I did some research on the claims of Anasazi cannibalism — my work was between the time when the coprolite was found and when the myoglobin test results were released — proving cannibalism to a degree of certainty that would get a conviction in a court of law.
Most anthropologists today accept that cannibalism has occurred on every continent at one time or another. They stress that this one proven incident does not prove a pattern of behavior, any more than an excavation of Auschwitz a thousand years from now would summarize 20th century Europe.
“They stress that this one proven incident does not prove a pattern of behavior, any more than an excavation of Auschwitz a thousand years from now would summarize 20th century Europe.”
Not to be contentious, ROE, but Auschwitz does kind of summarize 20th Century Eastern Europe doesn’t it? I mean, you have endless slaughter of ethnics by the Russians, Serbs, Albanians, Greeks, Germans, etc.
I think ethnic cleansing rather defines 20th Century Europe.
I mean, you wouldn’t find a site like Auschwitz or Chechnya in 20th Century America.
My main point, however, was that Native Americans were not the philosophical, peaceful tourist attractions they are today. For the most part they were “savages” in the truest sense of that word.