Canyon Cannibals

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening and I hope that you are doing well today.  I am going to do an older documentary that has been sitting on my documentary review playlist for a while.  I am fed up with seeing it on my list, so I am going to work on it today.  It is a controversial topic: cannibalism.  So I am watching this documentary so you do not have to!  Although it is posted on the Odyssey Ancient History YouTube Channel, it feels like it comes from the Secrets of the Dead series and has a run time of 48:11.  It was called Canyon Cannibals.

The Anasazi, in the southwestern United States, were thought of as peaceful farmers.  Their society was thought of as utopian by historians and archeologists.  They observed the stars and grew maize.  They were the earliest urban planners.  However, they suddenly disappeared from the landscape leaving their buildings behind.  Unfortunately, this has changed with new and startling research.  This research suggests a far darker side to these people.  What was discovered still shocks people today: Cannibalism.  So did the Anasazi really practice cannibalism or were they victims?

For the past thirty years, Christie Turner has investigated the remains of ancient peoples in the Southwest United States.  He talks about the bones he studies and notes features in the skulls.  He theorizes that the ancient people of the Southwest were more violent than was initially thought.  In my opinion, our ancient ancestors are a lot more complicated than you think you are.  This led him to conclude that the ancient people practiced cannibalism.  Cannibalism is one of the most controversial areas of history that could be explored.  When Turner presented his original paper, it was roundly rejected.

However, he continued to explore this theory and gathered the evidence.  He would present this evidence to his students in the classroom.  However, the attacks continued and there were First Nation Tribes that roundly rejected that the Anasazi were cannibals.  One spokesman says there are stories of violence, but nothing like Turner was proposing.  In this section, I wish the names of the participants were added to this documentary. 

That said, Turner turns his research to Chaco Canyon and the bones that were discovered at this site.  Thousands of bones were discovered at the site.  These bones were scattered and not buried carefully.  What did these piles of bones mean?  It was through these bones that the claims of cannibalism arose.  These initial findings were dismissed.  Richard Wetherell a local guide was the first to propose this theory in the early 1900s, but he was roundly rejected.  Eventually, he was murdered and buried nearby.  From time to time the theory continues to pop up and the theory continues to outrage people.

However, Turner continues to press on with the cannibal theory.  He developed a checklist to help examine this theory.  He knows the stakes are high and has created a high standard to study the phenomenon of cannibalism.  There was one man who was putting this theory into practice and he demonstrated how the Anasazi would have cut human flesh off bones.  The documentary continues to explore the controversy.  Does Turner come to the wrong conclusion about cannibalism in the canyons?  To continue to learn about the Anasazi and cannibalism continue to watch the rest of this episode.

Turner puts forward the argument well and shows the evidence of what he has gathered over the years.  It was also very good to hear that the test for cannibalism was very strict and the bar was set high.  It is a challenge to human nature.  Doing genealogy and watching these documentaries, I have concluded that life in the past is not as straightforward as it seems.  Life was as complicated back then as it is complicated now.  Some of the people who spoke on the controversy need to learn that lesson.  Anyway, this documentary was very dated and am I sure that there is newer information.  That said in today’s environment it will probably never be made.  This would be interesting just for research and as far as showing this to a classroom, I would give this documentary a skip.  It really does not add much valuable content to the classroom.