May 26, 2025 • 65 mins
In The Crease (ITC) is where history, mystery, and the human condition collide. Hosted by J E DOUBLE F, each episode blends storytelling, analysis, and dark humor to explore the strange, the forgotten, and the unsettlingly relevant.
🎧 New episodes release bi-weekly.
📅 Current Season: ITC Season 4 (Episodes 61–80).
🎧 New episodes release bi-weekly.
📅 Current Season: ITC Season 4 (Episodes 61–80).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The s threshold omens.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Step through.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Paus impressive future.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We are not a time.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
To time sud.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Hello and welcome to Indcrease episode sixty two. I am
your host, jay E doublef. Today we're diving into one
of the great mysteries of North American history, the disappearance
of the Anasazi. Who were they and how does an
entire civilization seemingly vanish? Oh, grab a seat or if
(02:44):
you wish, hang out on a cliff, if you know,
feeling adventurous, And let's explore a bit of this ancient
who've done it? First off, let's start off with a
quick note on the name Anasazi. It's actually from a
Navajo word meaning enemy and ses, which is admittedly kind
of awkward name when you think about can you imagine
(03:05):
your great calling your great grandparents the enemy? Then again,
my great great grandparents did fight for the South in
the confer Civil War, So enough of that. Many of
the descendants of this culture, of the modern Pueblo peoples
understandably for further term ancestral pebluins. But since Anasazi is
the name most folks recognize, and let's face it, it
(03:28):
looks a little bit better on our title card. We'll
use it here with all respect to their ancestors. Just
remember when we say Anisazi tonight, we are talking about
the forebears of today's Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo tribes.
Now picture the four corners regions of the American Southwest
(03:49):
where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meat and a
landscape of mesas, canyons and desert scrub. This is your
Anasazi country. Starting over two thousand years ago, the ancestors
of the Anasazi were living simple lives, farming maize, building
small pithouses, and slowly mastering the artist's survival in a
(04:12):
very tough environment. And by tough, I mean seriously tough.
This is the high desert, hot summer's, cold winters and
rainfall about as predictable as a second lieutenant with a map.
Periodic droughts, flash floods, and biting winds were all part
of the package. Yannasazi depended on winter snow to mountain
(04:34):
provide precious water for the crops each spring. If you
bad snow years or you know, fickle summarines, and you'd
be in a real bit of trouble. Yet these people
they didn't just survive, they thrived and built one of
the most remarkable cultures in the pre Columbian America. By
around five hundred a D. We see the rise of
(04:56):
village life over the next centuries, transition from pitthhouses to
above ground dwellings, and by roughly nine hundred eighty they
were hitting their stride. Small settlements evolved into bustling villages
and towns. If you time traveled, well, you know, I
kind of write part of this based on Jucks airing
last night. But if you time traveled to the Pueblo
(05:19):
two era nine hundred to eleven fifty a D. You'd
find the true Golden Age unfolding. In Chaco Counyon, north
western New Mexico, something almost miraculous was happening. Massive stone
cities were rising out of the desert floor, and a
Sauzi builders corey huge sandstone box and haul timber from
(05:41):
mountain dozens of miles away to construct fifteen major complexes.
And I know already Ordy is and Chad thank you
for being here. I know you tried. I just couldn't
couldn't resist that time travel jab at it. But they
but the fifteen major complexes. These weren't just big for
their time, They actually ranked among the largest building until
modern steel frames skyscrapers came along in the eighteen hundreds.
(06:05):
Think about that. For centuries, the title of largest apartment
complex in North America was held by an eleventh century
on a Sazi great house, not surpassed until the era
of New York tenements. Not bad for a society without
metal tools or you know, the wheel. It's kind of
(06:28):
hard to overstate how impressive the canyon was around one
thousand and eight. Pictured dusty brown mass under a brilliant
blue sky, and in the midst of that multi story
buildings that carefully fitted stone, rising four or five stories high.
One of these complexes, called Pueblo Benito, had over six
hundred rooms, including a large circular ceremonial chambers known as kiva's.
(06:52):
In fact, many great houses averaged two hundred plus rooms,
with some even reaching seven hundred. Essentially, they were preceded
at condos on a grand scale Byblo Benito alone covered
several acres and may have housed a few hundred people,
with dozens of kivas and a plaza at its foot.
(07:12):
Loomed the cliff and the settlement was laid out in
D shape against it the letter D, not the private
part D shaped almost like a giant amphitheater of stone.
And it wasn't just the size, it's the planning that
actually still Wild's archaeologists. The Anasazi engineers constructed vast sections
of these great houses in single master planned building phases,
meaning they weren't just adding a room here, adding a
(07:35):
room there, as maybe was needed. They actually had a
blueprint in mind, a vision for what was a monumental
community center. And Shaco Canyon wasn't an isolated city either.
It was more like a bustling capital of the Chicogan world.
Reading out from Shacko. The Anasazi building network of roads,
(07:57):
yes yes, actual roads, and some being amazingly straight, winking
dozens of outlying villages and great houses across twenty five
thousand square miles of the Four Corners area. Now, they
didn't have carts or horses, so these roads might have
been more ceremonial or for foot traffic, but the point
is they were connected. Great goods flowed into the hub,
(08:20):
exotic items like macaw feathers from one hundreds of miles
to the south see shells from the Pacific coast and
tons of turquoise. Archaeologists even found kacoa residue in some jars.
