the introduction to my upcoming novel, The Last Skywatcher :

Even the most casual glance at the stone structures erected by Central American Toltecs and Maya, cultures characterized by human sacrifice and acts of ultra-violence that collapsed about the time the Anasazi rose from the sands of New Mexico, provide a telling clue: the Anasazi were invaders from the south.

What kind of invaders? Gentle philosophers who used words and stories to convince the calorie-starved native inhabitants to share their food and devote untold hours of labor hauling stone and timber to build the largest structures in North America until the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s?

As my British friends might say, “Not bloody likely.”

Unfortunately (for the poor calorie-starved natives), the archaeological evidence is clearer about this. Anthropologist Christy Turner, a specialist of analyzing human bones for evidence of foul play, spent decades documenting what he came to call “social-control cannibalism.” In the sphere of influence of the Anasazi, and nowhere outside those bounds, there are dozens of remains attesting to entire families, clans, and small villages—from newborns to the eldest—being butchered like game animals, cooked in pots, and eaten. There is even a smoking gun: desiccated thousand-year-old bowel movements contain hemoglobin protein from human skeletal muscles.

The Anasazi were cannibals.

Why? That’s what Turner addresses with his term “social-control.” If a family or village near you is killed, cooked, and eaten because they fail to pay tribute to the Southern High Priest and his warriors, you would give them what they want. It was, in other words, a form of enslavement. The natives of the region became the poor working class serving a Nazi-style elite of foreign occupiers.

Modern descendants of the Anasazi as a rule dislike that term, which is derived from a Navajo word that loosely means “ancient enemies.” But that is exactly what the Anasazi were. Very nasty ancient enemies.

My conclusion

The term “Anasazi” is a perfectly appropriate term for the Chacoan-style Anasazi. For those who preceded them and came after, it’s not a very good term at all.