The story is familiar and follows a similar trajectory wherever people have made the transition from foraging to agriculture: surpluses enable social stratification that is legitimized as part of the ritual order. Elites claim the cosmological sanction of the supernatural.
In a recent study of mortuary practices at Chaco Canyon that appears in PNAS, Stephen Plog [...]
Tags:Amerindians·Anasazi·ancestors·Carrie Heitman·Chaco Canyon·cosmology·elites·grave goods·In the Hands of the Great Spirit·Jake Page·mortuary practices·Pueblos·ritual order·Southwestern archaeology·Stephen Plog·stratification·surplus·theocracies·theocracy
A friend just visited Zion National Park in Utah and took some amazing photos of petroglyphs in the backcountry. Given that these are carved into the rock, there really is no way to date them directly. I am not sure of the occupational sequence for that area, but there seems to be no reason these [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·Anasazi·entoptic·Paiute·Paleoindian·petroglyphs·rock art·shamans·Zion National Park
Science Daily reports on a new study by archaeologist Todd VanPool with this intriguing lead:
From the time of the Crusades to the modern day, war refugees have struggled to integrate into their new communities. They are often economically impoverished and socially isolated, which results in increased conflict, systematic violence and warfare, within and between communities [...]