It actually turns out that the Anasazi elite might have
been a little bit of chocoholics, And let's face it,
can we blame them all? These non local luxuries proved
(08:43):
the Anasazi trade was far and wide. I remember, we're
talking a pre GPS, pre horse civilization, moving goods across
deserts and mountains through pure human endurance. And know how
the elite living in those big houses dined off fancy ceramics,
hercoy's jewelry, and where like political or spiritual leaders hosting
ceremonies in these great kivas. They had even aligned some
(09:07):
buildings with celestial events, for instance the famous sun dagger
petroglyph on Fjada, Butte and Shako that marks the solstices
with a beam of light. Now, it had to have
taken generations this sky watching and careful planning to align
their architecture to suns and moon cycles, hinting at a
maybe more sophisticated grasp of astronomy than we give them
(09:28):
credit for. So if you're imagining the Anasazi as just
scattered primitive farmers might want to rethink that at their height,
they had an organized society capable of massive projects and
even scientific observation. But today's episode isn't titled the Flourishing
(09:48):
of the Anasazi. No, no, oh, how I wish it was.
It's about their disappearance. But the twelve hundreds, many of
the great houses and Bibert communities were abandoned. Visitors to
places like Pueblo Benito or Mesa Verde today often asked,
what what happened to your Why did they leave? It's
(10:10):
been called one of the greatest of history's mysteries. Now
I'm gonna let you in on something a little little early.
The Anasazi didn't just all drop dead or you know,
get beamed up by aliens. We'll get to the ancient
aliens part of the show later. Don't worry. In reality,
their descendants are still around, and they'll tell you straight up.
(10:30):
The people didn't vanish. They moved, But the way they moved,
the reasons they moved, and the abruptness of it all
does feel mysterious, almost eerie. Imagine thriving towns and sacred
sites occupied for centuries suddenly left silent old cliff cities
(10:51):
emptied out within a generation. For a long time, scientists
scratch their heads and even now they're still piecing together clues.
And that's what we're going to kind of delve into.
The evidence left in the ground will end in the
tree rings and and the bones, and let's submit it here.
Some of it is going to get pretty gruesome. And
the theories both sensible and some for FETs that people
(11:14):
have actually proposed to explain why the Ana Sazi had
an exodus. Now we're going to break this story in
the four segments. First we're setting the stage with who
they were and where and when the world they built,
which is this segment. And next we're going to talk
about the signs of trouble, how a golden age did
(11:34):
turn dark, and then after that we'll have a wonderful
little intermission about four and a half minutes. If you're
thirsty or one a snack, don't worry, we'll give you
a long break for that. So let's jump in to
the segment number two. So here we are at the
(11:58):
height of Anna Sazi civil as in the beginning of
its troubles. When we left off, they were living in large,
great houses far flung trade. You know, all the good stuff,
but no empire or proto empire in this case last forever.
By the mid eleven hundreds, things were starting to change.
(12:19):
If you were not a Sazi elder in eleven fifty,
you might have felt a chill of uncertainty in that
desert air. The climate, once your allied during Chaka's rise,
has started to turn on you, and distant drumbeats of
conflict were echoing in the horizon. One big turning point
was around eleven thirty a d tree ring data and
(12:42):
there's a whole whole science of reading ancient tree rings
called dendrochronology. I almost said that right, Give me credit
for that. Shows A massive drought struck the Southwest during
the eleven thirties, and it lasted nearly fifty years, the
five decades of Inner Minten rainfall failure. Taco Canyon, which
(13:03):
had boomed in a period of decent rainfall, suddenly faced
chronic water shortages. Crops would wither, reservoirs would dry up,
and when you're hauling every drop of water from sparse
seeps in snowmelt a long drought, let's face it as
catastrophic Archaeologists believe this mega drought was the reason the
Chakhan's abandoned the canyon after roughly eleven fifty a d
(13:27):
Now imagine the monumental great houses of Chaco wants the
center of life just slowly emptying out. Roofs would be
stripped for timbers, sacred kievas left to the mice in
the dust. It had to have been heartbreaking, But at
least on one side, they didn't have any more hoa
fees that you know, they needed to pay and make
(13:50):
sure nothing was in their front yard, so not everything
was necessarily bad. But where did the people go after Chaco? Well, well,
they didn't give up on life. They migrated. Many likely
moved northward into what is now Mesa Verda region southwestern
Colorado and other areas with higher elevations that got more rain.
(14:14):
New cultural centers appeared mesa Verde. You've probably seen pictures
of the stunning cliff palaces. It became a hot spot
in the late twelfth century. Interestingly, people in Mesa Verde
and other areas started building their homes differently, instead of
open plazas and accessible ground level villages like Chaco. Around
the twelve hundreds, they began carving dwellings high in cliff
(14:34):
altcoves or positioning villages on masa tops with steep drop offs.
So why the change? I mean, okay, the location screens defense.
