Ancient North America

I think it is funny whenever I hear Europeans tell me that America's history is not that old, I mean all of North America from Mexico to Canada. Any Native American would disagree but they are looking at it from a European perspective.

Here are some old ruins in the state of New Mexico, I have been here. Bandelier National park!


Edited by vagabond

It makes me wonder who these people were and what happened to them. They disapeared long before the arrival of the white man. Was it war or famine????

I have also been to the white house on the Navajo Reservation and some cliff dwelling near the Gila Wilderness area of New Mexico.

The Pueblo and Hopi claim to be related to these ancient natives but as far as I know they had no connection to the Aztec, at least not direct.





The white house in Canyon de Chelly National Park- this is an awesome place to visit.

I think the main accepted theory is famine, apparently theres evidence in some places that things were so bad people resorted to occasional cannabilism.

Ritualism? I thought it was out of desperation because conditions had gotten so bad.

In order to sell more copies of his book, Christy Turner has lead the charge of those favoring cannibalism as an answer (the cannibalists?) while many other scientists and archaeologists are adamantly opposed to his conclusions.  Even Turner concludes (again against the tide of the majority of the scientific community) that it was most probably ritual cannibalism brought in from Mexican cultures and imposed on the Anasazi.  There are such disparate answers as warfare, ritual sacrifice, execution of skinwalkers (witches), and so on - but there is definitave evidence that at least some cannibalism did take place - tests of coprolite at some sites have turned up definative evidence of the eating of human flesh.  One of the questions that the scientists cannot decide on is how often it happened and why.  It seems to have been found at some sites and not at others, and was of very limited duration - usually only one or two occurances - not the amount of evidence that you would find if the neighbors were on the menu on a regular basis.  It has been a hotly debated issue in the past decade or so.

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news128.htm

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/anasazi.h tm

http://www.archaeology.org/9709/newsbriefs/anasazi.html

http://sipapu.gsu.edu/html/faq.html#4 
this is a particularly informative site

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0601_wireana sazi.html

http://www.newnation.org/NCR/reference/NCR-Anasazi.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n1_v143/a i_13307352