Heard about this. Now Southwestern prehistory is really being reinterpreted. I had always heard about the Anasazi, Sinagua, Fremont, etc. being peaceful yeoman farmers, but I had always wondered why they built "cliff dwellings".
I used to figure it was because of the Apaches and Navajos, but those groups really came in from the northeast not more than 50-100 years before the Spanish.
Now they're looking at the role of Mesoamericans in founding Chaco (the Mayas and Toltecs practiced ritual cannibalism at that time) and the role of warfare in the disintegration of the Anasazi civilization.
I hope to read a book called Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest, by Steven LeBlanc. He and Turner are really responsible for this reinterpretation.
"He and Turner are really responsible for this reinterpretation." I like Turner. My son got his PhD from ASU and occassionally bumped into him.
Here's a book I read that you may find interesting. Nancy makes a compelling argument.
The Zuni Enigma
Did a group of thirteenth-century Japanese journey to the American Southwest, there to merge with the people, language, and religion of the Zuni tribe?"
For many years, anthropologists have understood the Zuni in the American Southwest to occupy a special place in Native American culture and ethnography. Their language, religion, and blood type are startlingly different from all other tribes. Most puzzling, the Zuni appear to have much in common with the people of Japan.