Evidence
Show Ancient Cannibalism
By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA,
AP
02:00 PM ET 09/06/00
Piles of human bones
burned and boiled, smashed and scraped. Cooking pots
smeared with blood. A few years ago, anthropologists in
the American Southwest uncovered the grisly remains of
what appeared to be an ancient cannibal feast, but they
lacked the biological proof - until now.
Laboratory tests on
some of the artifacts, including a piece of human
excrement, have revealed traces of a human protein that
scientists say is the first direct evidence of
cannibalism among the Anasazi, whose empire stretched
into present-day Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
``This proves they put
the meat in their mouths,'' said Richard Marlar, a
molecular biologist at the University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center in Denver who developed the biochemical
tests to detect the protein. ``If you didn't eat human
beings, this protein would not show up.''
The excavation site,
consisting of three collapsed pit dwellings nicknamed
Cowboy Wash near Dolores, Colo., was occupied about 1150
A.D. It was abandoned after seven people were butchered
there.
The findings were
published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Other anthropologists
said the protein evidence is convincing. However, it
doesn't explain exactly who committed the cannibalism or
why.
Nor does it
demonstrate that the Anasazi commonly ate their own,
whether for nourishment or in a religious ritual.
``I doubt it was a
routine thing at all in the culture of the early pueblo
people, any more than it was routine in any other
culture,'' said anthropologist William Lipe of
Washington State University.
Among modern-day
Indians of the Southwest, leaders of the Hopi, Zuni and
other tribes have been especially critical of
cannibalism research.
But Terry Knight, a
Ute Mountain Ute tribal leader who supervised the
excavation, said of the findings: ``Like any other
civilization, there were good, productive people, and
there were bad people.''
Knight said he hopes
the evidence of cannibalism will force anthropologists
to revise their thinking about the Anasazi culture. He
said ancient Indian culture is too often treated in
simplistic terms when it was in reality complex, with
many different tribes.
Cowboy Wash was one of
about 10 Anasazi homesteads in the Four Corners region.
Today's inhabitants, the Utes, commissioned
archaeologists to conduct a scientific survey before
installing an irrigation system.
Even without the
specter of cannibalism, the Anasazi are a mysterious
lost culture. They built an elaborate network of roads
and ceremonial centers throughout the Southwest after
700 A.D. that were keenly oriented to the heavens.
Severe drought helped to disperse the society by 1300
A.D.
Forty miles east of
Cowboy Wash stands Mesa Verde, now an elaborate ghost
city protected by cliffs and served by aqueducts. But
most Anasazi lived in hardscrabble settlements, growing
corn and hunting game.
The pit dwellings at
Cowboy Wash appear to have been heavily used for many
years, then suddenly abandoned. They contained pots,
grinding stones, jewelry and other valuables.
In the ruins,
researchers also found seven dismembered skeletons in
1994. The bones had been stripped of their flesh, then
roasted and cracked for their fatty marrow. Skulls were
scorched and cracked open for their brains. In the
center of one cooking hearth was found a coprolite, or
piece of dried feces.
The scene suggested a
gruesome butchering, but critics complained the evidence
was circumstantial. In 1997, Marlar offered to find
biochemical proof.
In a series of tests,
he determined that both the coprolite and residue on
cooking pots contained human myoglobin. It is a protein
that picks up oxygen from the bloodstream and carries it
into the muscle cells.
Myoglobin is found in
flesh, not in most organs or vessels. In mammals, the
myoglobin of each species has its own chemical
fingerprint. Marlar failed to find the myoglobin for
deer, rabbit and other local game in the same samples.
As a comparison, he
did not detect human myoglobin in coprolites and other
artifacts found at other Anasazi sites from the same
period.
``All we have found
from the Cowboy Wash samples is human myoglobin _ no
other species,'' Marlar said. ``They had a human meat
meal.''
Initially, researchers
believed the victims might be prisoners of war who were
sacrificed. Others contend the victims might have been
executed and incinerated as witches, but not necessarily
consumed.
The Cowboy Wash
investigators now are developing a new scenario.
According to University of North Carolina archaeologist
Brian Billman, who coordinated the excavation, drought
gripped the area in 1150 and the social order frayed.
Marauders probably terrorized and cannibalized the
families living at Cowboy Wash.
Billman described the
coprolite as ``a final insult'' by the killers.
EDITORS: Associated
Press writer William McCall contributed to this story.
Related Links:
Nature magazine: http://www.nature.com
Mesa Verde
National Park: http://www.nps.gov/meve
Crow Canyon
Archeological Center: http://www.crowcanyon.org
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