A cliff dwelling like cliff palace is tucked under a
rock overhang on the side of a canyon wall. Basically
you'd have to climb hand in toe to reach it
(14:56):
or use a ladder that Let's honestly, the villagers could
just pull up behind them and knock them over. It's
the medieval equipment of living in a fortress on a cliff.
In fact, archaeologists say the Anasazi were driven to these
defensible positions by increasing competition and conflict admits the changing
climactic conditions, or in planar terms, resources were getting more scarce,
(15:19):
and because drought will do that, and neighbors might not
have been so neighborly anymore, the once relatively peaceful Annasazi
world had become a more dangerous place to live. Let's
talk about Maso bear Day's cliff Palace, the poster child
of cliff dwellings, built around twelve hundred a d Cliff
(15:41):
Palace is an all inspiring complex of about one hundred
and fifty rooms in twenty three kivas, all tucked into
a huge sandstone alcove halfway up a canyon. It might
have housed roughly one hundred people. There's still some debate
on that, and it's clear it wasn't easy to get
in or even out. One side is a sheer cliff.
(16:01):
Do you ever hang shelters it above? The Anasazi here
had turned into living inaccessible on purpose? Why once again
when our archaeologists would put it increasing competition, which is
a nice way of saying, they were likely getting raided
and there was warfare in the area. And if you're
farming maize on the Mesa tops and every harvest counts
(16:25):
a few armed raiders stealing your corn could be the
difference between life and starvation. Anyone who's playing Minecraft can
tell you this. How do you protect your family? You
literally move under a rock. It's kind of like saying,
come at me, bro if you can climb, you know,
one hundred foot vertical wall first, with me throwing things
at you now, but move to cliff. Dwellings in the
(16:50):
High Mason's were part of a broader trend in the
late twelve hundreds across the Anasazi homeland, many communities relocated
to more defensible, water accessible spots. You will see small
farmsteads clustered into larger villages on hilltops, often with some
sort of protective wall, and Arizona's Caynte region, for example,
(17:11):
villages had been in open canyons moved up into high,
narrow mesas around this time. Archaeologist Jonathan Has studied some
of these sites and concluded that people were moving weren't
moving just for the view, they were moving for safety.
These Masa villagers' top billage tops have learned they had
(17:31):
the high ground, something Obi i Knubi would be a
very very proud of. But they were far from water
and fields, so why accept that inconvenience? Because there were
strength in height and numbers, Has suggests these isolated communities
were on guard against enemies and that rating and warfare
(17:53):
were becoming all too common in the thirteenth century here
and elsewhere. Who were these enemies? Sometimes other Anasazi groups
desperate times, you know, can pit Ken against Ken. But
there were also new kids on the block. The late
twelve hundreds in the southwest saw an influx of outsiders
(18:14):
moving into the region. Numik speaking people's ancestral utes, Jashones
pieties starting expanding out to what's now California, and the
Dnne were migrating from the north. Those Dinna would later
be known as the Navajo and Apache. Now you have
to be a little careful here. It's not like a
(18:34):
Game of Thrones Howard sweeping in all at once. But
evidence suggests that as these new groups arrived, competition for
the resources just simply intensified. The well established Anasazi farming
villages suddenly had nomadic or even semi nomadic newcomers eyeing
the same game animals and water sources. Combine that with
(18:56):
a string of you know, poor rainfall years, and I
kind of have a bottle powder keg gonn adjust something
here real quick? Were you?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
There we go. Meanwhile, even before the outsider showed up,
the Anasazi heartland was hitting the ecological limits of what
it could actually support. Take Chaco Canyon. Remember all these
trees they hauled in for beams, Well, they pretty much
clear cut the nearby forest by the eleven hundreds. And
(19:30):
as villagers and their villages grew, so did the demand
for wood, you know, for construction, for fire, for warmth,
and for arable land and wild game. By the twelve hundreds,
many areas were ecologically stressed. One theory holds that the
Anasazi effectively exhausted their environments, leading to deforestation and declining productivity,
(19:53):
which in turn would spark conflict. Basically fighting over a
pie that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It's it's
kind of like a very slow motion train wreck. Climate
stress plus human pressure equals boom. Let's put ourselves in
(20:14):
the sandals of an Anasazi villager around twelve seventy a d.
Say you live in one of these cliff dwellings in
Mesa Verde. You've seen your parents talk about how things
weren't always this precarious. Grandma remembers when the rains were
reliable and the story's rooms were full of corn. Now
each year you worry that the crops will fail. You've
(20:38):
heard rumors at a village a day's walk away was burned,
maybe by strangers or maybe by feuding cousins. No one
is sure. At night, the kiva ceremonies to pray for
rain have an added prayer for protection. You post lookouts
(20:58):
on the Mesa edge, you perhaps even seeing violence up close.
Desperate times can really do ugly things to people. Well,
the question becomes how ugly well. Archaeologist found the stark
example at a small site called Cowboy Wash and today's
(21:19):
southwestern Colorado. There, in a pitthouse, they uncovered the remains
of at least twenty four people who met a very
gruesome fate. These skeletons, dating to the late twelve hundreds,
show signs of violent death and even dismemberment, cutting marks
on bones, skulls cracked open. The evidence strongly suggests cannibalism. Yep,
(21:42):
you heard that right, those peace eleven Indians. There are cannibals.
