Disappearing history and cannibalism in the canyonlands, with a note on underground bunkers
Join our free email list here.
Apparently, “Anasazi” is no longer a politically correct name for the ancient residents of the Four Corners region, where the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet.
The narrative justifying the name change—which would be onerous, given how much the word “Anasazi” has been used over the last century—has the fishy smell of disappearing history.
Backing up that impression, ruins in this region, even those once restored at great effort and public expense, like Cutthroat Castle in Canyons of the Ancients, are slowly being disappeared from federal maps, and hidden behind missing signs and unmaintained roads.
Why (not) “Anasazi”?
According to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC):
“The term ‘Anasazi’ was established in 1927 through the archaeological Pecos Classification system, referring to the Ancestral Pueblo people who spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, including Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Canyon De Chelly, and Aztec. The term is Navajo in origin, and means ‘ancient enemy.’ The Pueblo peoples of New Mexico understandably do not wish to refer to their ancestors in such a disrespectful manner, so the appropriate term to use is ‘Ancestral Pueblo’ or ‘Ancestral Puebloan.’
“According to archaeologist Linda Cordell, ‘Anasazi’ was first applied to the ruins of Mesa Verde by Richard Wetherill, a rancher and trader who was the first Anglo-American known to explore the sites in that area in 1888–89. Wetherill knew and worked with Navajos, and understood what the word meant. The name was further embedded in archaeological circles when it was adopted by Alfred V. Kidder, the acknowledged dean of Southwestern Archaeology, who felt it was easier to use than creating a more technical term.”
The explanation of the need for the name change offered below is vague and confusing. Did the tribes really allow Richard Wetherill and white academics to control the accurate description of their ancestors for the last 130 years? What is a “universal collective”? If “Anasazi” is “a word not used,” then what is the word that was historically used? The Navajo weren’t calling these ancient people “Ancestral Puebloans” in Wetherill’s day. Why did Wetherill, who knew and worked with Navajos, call this culture “Ancient Enemy”? The IPCC didn’t say. They said something, but I’m not sure what it was:
“‘It is to my knowledge within our Pueblo communities that we have always referred to our ancestors with proper words to describe their next stage in life with honor and care according to our own language composition,’ says Stephanie Oyenque (Acoma Pueblo), IPCC Cultural Education Specialist. ‘The term ‘Anasazi’ is a word not used within our Pueblo communities. Therefore, how can we, as a universal collective, honor our past people with dignity and respect? Now is the time to take back control of how to accurately describe our ancestral people.’”
Which brings us to a book called Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest, by Christy Turner and Jacqueline Turner. This husband-and-wife team of archeologists spent years analyzing thousands of human bones unearthed from ancient ruins in the Four Corners region. They uncovered compelling evidence of widespread cannibalism, dated from around 900 AD to about 1300 AD, when the culture formerly known as Anasazi is said to have suddenly collapsed for unknown reasons.
The Turners credit Richard Wetherill, widely sneered at by academics as a profiteer, with being the first to discover and document evidence of cannibalism in the region. Suddenly the name “Anasazi,” as distasteful as it may seem (pun intended), begins to make some sense.
The cannibal culture of Ancestral Puebloans
According to the Turners’ evidence, cannibalism in the American Southwest did not involve the respectful ritual consumption of the dead, such as to acquire their spirit, knowledge or power. Nor was it starvation cannibalism, where humans were forced to consume their own kind to survive. Although there were periods of drought in the region, they were less severe than in adjacent areas of the US, where no evidence of cannibalism has been found (so far, anyway).
Rather, this cannibalism involved the slaughter and consumption of men, women and children of all ages, in exactly the same manner as livestock and wildlife was slaughtered and consumed. The remains were then unceremoniously discarded in the same refuse heaps.
As for who, exactly, was eating whom, and why, the possibilities are wide open. Were the ancestors of present-day Puebloans doing the eating, or were they being eaten, both, or neither? Does it even matter now? What kind of deeply creepy culture was this, and what was it like to live in it? That’s some serious fuel for imagination and nightmares.
Evidence of cannibalism
The Turners identified evidence of cannibalism in dozens of sites throughout the Four Corners region, such as cut marks on bones; charred bones; long bones broken open to extract the marrow, in the same way as animal bones; human skulls roasted on a fire, face up, and broken open to extract the brain; “pot-polished” bones, caused by abrasion in a cooking vessel; and human remains carelessly discarded among the remains of other animals, with no funerary objects or other signs of reverent burial. Sometimes human bones were used to make tools or musical instruments.
Also, a coprolite (petrified poop) was found that tested positive for a protein only found in human meat—further evidence that humans were once considered food in the American Southwest.
The Turners believe the practice came to North America from Mexico, where it’s generally agreed cannibalism was common in the Aztec culture. That may be…but it doesn’t really explain why such a culture existed in the first place.
The deaths of those who were cannibalized were horrific—sudden, brutal and violent. Sometimes, the butchery of an entire family was the last thing to occur at a home site. Other times, such as at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon (shown above), discarded human remains accumulated for years in particular rooms of the compound. Could this magnificent structure have served as a prison or slaughterhouse for human livestock? It would help explain the many walled-in doors and windows in the pueblo complex.
