THE DARK SIDE
OF THE ANASAZI
Around
1,000 years ago, near what is now the town of Yellow Jacket, Colorado, a group
of Anasazi Indians- men, women, and children-were brutally slaughtered. Then
their flesh was cut from their bones, perhaps eaten, and the bones smashed to
bits.
Such a tale of murder and possible cannibalism is slowly being pieced
together from human skeletal fragments recently unearthed by researchers from
the University of Colorado at Boulder. And these broken bones threaten to
shatter the prevailing view of the Anasazi as quiet, nonviolent farmers.
"The idea that the Anasazi were simply a friendly, sedentary people has long
been just a construct of the archeologists," says anthropologist John Cater.
"It's your basic 'noble savage' concept." Cater headed recent excavations at
the Yellow Jacket site, which lies in the southwestern corner of Colorado, near
the state's intersection with Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The Anasazi
inhabited this region from the first to the fourteenth centuries, when a severe
drought sent survivors south.
The cuts and scrapes found on the
bones-thought to be those of eight |
individuals-were apparently caused by stone instruments used in a way
that suggests butchering. "The flesh was clearly cut off the bones," Cater
says, "and the bones shattered."
Just why such violence took place, however,
Is not as clear. Some researchers believe it was an act of warfare. But
Frederick Lange, curator of anthropology at the university's museum, thinks the
evidence points toward cannibalism and a desperate attempt to ward off
starvation and death. "There are certainly many options," he says, "but I think
this represented a response to dietary stress, perhaps during a particularly
difficult winter."
Cater thinks the evidence is too strong to be explained
away by saying the Anasazi were in the midst of a food shortage; he believes
there was a ritual basis to the violence. In support of his view, he points out
that the bones were found in a kiva, a round underground room reserved for
ceremonies; and, he says, "the breakage of the bones is far worse than it would
be if a starving individual just needed to get marrow out for sustenance."
Cater also cites an Indian belief that to destroy an enemy completely, you had
to destroy his body completely.
Uncomfortable with the idea of such violence
being part of normal Anasazi |
practice, some researchers have proposed that a marauding isolated cult might
have ravaged the area over a very short time. But to this Cater replies: "There
are about twelve similar sites in the area that point to ritualistic violence
and cannibalism, and they cover time periods too far apart to be explained by a
short-lived cult," Cater adds that he has found what he believes were fortified
sites, circular structures with a single entrance that indicate a need for
long-term defense.
Whatever the eventual consensus, Cater says, the
importance of the find lies not in its inherent sensationalism but in its
potential for shedding new light on Anasazi society. "If there were ceremonial
activities such as this, even rarely, then you can say that intra-group
conflicts occurred. Every culture in the world has had some evidence of
cannibalism-ceremonial or not isn't the issue here. Because the archeologists
have tried so hard to build up the idea that the Anasazi lived a Garden of Eden
existence, we've learned little about how they really lived. They've been put
on a pedestal. Now we're finally able to get a more realistic picture of what
they were like. We just want to show that these people were simply human
beings: nothing less and nothing more." |