It appears some on a zazie we're butchering and possibly
eating other humans. Now before anyone imagines a Southwestern hannibal elector,
let's put this a little bit in context. This could
have technically been survival cannibalism. And here we thought the
(22:03):
Donner party was the first one. You know, people starving
during a famine will do some very unthinkable things. Or
perhaps this is just the result of warfare victor's terrifying
their foes with a bit of I just ate Frank,
what are you gonna do about it? Really good psychological warfare.
(22:24):
Some researchers even proposed it could have had a ritual
aspector been done by outside invaders to scare the inhabitants away.
The truth is no one knows the exact motive, but
we do know it was a very exceptionally bad day
in Cowboy Wash. The site was abandoned immediately afterwards. Whether
because the survivors fled in horror or there was simply
(22:45):
no one left to flee, we're not sure. And that said,
Cowboy Wash isn't an isolated case. There have been other
sites with unburied mangled remains from this period. It really
does paint a chilling picture of just how dire things
can turn toward the end. Now I realized this did
(23:08):
take a very unexpected dark turn. And you might be thinking,
I chaff I tuned in for a history mystery, not
Cannibal Corpse twenty eighty eighty tour. I get it. I
get it. But these grim clues are part of the
archaeological detective story, one that Aggie would be proud of
if she was here. They tell us that they'd be that.
(23:30):
By the final decades of the thirteenth century, social order
was breaking down in some areas, Hunger, sheear and violence
were likely commonplace, and the worst hit regions. In a way,
it's a testament to how stress tests the Anasazi were
by then, Drought after drought, failing crops, increasing conflict, the
(23:54):
center could not hold. Now. Once again, speaking of droughts,
we talked about the eleven thirties drought that we can cheko. Unfortunately,
that wasn't the last big, thirsty spell. Paleoclimate records like
tree rings from ancient pines indicate another series of mega
droughts in the late twelve hundreds. One particular and famous,
(24:17):
infamous drought began around twelve seventy six and lasted roughly
twenty three years to twelve ninety nine, once dubbed the
Great Drought. Imagine being born in twenty or twelve sixty
and by the time you're hitting midlife, you've never known
a truly good harvest year, just unrelentless dryness with a
(24:37):
few wet reprieves that didn't last. If there was any
hope of clinging on in the Cliff villages in Mesa villages,
that Great Drought pretty much sealed that deal. With food
production systems constantly disrupted. Even the well defended cliff side
villages could not last. By thirteen hundred a d, virtually
(24:59):
all they Anasazi settlements in the Four Corners region, including
Cliff Palace and its neighbors in Mesa Birde, was abandoned.
The exodus was essentially complete, So we walked through the
Anasazi Golden Age and into the gathering storm. First we
(25:20):
had a drop driven move from one canon too a
nuxt the rising conflict and defensive strategies, and finally that
one two punch of warfare and more mega droughts that
brought their world basically to the tipping point. It's a
bit like watching a slow collapse of a house of cards,
except these were with people's lives. Now we've gotten to
(25:42):
the point where it's time to step out of the
kiva for a moment and catch our breath. We've already
been through a lot, and we've only been on the
air for twenty five minutes. We've had busting great houses,
perilous cliff dwellings, a dash of cannibalistic madness. If this
was a movie, that would be when the lights come
up for few minutes so you can process and refill
your popcorn or you know, if you're a Navajo Nation
(26:04):
water canteen A it's not a real sponsor, but I'm
opening to any sponsors I would like to reach out
to me. So just remember what a lighter note. The
Honest House did leave behind some really amazing art petroglyphs
and pictographs on rock walls. Some are handprints, some are
(26:27):
animals or spirals, and I like to think maybe one
of those handprints was kind of an ancient prank, like
tag I was here. Even eight thousand years ago, people
had a sense of humor. Maybe somewhere on a cliff
is the cooling of a smiley face face or you
know Dick pics.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You know they're there.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
There has to be at least one, right, And speaking
of humor, let's address the giant extraterrestrial in the room.
And know I'm not talking about me. Ancient aliens. You
know that TV show where very unexplained things in history
is attributed to Little Green men. You just know these
(27:10):
guys couldn't resist the Chaco Canyon and merse messe Verde
inhabitants mysteriously advantaged the advanced knowledge of astronomy.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Could it be.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Aliens? But don't give them a point for entertainment, if
not necessarily for accuracy. Ancient astronaut arrists have entered the
chat folks, and we'll deal with them soon enough with
a bit of healthy dose of skepticism and sass. But
with that, I'm going to refill my beer and propet
(27:41):
for the next half of the show. In a moment,
we'll return the thirteenth century America, where the stage is
set for the climax of our story, the Great Disappearance. Well,
answer the question what became of them? What are left
of those cliff cities and great houses? Did they catch
a ride on a ufl And if they did, why
did they not send me any post cards? So stretch
(28:01):
your legs, imagine you're scaling a ladder to a cliphouse
for the view, and enjoin me back here for segment three.
In about four and a half minutes, we will be
right back.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Footsteps fade and sandstone dust, echoes left, and woven dust.
