Abstract
Over the past two decades, archaeologists and physical anthropologists investigating the prehistoric Anasazi culture have identified numerous cases of suspected cannibalism. Many scholars have suggested that starvation caused by environmental degradation induced people to eat one another, but the growing number of cases as well as their temporal and spatial distribution challenge this conclusion. At the same time, some scholars have questioned the validity of the osteoarchaeological indicators that are used to identify cannibalism in collections of mutilated human remains. To address these concerns, this study attempts to reconstruct the behaviors that produced the Anasazi skeletal trauma by first examining ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological material for analogues useful for interpreting mutilated human remains and then correlating these analogues with the evidence from the Southwest. The patterns suggest that different behaviors are responsible for the Anasazi skeletal mutilation seen in different time periods. To explain these differences, the study employs game theoretical models that examine how changing social and physical contexts altered the sociopolitical strategies that Anasazi groups would likely have employed. The results suggest that violent mutilation and perhaps cannibalism was an intentional sociopolitical strategy of intimidation used during Pueblo II (A.D. 900–1100), while environmental changes after this period promoted resource-based warfare and the incidental skeletal trauma associated with this behavior.
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This research was conducted while the author was supported with funding by the University of California at Santa Barbara and the Jacob K. Javitz Fellowship Program.
John Kantner is currently completing his dissertation at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His research focuses on political competition among the Chaco Anasazi of the prehistoric southwestern United States, and he is particularly interested in evolutionary theory and the application of agent-based modeling to human behavior. Methodological interests include spatial analysis using geographic information systems technology and ceramic stylistic and compositional analytical techniques, but he also maintains interests in osteoarchaeology and faunal analysis. A related article, “Ancient Roads, Modern Mapping,” which recently appeared in Expedition (1997, 39[3]:49–62), reports a study applying spatial techniques to evaluate the sociopolitical functions of prehistoric Chaco Anasazi roadways.
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Kantner, J. Survival cannibalism or sociopolitical intimidation?. Hum Nat 10, 1–50 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-999-1000-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-999-1000-2