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A Guide to Stone Circles (New Edition), Aubrey Burl

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<< Text Pages >> Sacred Ridge - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in The Southwest

Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 12 December 2010  Page Views: 8952

Multi-periodSite Name: Sacred Ridge Alternative Name: 5lp245
Country: United States
NOTE: This site is 80.166 km away from the location you searched for.

Region: The Southwest Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Durango, Co
Latitude: 37.224000N  Longitude: 107.9407W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3
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Ancient Village in La Plata County.
Situated overlooking what is now known as the Ridges Basin, this settlement had a least 22 pit houses and a stone building that may have been a tower of several stories. Around 800AD the settlement was wiped out in what appears to have been a single massed attack.

The site was excavated as part of the Animas-LaPlata water project. Once the water storage area has filled the Ridges Basin, Sacred Ridge will be left as an island. The location given is an assumption based on archaeological site description and FEMA floodplain graphics.

Note: “It was not an idyllic period where you hunt and kill a bunny, then sit around a campfire and sing ‘Kumbaya.’” See comment for article on the evidence for cannibalism as part of "ethnic cleansing".
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Nearby Images from Flickr
Shepherds Grove - Durango, CO. Snow Dec. 2020
Nighthorse Reservoir and Durango, Colorado
Durango, CO. Snow Dec. 2020
Durango, CO. Snow Dec. 2020
Durango, CO. Snow Dec. 2020
Durango, CO. Snow Dec. 2020

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"Sacred Ridge" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Evidence Suggests Cannibalism Among NA Ancestral Puebloans by bat400 on Sunday, 12 December 2010
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Decades since the possibility was first suggested by researchers, a growing body of evidence suggests cannibalism was practice by a [some groups of the Ancestral Puebloans]. Some of the most convincing evidence to support the theory was uncovered in Durango Colorado, USA. The findings were only recently publicized, in a scientific paper that appears in the current issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.

The number of bone fragments – 15,000 – is more than has been documented at any other previously studied ancestral Puebloan site. They date to around 800 A.D., the Pueblo I period.

Despite the large number, they are believed to have come from only about 35 people.

“There was evidence of breaking and cutting off flesh, cooking and pulverizing,” said archaeologist Jim Potter, principal investigator with SWCA Environmental Consultants, who led the excavations.

The topic of cannibalism among the ancestral Puebloans – popularly known as the Anasazi – has been discussed widely among archaeologists since at least 1969, when a then-young archaeologist from Arizona State University, Christie Turner II, presented findings and a paper in Santa Fe at an archaeological conference.

The excavations conducted at Ridges Basin were required by federal law, which says a record must be created when archaeologically significant land is disturbed by federal projects.

Potter discussed the evidence of cannibalism reluctantly and gingerly – aware of modern sensitivities. Today, the popular image of the ancestral Puebloans is of peaceful farmers who built architectural wonders still widely admired by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually at Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Canyon National Historical Park and other ruins throughout the Four Corners.

But the reality is more complex. The descendants of the ancestral Puebloans are the modern-day Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Hopi and the Zuni. Potter acknowledged the evidence of cannibalism was tough for them to take. “It’s just such a taboo for them,” he said.

Potter said work done at Ridges Basin was organized and supported by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, who are not descendants of ancestral Puebloans. The Utes encouraged Potter to report his scientific findings, but they asked that he delay talking to newspapers until a more complete understanding of the site came into focus.

Now that the facts are known, Potter says the main task is understanding their meaning.

“We know these sites are out there, and these events occurred. Now we need to know why and when these events occurred. We’ve got the forensics down,” he said.

Potter’s paper about the excavation at Sacred Ridge points to social and political breakdowns of the ancestral Puebloan culture as precursors.

Potter rejects climate change leading to scarce resources as the cause because at the same time, about 800 A.D., migration into the area was occurring near Dolores.

Analysis of the bone fragments showed the victims were related, from a nearby village.

“I think it was ethnic conflict,” Potter said. “They were neighbors. It’s what you see now in Rwanda. Why do people treat neighbors this way? If you can create an ideology of ‘the others,’ it can be a powerful thing.”



For more, see the ">story by Patrick Armijo.
Article submitted by coldrum.
Note - When reading the article, keep in mind that "Ancestral Puebloans" is a description of many groups of people with a similar culture. They were almost certainly not a single "tribe", just as the modern puebloan peoples do not belong to a single tribe.
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Genocide Wiped Out Native American Settlement by bat400 on Thursday, 23 September 2010
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Submitted by coldrum -- Crushed leg bones, battered skulls and other mutilated human remains are likely all that's left of a Native American population destroyed by genocide that took place circa 800 A.D., suggests a new study. The paper, accepted for publication in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, describes the single largest deposit to date of mutilated and processed human remains in the American Southwest.

The entire assemblage comprises 14,882 human skeletal fragments, as well as the mutilated remains of dogs and other animals killed at the massacre site -- Sacred Ridge, southwest of Durango, Colo.

Based on the archaeological findings, which include two-headed axes that tested positive for human blood, co-authors Jason Chuipka and James Potter believe the genocide occurred as a result of conflict between different Anasazi Ancestral Puebloan ethnic groups.

"It was entirely an inside job," Chuipka, an archaeologist with Woods Canyon Archaeological Consultants, told Discovery News.

"The type of event at Sacred Ridge is on the far end of the conflict spectrum where social relations completely melt down," he added, mentioning that the Sacred Ridge "occupants were targeted to take the blame."

The unearthed bones and artifacts indicate that when the violence took place, men, women and children were tortured, disemboweled, killed and often hacked to bits. In some cases, heads, hands and feet appear to have been removed as trophies for the killers. The attackers then removed belongings out of the structures and set the roofs on fire.

"I think that the major event was preceded by social stress within the community that may have been exacerbated by a period of drought," Chuipka said. "The scale of the mutilations suggests that it was planned and organized in the preceding days or weeks, and that the violence took place in a relatively short period of time -- a few days."

"All evidence points to a rapid event, which is only possible with coordination and complicity within the community," he added.

The researchers ruled out other possible explanations, such as starvation cannibalism, traditional preparation of the deceased, and even individuals targeted for practicing witchcraft. Cannibalism, for example, usually involves bone marrow processing. Witch roundups tend to affect a relatively small number of victims.

In this case, a large group of people was dispatched at one time.



For a separate study, John McClelland, lab manager of osteology at Arizona State Museum, analyzed teeth from human remains within the Ridges Basin region, including Sacred Ridge.

He found that the population at Sacred Ridge in the early 800s was distinct from others in the area. McClelland determined, "In addition to the biological differences, they appear to have had a somewhat different diet and may have experienced a higher level of juvenile growth disruption."

At least two other separate studies have come to similar conclusions, suggesting the genocide victims at Sacred Ridge belonged to an ethnic group that was different from that of other nearby populations.

Given basic established patterns from more recent ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Rwanda, the researchers think political structures that had been keeping ethnic conflict at bay probably broke down at Sacred Ridge.

"What we can learn from Sacred Ridge is that archaeological sites are not simply piles of rock and refuse, but that they were occupied by people that were involved in complex webs of social relations," Chuipka said. "Sacred Ridge is a case where social relations melted down and the solution chosen was absolute and shocking."

For more, see
news.discovery.com. Note - the photograph of a ruined cliff dwelling attached to this news story has very little to do with Sacred Ridge.
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