We carved our names, and nothing use than the windows wove.
(28:56):
You're from Fred and thunder fed the sky from my
trembling hands. Now you're chasing clouds down canyons where I
can not walk. Stone your eyes, hell fires a nerve,
silence spoken shifting stone.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And when the drum beats stopped at dusky phone, but
no banished. He had not lost the path. Winds it
were en offered again the bad hell it frost. The
sunset's different. Now still keep the door, a john, listen
(29:39):
for that gentle footfall that left with no nor star.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I left the bowl for your return, but shadows dranket dry.
The song you hum now haunts the cliffs where feathered
spirits fly. Were you taken by starlid theil? Did you
walk beyond marriage? I asked the elders, asked the bones.
(30:38):
They only blinked beneath the bridge, and.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So fish to be in their mad soundstead of befo God,
you whispered? Was the wind on's each Now it's all God, God,
go becoming sits a night you have no tracing. You
(31:31):
filled with fragments of your light stories and they just
stop being, and so unfinished them in dreams and protect them.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I called you vanished, I call you so let's see
a bad You are free.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And welcome back to and the crease. Hope you enjoyed
that music. When we left off, the year was around
thirteen hundred a d. And the Anasazi heartland had effectively
emptied out. How it's time to answer that burning question,
where the hell did everyone go? And this following segment
(32:59):
is all out the aftermath, the exit itself, and the
evidence we have for why it happened. We've hinted that
big factor at the big factor's drought, war and resource stress.
But now let's piece them together and follow the people
as they journey to their new homes. And just for
those listening, you would enjoy the fact that I got
a phone call from Aggie during the intermission. Now, first,
(33:24):
let's correct the old myth. The Anasazi did not just
vanish in the thin air. This isn't the Roanoke Colony,
which I hope Juxtaposition will do another extent episode one
now that they're going two hours when they are able
to air with its mysterious lost English settlers. In the
(33:44):
case of the Anasazi, we'd actually track their movements through
both archae logical and oral histories. When the rines failed
and the conflicts melted, the Anasazi migrated to areas in
the Southwest with more reliable Basically, they voted with their
feet and said May said Verda. It's been real, but
(34:07):
we gotta go where the river flows. Many moves south
and east, closer to the Rio Grande Valley in New
Mexico and the Little Colorado River in Arizona, regions that
while not exactly lush and more dependable streams and springs
that the drought stricken than the drought stricken Four Corners did.
(34:29):
Some went west towards the Hoope Messees, Messas and Arizona,
others south into what's now New Mexico. And if you
look at a map, you'll notice modern Pueblo villages Hoopee, Zuni,
a Coma, Laguna, Zia, Taos, et cetera, are mostly on
the periphery of the old Anasazi lands. This isn't a coincidence.
(34:52):
These are the places where water was available year round,
I think rivers or even high elevation water tables, or
just where the Anasazi refugees held refuge and the archaeological
evidence backs us up. In the fourteenth century, we see
knew villages springing up in these areas, and the pottery, styles, architecture,
(35:14):
and other facts show continuity with the Anazazi culture, with
perhaps a few tweaks here and there. It's basically like
they packed their u hauls or okay, their turkeys and
dogs carrying baskets since those were their beasts of burdens,
and just simply relocated, merging with or setting up communities
and these better watered locales. For instance, by about thirteen
(35:37):
twenty five, there were large publo towns in the Rio
Grande and New Mexico, some with hundreds of rooms where
before there had been none. Something clearly changed after thirteen
hundred people flooded into these regions. And who were those people? Well,
(35:59):
buy and law Arxiana Sazi now become the ancestral pueblo
of the new area. So let's bring in the voices
of the descendants themselves. Peblo oral history is rich with
stories of migration. Many Pueblo people today, the Hope, Zuni,
Caras to Yua, have traditions about coming from somewhere else.
The Hope, for example, speak of journeys through different worlds
(36:21):
and lands before subtly on the mesas where they've lived now.
The San Il Defonso people in New Mexico specifically believed
that their ancestors used to live up north in the
mesa Verde region and also in the canyons of Bandolier
before moving to the Rio Grande area. These stories were
told long before archaeologists ever came along. They're not about
(36:42):
droughts and wars per se. They're often crouched in more
spirital terms, but they essentially say our ancestors came from
those ancient ruins out west. So when early twentieth century
our anthropologists started asking, Hey, what happened to the folks
who build all these wonderful, amazing cliff pound houses, Peblo
elders were like, dude, we are what happened. We're still here.
(37:06):
We just moved our van down alongside the river. And
they kind of have a point. Most modern Publo peoples
assert that Tianasassi did not vanish at all. They just
simply migrated and became the famous in various pueblo nations
that the Spanish encountered to the fifteen hundreds. I'm from
a scientific perspective, this absolutely makes perfect sense. It's not
(37:31):
like tens of thousands of people can just die off
without leaving a trace. There's always a trace. Sure, some
may have perished in famines or fighting, but most probably
saw the writing on the wall and moved out before
things got fatal, and it might not even have been
a single coordinated evacuation. You know, no one sent out
a mass flower saying hey. By twelve ninety, everyone meet
(37:52):
at the canyon exit. But gradually, over a few decades,
family by family and village by village, the population moved.
