ordered book

[Charlie Knighton]

reading from

In Search of the Old Ones....Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest

"Around 1250, you see an incredible change. Everybody's moving into the canyons, building cliff dwellings. ......Suddenly, at 1250, the trade ware goes to zero. Before that, you had plenty of far-traded pottery, turquoise, shells, jewelry. Suddenly, nothing. And right at 1250, the ceramics revert from Mesa Verde-style pitchers---tall, conical vessels with rounded bulblike bases----to the kinds of mugs made at Chaco two hundred years earlier."

it really sounds like a calabash phase

ordered Earth, Water, and Fire: the Prehistoric Pottery of Mesa Verde by Norman T. Oppelt

hoping for some pictures of these pitchers

 

[Bill Boehme]

.... it really sounds like a calabash phase....

That sounds like a really interesting book, Charlie. About the term calabash, I think that in popular usage it has become somewhat of an all inclusive term for rounded bottom vessels. If studying vessels of ancient cultures, I suspect that a rounded bottom is probably incidental just as you would expect to find a hole at the top because form follows function. Personally, I believe that using calabash to characterize Anasazi vessels (or vessels of other ancient cultures that didn't use calabash gourds) is oversimplifying the style of the vessels.

About their disappearance: current theories seem to favor a scenario that their society declined over a period of about fifty years ... there are many possible causes and probably not one single thing. Changing climate seems like one very likely contributor.

 

[Charlie Knighton]

About the term calabash, I think that in popular usage it has become somewhat of an all inclusive term for rounded bottom vessels

I think you are right.

About their disappearance: current theories seem to favor a scenario that their society declined over a period of about fifty years ... there are many possible causes and probably not one single thing. Changing climate seems like one very likely contributor

in the Old Ones, the changing climate was a cause for the building of the cities in the cliff, but the storage area of the food was closer to the fields, and that was probably what was raided, there is not much evidence of the cities in the overhanging cliffs being raided. then there is the Kachina Phenomenon, sort of revival.
this book hinted that was the overriding reason, but it was probably brought on by conditions.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Also, probable that the primitive slash and burn agriculture led to soil erosion in addition to depletion of nutrients after many years of farming. I can imagine that decreasing crop yields might have gradually forced them to leave.

When I was younger I made annual backpacking trips to very remote areas of southwestern New Mexico (mostly in the Gila Wilderness). We "discovered" several small cliff dwellings in various locations. When talking to rangers about our discoveries, we learned that they were already aware of most of them, but they didn't want to advertise them. They said that most of the sites had already been compromised by thoughtless people which basically destroyed their archeological value.

A few years ago on a trip to the Pacific Northwest, I became interested in the style of baskets made by the various tribes in that area. I have been planning to create some basket illusion turning that emulate the style of the ones that I saw. They will present a greater challenge than than the southwestern pueblo style.

 

[Charlie Knighton]

I became interested in the style of baskets made by the various tribes in that area. I have been planning to create some basket illusion turning that emulate the style of the ones that I saw. They will present a greater challenge than than the southwestern pueblo style.

I look forward to your basket illusion style. the southwestern pueblo style with many opportunities for individual style embellishments has become one of my favorite series. color, burning, form, carving is an all in one escape for me, almost if I had my own portal to another place...... I think the shaman's would approve.

 

[Charlie Knighton]

sort of refutes my #3 posts......new information

Epidemic of Violence in the Ancient Southwest

PULLMAN, WASHINGTON— A new study of human remains from southwest Colorado suggests that ancestral Peublo people living in the Mesa Verde area between 1140 and 1180 experienced a particularly violent era, reports Washington State University News. Archaeologist Tim Kohler and his colleagues found that almost nine out of ten sets of human remains dating to this period show evidence of skull and arm trauma from violent blows. “If we’re identifying that much trauma, many were dying a violent death,†says Kohler. However, human remains from the nearby northern Rio Grande area that date to the same time show much less evidence of trauma. According to Kohler, cultural differences between the two areas may explain the discrepancy in levels of violence. In the Rio Grande area, people did not rely on kin groups as much as in Mesa Verde, and joined larger groups such as medicine societies that spanned separate villages and promoted links between family groups. Kohler also sees more specialization of crafts in the Northern Rio Grande, which could be significant. "When you don’t have specialization in societies, there’s a sense in which everybody is a competitor because everybody is doing the same thing,†he notes. By the late thirteenth century, the Mesa Verde region was completely abandoned.

 

[Charlie Knighton]

(Courtesy Simone Riehl)
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT—Researchers have long argued about the role of climate change in the rise, development, and collapse of societies. According to NBC news, a newly released paper helps to clarify this relationship. A team of scientists led by Frank Hole of Yale University sampled both modern and ancient grains of barley from sites across the Near East and examined the effects of the large droughts that are known to have occurred in the region for the last ten millennia. Variations in the prevalence and health of the barley, which can be detected by the varying levels of carbon isotopes in the grains, are a key to understanding how, for example, the lack of water forced some farmers, especially those inland, to develop more sophisticated irrigation systems and even to turn to other crops, while those on the coast where water was more plentiful continued to cultivate barley for beer, bread, and other foodstuffs.

