Posted on 10/05/2007 8:57:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
[A]rchaeologist Jim Hampson... is part of a four-person team of archaeologists working this fall to repair a wall that was crushed in late 2006 when a large slab of rock sheered off the alcove above and crushed a 12-foot-high wall and pierced another wall of a kiva... The rock that fell was estimated to weigh about 4.5 tons. Crews spent several weeks breaking up the boulder and hauling it away so they could begin documenting the damage and planning a route to repair. "It was a huge slab," archaeologist Tim Hovezak said. "We lost most of the north wall. You can see a piece there." ...But with the wall's collapse, archaeologists discovered some unique archaeological features that would not have been evident otherwise. Hampson pointed to the kiva where it was clear that the Ancestral Puebloans had built one kiva wall right in front of another... The inner wall still had black clay on the surface of the rocks. Research archaeologist Julie Bell said the clay was often spread on the surface of kivas as a decoration, and because it is fragile, it often isn't preserved as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at cortezjournal.com ...
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Thanks Renfield. |
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“Rock on dudes”
Interesting find tho, anything like images or art found on the clay lining?
"From Publishers Weekly
The peaceful Zuni of New Mexico and Arizona are much studied, partly because their language, culture and physical appearance set them apart from other Native American peoples.
Davis, an anthropologist who has made 10 visits to the Zuni pueblo, now offers the startling thesis that a group of Japanese Buddhists left earthquake-wracked medieval Japan and came by ship to the Southern California coast, eventually migrating inland to the Zuni territory, where they merged their culture and genes with Native Americans to produce the modern Zuni people around A.D. 1350.
Davis uses "forensic" evidence--including analyses of dental morphology, blood and skeletal remains--to support a Japanese-Zuni connection.
Further, she notes the Zuni's exceptionally high incidence of a specific kidney disease that is also unusually common in Japan.
Yet she acknowledges there have been no DNA studies to confirm or refute her hypothesis, and she has not turned up a single 13th-century Japanese item in North America.
Her bold, highly speculative theory gets a boost from some cultural parallels, including striking similarities between the Zuni and Japanese languages; between the Zuni "sacred rosette" found on robes and pottery and the Japanese Buddhist chrysanthemum symbol (presently Japan's imperial crest).
A Zuni mid-January ceremony with masked monsters, aimed at frightening children into proper behavior, is almost identical to one in Japan. Davis's broader thesis that the Pacific was a "liquid highway" mounts a serious challenge to the entrenched idea of the peopling of the Americas solely via the Bering Strait land bridge.
Open-minded readers will enjoy her beautifully written book as an opportunity to ponder our shared humanity. Illus. "
Thanks for the ping.
Same sort of thing happened in Chaco.
http://www.colorado.edu/Conferences/chaco/tour/images/pb2n.jpg
They weren't always so peaceful.
They are descended from the Anasazi, who went through an extended period where they apparently practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism. Some have claimed this was due to missionaries or refugees from Central Mexico, where such practices were a way of life.
The neighbors being cannibals is one darn good reason to move into a cliff dwelling!
That’s Pueblo Bonito in the pic. Interestingly, the straight wall on that pueblo is a perfect East-West alignment. Great astronomers, the Anasazi-they have a pictograph at Chaco of an ancient supernova.
The Utes put them in the cliff dwellings.
Cannibalism with the Anasazi predates missionaries by around 350 years.
I was referring to missionaries of the Aztec variety, not the Franciscan or Jesuit type.
Aztec missionaries? Pray tell just what is that Sherman?
hmm...
I bet the Anasazi figured out eating human flesh on their own...much like the many other Amerindian tribes that enjoyed the other white meat.
I don't know. More or less by definition, we will never know what happened.
But there was a period of 100 years or more in the American SW when practices were indulged in that were not acceptable before or since.
Why? I'm sure I don't know. But ideas spread by immigrants from not terribly distant areas where such practices were widespread is not the least likely possibility.
you do know the word Choctaw means Cannibal?
i don’t think our injuns needed much help in this area..lol
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