One year, you help your neighbors build a new grain
storage in your clif dwelling. A couple years later you're
patching the roof less, maybe not planning the upper field.
(38:14):
Then you hear your cousin left last spring to join
the distant relatives near a river, and finally you say
fuck it. Next summer, if the corn fails, we're headed
there too. In an oddly relatable way, it's not unlike
modern people leaving a drought stricken rural town for a
city with jobs and water. It's a tough decision, but
survival dictates change. The final generation of the Anasazi on
(38:41):
the original homeland must have been bittersweet. Imagine being a
teenager and say twelve eighty five in a cliff dwelling.
A twelve ninety half year village is gone, left for
supposed greener pastures. A twelve ninety five, you're one of
the last holdouts, and each evening your parents or having
a debate do we stay or do we go? You've
(39:05):
got ancestors buried here, sacred sites all around, and the
very identity of your people is tied to the land.
But your little siblings are hungry and your parents are worried. Ultimately,
perhaps guided by spiritual signs or sheer pragmatism, they finally
decide to join the migration. You gather what you can carry, tools,
(39:26):
precious potter, and maybe a ceremonial mask or two, and
you walk away. You climb down the cliff ladder, perhaps
for the final time, and you do not look back.
It's a somber trek. Maybe some elderly folks couldn't make
the journey, maybe some dying route. But eventually you reach
a place where the river is still flowing and the
(39:47):
corn can still grow. There you meet other bands of migrants.
They speak dialects you most likely understand, after all, they
were your neighbors a decade ago. Together and form a
new village bigger than any you lived in before. You
built plaza centric pueblos and receive your ceremonies to bless
(40:09):
this new start. Life goes on, but in a different key.
No one has to ask, how can we assure these
new public communities were the on Asazian, not some other group.
(40:29):
Maybe it was another group and some Anasazi, or maybe
there was none an a Sazi at all. What archaeologist
gives us some connecting threads, in particular the style of pottery.
Right around thirteen hundred, a distinct type of pottery known
as Saladeo polychrome appears in the Southwest, blending influences from
(40:50):
different regions. It's kind of like a material signature of
formally distant groups coming together sharing styles. Also, certain key
of the designs and clan symbols and rock cards continue
from the old sites to the new and as mentioned,
the Pueblo peoples themselves kept songs, dances and stories that
reference these old places. To this day, some Peblo families
(41:14):
have rituals to honor places like Choco and Messi Verde
as part of their heritage. Now we have to acknowledge
also that not every single person left. Some areas, particularly
on the very fringes, might have kept small groups for longer,
and culturally some ana Zaza groups had already diverged for instance,
(41:37):
the hocm south and southern Arizona and the Mongolan in
southern New Mexico, where distant cultures related to the ancestral pueblence,
and they too underwent changes or collapse around the fourteen hundreds,
likely influenced by this same clematic downturn. The ho cam
famous for their Phoenix area canals based floods and droughts,
(41:59):
and by fourteen fifth the other big towns were gone.
It was a region wide shakeup, so the disappearance of
the Anasazi wasn't necessarily one event, but was a larger
theories of processes, a migration and cultural transformation. By thirteen fifty,
the Four Corners region went quiet. The great houses falled
(42:20):
in the ruin, when blue sand over abandoned fields, and
critters scurried through empty rooms that once echoed with prayer
songs and children's laughter. But far to the south and east,
along the Rio Grand and the Mongolan Rim and the
Hoofi Messa Messas, the descendants were laying new routes. They
were the genesis of the pueblo societies that would later
(42:42):
greet Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century with ears of
corn and turkey. Turkey, feather blankets, and probably a healthy
skepticism of these hot European looking people. Interestingly, when the
Spanish did arrive around fifteen forty and met the Pueblo peoples,
those Pueblos had memories of migrations and upheavals, but they'd
been settling their new homes for about two hundred and
(43:02):
fifty years by then, which you know, is as long
as the United States basically has existed today, give or
take twenty five years. So from their perspective, the old
times we're really really old, and life had moved on.
Early Spaniards noted ruins in the landscape and as the
(43:23):
Pueblins about them, and the Pueblans basically said, those are
the houses of our ancestors. We don't live there anymore.
One Spanish soldier in fifteen forty wrote about seeing massive
ancient ruins, quite possibly Choco were similar and being amazed.
Little did he know that people giving him directions to
the next water source for the very hairs of those
abandoned cities. So let's sum up the key causes of
(43:50):
the Anasazi exodus that the evidence points too. Climate change,
in this case just drought when people use the word
in climate change. Now everyone goes, oh, this was just
the climate changed as it does on its own. With
the prolonged droughts, notably the ones starting around twelve seventy six,
(44:13):
leading to crop failures and unstabled conditions. The corn agriculture
that was the foundation of Anazazi life basically disappeared when
the rains left, so the people did too. We have
resource depletion after centuries of population and growth, local resources
pre game and perhaps most importantly, fertile soil were overused
(44:37):
in some corn areas. Chocoate forests, for example, never fully
recovered from the logging, less resources than people had to
move or face starvation, conflict and warfare. Evidence of violence.
