||in the artificial aquatic environments such as Mummy Lake Mesa Verde. My perception of the so-called Hohokam “ballcourts” and the many other architectural constructions that I have identified, shifted, and the Anasazi puzzle that I have been working on for half a decade was completed. Vorsila Bohrer reported to me she had found a strange black material like “curls of old paint” in a natural depression in New Mexico. She had the material analyzed and it turned out to be dried blue-green algae. Instantly, with the realization that the fertilizer made in what I had been calling “sweetwater mulching swamps” could be dried, pulverized and transported, in a basket for instance, the entire Chaco system became clear. As a result I have now named these architectural structures “fertilizer dehydration basins.”
This naturally occurring resource allowed the Chaco Canyon Anasazi to fill their massive system of granaries, increase population densities and create monumental architecture that had a practical and spiritual use such as Pueblo Bonito, the hundreds of other Great Houses and the extensive “road system.” With the surplus corn that they were able to produce, however, came increasing anemia and depletion of regional wildlife populations which provided the essential dietary iron, leading in turn to increased warfare and even cannibalism. As harmonious natural life styles were the religious priority of the indigenous non-Mesoamerican clans, the majority of the population rejected the sophisticated agricultural strategies, along with the complex and perhaps authoritarian social systems. The archeological and oral record indicates that the allied indigenous clans drove the Parrot Clan farther and farther south until they were finally eliminated at Paquimé in about C.E. 1450.
While it has been very exhilarating to me personally, to make a strong, persuasive and comprehensive argument that the vast system of Chacoan “kivas” are actually a system of granaries and communal kitchens, it was even more deeply satisfying to have identified, with the help of Vorsila Bohrer, the basic mechanism with which fertilizer was produced from Mesa Verde to Guatemala in the pre-Columbian era. This “discovery” provides for the foundation for the development of all of North America’s complex “high” civilizations.
Any culture that could manage an environmental resource like cryptobiotic soil to make the San Juan basin blossom, producing a huge surplus of golden corn, could rightfully claim that their knowledge came from God. With this ancient knowledge, the founders of Chacoan culture could persuade the in-situ indigenous clans to join them to develop what became one of the most mysterious and legendary cultures on the planet.
Religion-Kivas -vs- Mounds - The architecture of the mysterious and long-debated Anasazi people is marked by the round buildings called kivas. In general, “kiva” is the name given to round rooms of any shape and size. For the last one hundred years, archaeologists have insisted that the purpose of the kivas was religious. Not withstanding I am prepared to argue just the opposite: that small kivas are 100% for grain storage and that large kivas are communal kitchens.
I believe religious ceremonies took place on platform mounds that have been identified as trash middens which are prominently displayed in front of many Great Houses. At Chaco Canyon and elsewhere C.E. 850-1275, approximately 40-60% of the space is in round rooms, causing Chaco Canyon to be interpreted as a major religious center. My counter argument is that the Tarahumaras report that 90% of the meaning of life surrounds food and is totally integrated into their religious belief system. I say that with 40-60% of the architectural space in Pueblo Bonito and other Chacoan Great Houses dedicated to food storage and preparation, this control of the food supply would have given tremendous political power and a major draw for religious ceremonies. This proposal is completely consistent with all of the accepted archaeological evidence.
Where did they come from and where did they go? Following the Scarlet Macaws shows promise as a way to find the resolution of Chaco Canyon’s origins. For the past seventy years many archaeologists have argued for “macaw” trade. This proposal, after years of intense investigation however, cannot be demonstrated. In fact, very little “trade” has been substantiated anywhere in the Anasazi/Hohokam/Paquimé with the possible exception of ceramics and shell trade. The Scarlet Macaws were arguably the personal property of Mesoamerican headmen or priests.
||“Among the initial clans to settle the Chaco landscape were the Parrot and Katsina clans” (Kuwanwisiwma). While the translation for the “Parrot” clan might be more correct as “Scarlet Macaw” clan, I believe, this Hopi report is absolutely correct. I propose that the Parrot (or Scarlet Macaw) clan represented the Mesoamerican patrilineal line and the Katsina clans represent the matrilineal indigenous lineages. The Chaco Canyon Anasazi were, according to archaeological evidence available today, a mix of a few Mesoamericans who intermarried with the local indigenous population. DNA testing of the “two high status” burials contrasted with the dozen or so accompanying dismembered burials found in Pueblo Bonito will aid in confirming or refuting this proposal. In fact, DNA testing of these two dignified Pueblo Bonito burials may very well resolve many mysteries concerning Chaco Canyon.
“The Hopi of today came from many directions including migrations from central Mexico. There were groups that were more like predators and who were not admitted to become Hopi. Hopi traditions are full of stories of movement due to crop failure, food shortfalls, and other kinds of threats to survival” (Emory Sekaquaptewa).
“The Chaco great houses projected a different sensibility. The finished product was very important. Skill and specialization were needed to do the fine stonework and lay the sharp-edged walls. I concluded that the structures had been built by men in the prime of life with a vision of something beyond daily life and the present moment. These were men who embraced a social-political-religious hierarchy and envisioned control and power over place, resources, and people... For me, they represented a desire to control human and natural resources. They were not about the Pueblo belief in the capability of everyone” (Swentzell).
Evidence indicated on departing Chaco Canyon they moved first to Aztec, then I suggest follow the Scarlet Macaws south to Wapatki, Point of Pines, Grasshopper and Kinishba ending up at Paquimé. There is also compelling evidence that they intermarried with the Great Sage Plain Anasazi. Matrilineal clans and their descendents remained to become modern Puebloan tribes.
What distinguished the Chaco Canyon Anasazi from prior and post Indigenous groups? The Chaco Canyon Anasazi brought with them the ancient knowledge of the Mesoamericans on how to find and exploit natural sources of soluble nitrates (fertilizer) which caused a “green revolution” or more accurately, a “golden revolution” in food production, primarily corn production. Although there is no directly evidence yet found, I propose it was the Scarlet Macaw clan that brought this ancient knowledge into the San Juan Basin for the first time. These agricultural innovations were the essential foundation for the Chaco Canyon Anasazi to culturally dominate the entire San Juan region. They were “farming” their entire environment including plants which produced fertilizer that ultimately created a golden agricultural system which resulted in the Anasazi golden era.
They built distinctively large impressive buildings whose primary purpose was for the long term storage of vast quantities of corn. They had platform mounds for religious ceremonies. They had very distinctive agricultural strategies which allowed for increased population densities and surplus energy for labor. They built large numbers of round rooms for grain storage and food preparation. They utilized ingenious techniques to produce fertilizer. I suggest that with their surplus corn growing capacity, they developed large religious ceremonies atop the platform mounds in which tesquino/corn beer was consumed as a stimulant. These ceremonies attracted the clans from across the Chaco great house system. Some individual families had homes or quarters in Chaco central and dominated one or more great houses where most of the agricultural activities took place nearer the mountains, particularly the Chuska Mountains. Most, if not all, of the population participated in transhumance during the growing season often living far from Chaco.
What is Transhumance? From the original Greek and Latin, transhumance means quite literally “across ground.” Some American archaeologists argue that this term is applied exclusively to the herding cultures of central Eurasia that follow their flocks seasonally from lowlands to highlands and back each year. I maintain that transhumance is the appropriate term for describing the widespread Native American practice of following a diversity of crops from lowlands where there