A Theory of Anasazi Savagery

CHACO CANYON, N.M. — It has been called one of the great prehistoric anthropological puzzles: What caused the Anasazi people--who over centuries had developed one of the most sophisticated civilizations in North America--to abandon their beautiful stone cities? What event transpired in the mid-12th century that caused families to walk away, seemingly in great haste, leaving behind food cooking over fires and sandals hanging on pegs?

Here, in a stark desert landscape presided over by brooding red mesas, some clues lie buried within a nest of hundreds of rooms, strewn among the remnants of distinctive Cibola pottery and exquisite jewelry fashioned from turquoise and jet.

Bones. Chopped up human bones with curious marks suggesting systematic cutting and scraping. Signs that indicate groups of people were killed, butchered, then the flesh cleaned from their bones. Tendons carefully cut away and the meat roasted. Long bones halved, stirred in pots and boiled, with the marrow extracted. Skulls with the top cut out, placed on hearths and cooked. Brains removed.

Scientists have long puzzled over the meaning of these artifacts. Now, at least one chilling explanation has come forth. With the publication this spring of "Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest," which he wrote with his late wife, anthropologist Jacqueline Turner, physical anthropologist Christy Turner has managed to anger Native Americans, rile scientists, horrify New Agers and provide a fascinating theoretical glimpse into the collapse of a great civilization.

"I'm the guy who brought down the Anasazi," Turner says wryly.

The book, published by the University of Utah Press, debunks the traditional view of the Anasazi as peaceful agriculturalists, whose modern-day descendants are the highly spiritual Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo people. Previously, the bone heaps have been variously explained as the handiwork of warring clans, remnants of the killing of witches and/or as part of ritual mortuary practice.

But Turner contends that a "band of thugs"--Toltecs, for whom cannibalism was part of religious practice--made their way to Chaco Canyon from central Mexico. These invaders used cannibalism to overwhelm the unsuspecting Anasazi and terrorize the populace into submission over a period of 200 years.