We have burned villages, skeletal trauma, and defensive posturing, with
the cliff dwellings and palisades, showing that the twelve hundreds
(45:01):
were a time of unrest, whether it was intersign warfare
among Anasazi factions, raided by newcomers, or perhaps already's favorite
thing embraced the power of and here the fear of
attack was a real push factor. If staying in our
homes meant risking being killed or abducted, you'd strongly consider moving.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Now.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Some anthropologists suggest there could have been a loss of
faith in leadership or religion, something we really hadn't talked
about yet. If the priest or chiefs couldn't bring the
rain or stability, maybe people just decided to break away.
There's an intriguing though highly speculative lineup thought that the
Anasazi deliberately dismantled their ceremony structures during the migration because
(45:45):
they felt something had gone spiritually wrong, essentially a ritual
closing of one chapter to start anew pueblo oral or
hints that the people might have thought their issues of
spiritual powers contributed to the imbalance of nature needed to
abandon or even destroy the old ritual spaces to set
things right now. Once again, take this with a bit
(46:06):
of a grain of salt. It's hard to interpret, and
they're still working on this theory today. And you have
external pressures, as mentioned, groups like the Navajo and Nude
which entered the region, and it could have exacerbated the situation.
It's not that these groups caused the Ansazi to disappear.
(46:26):
They were probably just one factor among many opportunistically moving
into into the Anasazi. We're forced to move out, kind
of like a tag team migration, you know, one peaceful
Indian group to another. That said, the one thing to
kind of really emphasize is I don't think there was
(46:49):
a single villain in the story, not a singular war,
one bad king or anything like that. It was more
a confluence of natural and human stresses. If the climate
had a nosedive, maybe the Anasazi could have managed the
social stresses. If there hadn't been social stress, maybe they
could have hung on through the drought. But both well,
(47:13):
that combo was lethal to their way of life in
the Four Corners. By thirteen hundred, the Anasazi as we
defined them archaeologically, ceased to exist in the record of
that region, but they do reappear as something new in
new locales. In a way, it's kind of like a
company that rebrands and relocates its headquarters. The old office
(47:33):
sits empty, but the business is still running elsewhere under
a new name. The Anasazi became the Pueblo peoples. Culturally,
things shifted, new languages evolved, new religious practices or formed,
like the Kichina caught among the Rio Grand pueblos that
took hold in the fourteenth century, possibly as a way
to cope with and understand the hardships their ancestors went through.
(47:56):
Many core traditions ended up surviving. Before we move into
the final segment, where we'll entertain some of the more
creative theories and then wrap up the show, let's address
one more archaeological finding that adds a pointed book into
this story, and a site called Sacred Ridge near Durango,
(48:17):
Colorado evacuations excavation sorry revealed a brutal scene multiple individuals
who had been massacured and mutilated around the late seventeen
or early eighteen hundred, s ad earlier than the Final Exodus,
but illustrative of conflict. Some researchers Potter and Chupaca argued
(48:37):
it might have been an instance of ethnic cleansing or
social pershing, essentially one group completely annihilating a community. While
that event was earlier, it shows that conflict and extreme
and the very extreme violence were not unheard of in
Anasazi history. Now, the reason I mentioned this is to
(48:57):
underscore that the Anasazi world was not in a changed
eden of harmony. It had political intrigue, factions and possibly
oppressed minorities. When resources got tight, Those simmering tensions could
and often would explode. People often romanticize ancient cultures, but
they were human societies with all the messiness that entails
(49:19):
of being human, So the end might have been as
much about internal social fractures as about external pressures or
even the lack of rain. And in any case, by
the time the dust settled literally yess ron literally, the
ancestral lands of the Anasazi were largely empty. Nature began
(49:41):
to reclaim the terraces and roads. The disappearance was really
a relocation in cultural metamorphosis. The people survived, but in
the different form and place. But as we're prepared to
look at some of the more speculative inter interpretations of
the Anasazi disappearance, let's keep in mind OCAM's razor. The
simplest explanation or explanations drought, resource stress and conflict leading
(50:04):
to migration. It's usually the right one. Well, let's face it,
humans they love a mystery. They love to fill in
gaps with imagination, and boy have there been some imaginative
theories about the Anasazi. So let's have a little fun.
Shaw we We're gonna let down our hair a little
(50:29):
bit and explore the speculative side of the Anasazi disappearance. Now,
I think I've covered the scientific consensus fairly well, you'll
be the judge of that, but hopefully I have. But
no epic mystery is complete without some very wild theories.
The Anasazi migrations have inspired everything from spiritual explanations to
(50:52):
alien abduction stories. So we're gonna talk about a few
of them with respect where do and with humor where do?
And then bring it home with their closing thoughts? Shall
we very one? They were taken by aliens, not of
Alpha Centauri. Yes, as promised, here we go. The ancient
(51:17):
aliens hypothesis of the Anasazi usual hinges on the idea
that their accomplishments, such as big buildings astronomically alignments, were
too advanced for primitive people, So q the extraterrestrials. Perhaps
aliens help them build and then whisk them away for
some unknown reason. Maybe the Anasazi were extraterrestrials themselves stranded
(51:39):
on Earth who finally picked up the phoney went eight
found maybe maybe, or maybe they just got an uber
spaceship picked up around thirteen hundreds, who knows. Now, if
you've ever seen the meme of the guy with the
crazy hair saying I'm not saying it was a Aliens,
(52:00):
but it was Aliens.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
We all know his name.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
You know this line of thought. Certainly it's entertaining, but
in this case, there's zero evidence for any of it.