I’ve heard Native Americans refer to Chaco Canyon as a valley of tears—and there were surely many tears shed there.
This documentary, based in part on the Turners’ work, tells the story of hundreds of humans processed as game in the Four Corners region.
Hidden ruins in Canyons of the Ancients
As someone who wanders a lot off-trail, I soon discovered that Canyons of the Ancients in Southwest Colorado is much more than the site of a few nicely restored ruins—it holds the remains of a huge metropolis, with residences and compounds all over. They are spaced about a city block apart on high ridges with spectacular views, and tucked away in hidden canyons. It’s a strange peculiarity of the landscape, with its alternating ridges, canyons, mesas and valleys, that ruins high, low and in between are often invisible until they’re right under your nose.
The vast majority of these ruins have never been restored, and have been extensively salvaged over the years, sometimes to the point of near obliteration, depending on how easy it is to access the site.
Most ruin sites are not marked or documented in any public sources, and are invisible from established roads and trails. This creates a false impression that the ancient population of Canyons of the Ancients was sparse, when it actually contained hundreds, and more likely thousands, of households and compounds. And Canyons of the Ancients is only a tiny section of what was once Anasazi territory.
These are just a couple examples of hidden ruins, which include everything from small structures just several feet across, to large compounds with multiple rooms and outbuildings.
Disappearing restored ruins: Painted Hand Pueblo and Cutthroat Castle
There are two sets of rather neglected restored ruins along road 4531 in Canyon of the Ancients, known as Painted Hand and Cutthroat Castle—a hideous name said to be inspired by the shape of the canyon, which looks more like a “Y” than a cut throat to me.
The road to the ruins runs in a loop off Road 10 (leading to Hovenweep). You can see from the map that a small portion of the road goes through an easement on private land—it’s a common situation on public lands, and usually doesn’t cause any problems.
But I have seen some sneaky attempts by nearby landowners to keep the public off public lands—like this one.
This cryptic sign stands at both entrances to the ruins road:
“ATTENTION: Private Land Ahead. No Legal Access Through Private Property.”
A lot of you are probably thinking what I was: That’s some incredibly inappropriate use of capitalization. It’s a sign, not a book title, for the love of Oxford!
Aside from that, we can all learn a lot from this sign. In particular, it teaches us that any nitwit with a printer and a staple gun can trick people into thinking they can’t access their own public lands—especially if they use the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) logo to make it look official.
Interestingly, the BLM doesn’t have a problem with these fake BLM signs—they’ve been up for several years, and the area is patrolled regularly by park rangers. The lack of interest isn’t surprising, since the Cutthroat ruins seem to have been removed recently from official maps of the area.
As a bonus for Cutthroat visitors, check out the interesting unrestored hidden ruins shown on the map up above and the photo below, which integrated huge natural boulders with stacked stone to form a maze-like walled compound, with a stunning view of the valley below.
Hidden ruins near Cutthroat Castle (see map).
A note on cannibalism for would-be underground bunker dwellers
Whenever someone mentions a ticket to one of those massive deep underground bunkers to survive an apocalypse, my mind always turns to cannibalism.
It got worse after watching the television series The 100. I don’t think I can explain why without a spoiler, so I’ll just say that, while I can happily watch a good TV series over and over again, The 100 was well-done, but so brutal, I could barely watch it once.
Cannibalism and underground bunkers go together like hand and glove because:
Fresh meat is scarce underground, and the need for it is primal.
In any community there will be fallout—undesirable people, and people who drain resources.
Even if the members of a survival bunker are chosen carefully, the issue will always come up. The violent and antisocial; the sick, weak, mentally ill and disabled; contrarians, critics, activists and crotchety old farts. Decisions will be made about who the fallout are, and what to do about them.
You can’t just throw the fallout out of the bunker.
If you throw out troublemakers, they could easily become an outside threat. If you throw out the sick and weak, there will be public outrage—after all, everyone is eventually going to be fallout.
The fallout consume precious limited resources.
They need to be watched, fed, housed, cared for, treated, maybe even confined in a prison or medical or psychiatric facility. That requires a huge chunk of limited bunker resources—and quite often, it doesn’t even solve the problem. While these attempts to remediate fallout are good for morale, they need to be kept to a minimum to conserve resources.
It wouldn’t be hard to quietly disappear people or fake their natural death in a bunker. They could be slaughtered and turned into food, with most of the bunker being none the wiser. Most people would not need to know.
If you haven’t gotten your precious ticket yet, don’t despair! Since fallout will be an excellent source of high-quality protein in the bunker, those in charge have a rather lax invitation list. Just let it be known that you tenderize yourself with regular massages, and always keep 2 full cases of A-1 sauce on hand. A lot of invitations will probably be handed out at the last minute, because it never hurts to stock up.
When you’re stuck underground, it’s impossible to have too many nice juicy steaks and burgers. Bon Appétit!