Please, spare me the straw man. Have you actually read any of the books on the subject such as Steven Leblanc's Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest? Or are you simply assuming that any analysis that seeks to demonstrates cannibalism or other nastiness must be wrong because you've already decided that your ancestors could never have done such a thing?
I know what science says about the past, I know that their ideas of "civilization" leaves a lot to be desired.
In what way? Because you think they are "Eurocentric"?
Keeley's book deals with sites all over the globe. Indeed, the most striking anecdote about how political correctness has invaded archeology in the intro to his book is about sites in Europe and how any wall around a settlement must be called an "enclosure" and not a "fortification" (even if the "enclosure" is littered with arrow heads in a clear attack pattern) because the conventional "wisdom" is that there was no warfare in prehistoric Europe and thus no need for "fortifications". Later he describes how American archaeologists always discuss Southwestern American ruins as "defensive" and all of the people as "peaceful" without ever asking the obvious question that if everyone was so peaceful, who were they all defending against?
I do not object to all the claims, I object to the ransacking of sacred lands and devices.
I don't think they've been "ransacking" for a while. If you consider disturbing any burial, even respectfully as "ransacking", then I'll have to disagree with you and I'll note that Archaeologists disturb the burial grounds of all peoples and cultures including those of dead white males (see recent excavations at Jamesburg for a good example). Archaeologists often learn the most from burials and to place them entirely off limits is to say that we no longer have any interest in learning about the past. And to claim that any burial in a region belongs to a group even if that group is known to have entered the region long after the burial seems more designed to prevent study than to respect the dead.
I am not one to subscribe to the "peaceful savage" ideal, some peoples definitely were into cannibalism (and not in a Royal Navy way), there are rites and rituals that involve the flesh and parts of humans- these are taboo and evil.
I'm not talking about rights and rituals. I'm talking about killing people, ransacking their home, butchering them like animals, and treating their remains with the same disrespect shown to animal remains. Have you actually read any accounts of the finds? A good summary can be found here. Leaving the bones on the floor and crapping in the fire are not signs of any rite or ritual I can imagine. Might this have been part of a short period of madness? Sure. Could this have been a particularly evil band of people who were not representative of most of the people in that area at the time? Sure. Does any of this mean anything about the current residents of the area who are descendents of these people? Of course not.
I must admit that I get too defensive with this subject. The "ologists" treat us as dead things to be studied and preserved. I don't like that.
They do that to everyone's ancestors, not just yours. You'll notice that they are studying the burials of Jamestown settlers and the bones of those found in the Minitor and Hunley, too. I'll grant you that scientists in the past were particularly insensitive to Native American concerns and weren't showing any respect to remains at one point. But that is no reason to reject all study. And simply because negative stereotypes have been applied in the past in a racist way does not mean that every negative find is simply an attack by a racist researcher.
oh and speaking of cannibalism and other nastiness I know of another religion that celebrates the consumption of human flesh and blood and the brutal murder of it followers (martyrs).
You'll notice that (A) the celebration you are talking about has always been symbolic, not literal and (B) that the people remembering the martyrs weren't the people who murdered them. Frankly, I think it would be silly for you to argue that the cannibalism being found in the American Southwest was a normal part of their religion, like communion is to Christianity. I think you'd be better of thinking of it as a momentary madness by bad people, much more like what the Inquisition or the sacking of Constantinople was for Christianity.
I have not read this book since you find it very interesting, I will acquire ASAP.
Let me just say that I enjoy my life and would not want to live "in the good old days". To not recognize the great achievements of the Euros would be foolish and dishonest.
I also know that terms peaceful and warrior did not go together well.
I was not trying to draw a line between Christianity and cannibalism I was trying to annoy. We all know that in the past things were brutal, I do not argue or defend that. It is just that this type of "find" is often used as justification to do more digging- literally.