 

[Bill Boehme]

sort of refutes my #3 posts......new information

Epidemic of Violence in the Ancient Southwest

PULLMAN, WASHINGTON— A new study of human remains from southwest Colorado suggests that ancestral Peublo people living in the Mesa Verde area between 1140 and 1180 experienced a particularly violent era, reports Washington State University News. Archaeologist Tim Kohler and his colleagues found that almost nine out of ten sets of human remains dating to this period show evidence of skull and arm trauma from violent blows. “If we’re identifying that much trauma, many were dying a violent death,” says Kohler. However, human remains from the nearby northern Rio Grande area that date to the same time show much less evidence of trauma. According to Kohler, cultural differences between the two areas may explain the discrepancy in levels of violence. In the Rio Grande area, people did not rely on kin groups as much as in Mesa Verde, and joined larger groups such as medicine societies that spanned separate villages and promoted links between family groups. Kohler also sees more specialization of crafts in the Northern Rio Grande, which could be significant. "When you don’t have specialization in societies, there’s a sense in which everybody is a competitor because everybody is doing the same thing,” he notes. By the late thirteenth century, the Mesa Verde region was completely abandoned.

We visited Mesa Verde about 30 years ago and were very fortunate that the park ranger who was our guide was also an anthropologist studying the early cultures in that area. One of the things that I remembered was that he said many bodies were found at the bottom of the cliffs in the canyon. The prevailing theory at the time was that when somebody died, they were simply given the "heave ho" over the side and into the creek at the bottom of the canyon. It was a neat story to "explain" all of the crushed skulls and broken bones, but our anthropologist didn't buy it. There was too much evidence that they had more formal burials. So he suspected that there were violent conflicts with other groups of unknown origin. Maybe repeated conflicts persuaded them to leave or maybe they were all killed.

 

[hockenbery]

I like the theory hungry Anasazi Mayans or Aztecs ate them all.

Anthropology is the penultimate cold case.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0601_wireanasazi.html

 

[Charlie Knighton]

when you have kettle polish on bones.....

Cannibalism

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For non-human cannibalism, see Cannibalism (zoology). For other uses, see Cannibal (disambiguation).

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Woodcut showing 12 people holding various human body parts carousing around an open bonfire where human body parts, suspended on a sling, are cooking.


Cannibalism, Brazil. Engraving by Theodor de Bry for Hans Staden's account of his 1557 captivity.
Cannibalism (from Caníbales, the Spanish name for the Caribs,[1] a West Indies tribe that formerly practiced cannibalism)[2] is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal. The expression "cannibalism" has been extended into zoology to mean one individual of a species consuming all or part of another individual of the same species as food, including sexual cannibalism.

The Island Carib people of the Lesser Antilles, from whom the word cannibalism derives, acquired a long-standing reputation as cannibals following the recording of their legends in the 17th century.[3] Some controversy exists over the accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture. Cannibalism was widespread in the past among humans in many parts of the world, continuing into the 19th century in some isolated South Pacific cultures, and to the present day in parts of tropical Africa. Canibalism was practiced in New Guinea and in parts of the Soloman islands, and flesh markets existed in some parts of Melenesia.[4] Fiji was once known as the 'Cannibal Isles'.[5] Cannibalism has been well documented around the world, from Fiji to the Amazon Basin to the Congo to Māori New Zealand.[6] Neanderthals are believed to have practiced cannibalism,[7][8] and Neanderthals may have been eaten by anatomically modern humans.[9]

Cannibalism has recently been both practiced and fiercely condemned in several wars, especially in Liberia[10] and Congo.[11] As of 2006, the Korowai were one of very few tribes still believed to eat human flesh as a cultural practice.[12] It is also still known to be practiced as a ritual and in war in various Melanesian tribes. Historically, allegations of cannibalism were used by the colonial powers as a tool of empire to justify the subjugation of what were seen as primitive peoples.[13][page needed] Cannibalism has been said to test the bounds of cultural relativism as it challenges anthropologists "to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior".[3]

Cannibalism has been occasionally practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine, including in modern times. A famous example is the ill-fated Westward expedition of the Donner Party, and more recently the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, after which some survivors ate the bodies of dead passengers. Also, some mentally ill people obsess about eating others and actually do so, such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Albert Fish. There is resistance to formally labeling cannibalism as a mental disorder.[14]

 

[Charlie Knighton]

the book Earth Water and Fire has arrived, less than 100 pages, large number of pictures, it even goes into the whys of pottery instead of fiber that was used by the hunter-gathers. since I probably never will even try pottery, not very pratical but very interesting.