All the achievements of Anasazi can be explained by human ingenuity.
There's no Martian masonry needed, and their disappearance doesn't literally
mean they disappeared off the pace of the Earth. They
(52:22):
just moved to a safer's zip code that said. Still.
The image of a UFO hovering over Cliff Palace beaming
up people in pottery makes for some fun B movie
type stuff, and we can chuckle but also acknowledge something.
These alien theories often, perhaps unintentionally, do a disservice by
(52:43):
suggesting native people couldn't possibly engineer such feats or make
tough decisions. There's plenty of ancient alien stuff that could
be more doubtful. This is not one of them. So
ancient alien dudes, thanks for the laugh, but we're gonna
file ancient alien theory on at least regards to the
people of the Ona Sazi highly unlikely. We do have
(53:11):
another interesting theory two, A single catastrophic event. Now, some
have wondered and proposed if one huge calamity did the
Ona Sazi end like a super volcano or even an earthquake.
Let's face it, the Southwest is seismically active. That said,
(53:32):
there's been no sign of a region wide quake leveling
sites around thirteen hundred, no volcano eruptions either, Certainly nothing
like wiping up populations. So what about disease? Could an
epidemic or pandemic have swept through? Possibly, but we lack
(53:54):
evidence like mass grave epidemics or clear pathogen signs, and
remains in the few sites with more than a handful
of people show warfare. The seas alone wouldn't cause people
to systematically relocate to better watered areas. That response fits
drought and hunger way better. So, while an apocalyptic style
disaster is kind of a neat narrative and not necessarily
(54:16):
out of range of possibility that people started getting sick,
the archaeological records suggest a drawn up struggle, not an
overnight cataclysm. Y three, they became something more a spiritual transformation.
(54:36):
Here we enter the mystical realm in touching one. Maybe
some alien stuff. Again, there are suggestions and some from
Pueblo lore. Some from New Age thinkers that maybe the
Honestasi under a a sort of mass spiritual migration that
they simply transcended into another planet of existence, or went
underground to live in Sifapoo or a place of emergence
(54:58):
a hoppy for and since have stories of emerging from
earlier words world through Sipipus and the Kachina's spirit beings
guiding them away. A very poetic notion is that perhaps
the Honazazi didn't just walk to new villages, maybe they
ritually closed one world and open a new one. This
ties to what I mentioned about possibly dismantling kivas and
(55:19):
tribes deliberately, not necessarily aliens, but maybe more of a
spiritual rebirth. Some have even linked it to the legendary
migrations in the Book of Exodus or other cultural sagas
a chosen people journeying to a promised land under divine guidance,
leaving behind a sinful and spent land. Now, as a
(55:42):
amateur historian, I view this as metaphorical. They physically moved,
but the way they understood it could have been well
through a spiritual lens. They might have believed the gods
are spirits or deemed the move So in a subtle way,
this isn't incompatible with the actual facts in the case,
it's just the interpretation of these causes. In the minds
(56:04):
of the people. Rout could be seen as the world
telling them to move on, for instance. And I admittedly
do find this angle fascinating because it reminds us that
real people lived this experience and they had to make
sense of it somehow. They didn't have climate science, they
had prayers and omens. If the sun turns scorching and
(56:26):
the rain stops, you might conclude that the rain gods
became angry, or that you need to go find the
place of the rising sun foretold in the dream. Thus,
the spiritual transformation theory has a bit of kernel of
truth in how the migration might have been viewed by
the Anasazis themselves. Even im materially it was about finding
water and peace. Theory four Mass violence are genocide by invaders. Now,
(56:58):
some have positive that many invading enforces, maybe you know
the toll Tas the Aztecs from Mexico or local nomads
swept in and basically killed or drove them out. There
was an older idea that perhaps a toll Tech or
Aztec empire might have extended a hand up north. That
doesn't simply hold water. Though meso america influence on the
(57:20):
Anasazi was limited to trade of goods and maybe ideas.
No Aztec army marched into Utah, as far as anyone
can currently tell. As for genocide by nomads, the evidence
doesn't show an entirely external conquest. We admittedly we do
see violent episodes, but if an outside tribe had wiped
out the Anasaza, you'd expect to see that tribe occupying
(57:42):
those sites afterward, or at least some clear signature of
a new cultural group sitting on top of the ruins. Instead,
we see the sites mostly empty out. It looks more
like flight than fight. Invaders might have been one pressure though,
as we discussed, but not a one slide side at
(58:04):
slaughter scenario. If it were, the story would likely have
been preserved by the victors, and the Pueblo peoples didn't recount.
And then the Naba host lewis a hall. In fact,
navajo O oral history paints the puebloists sometimes hostile to them,
so it was a bit of a complex dynamic. Now
(58:27):
I wrote this next section, thinking I was going to
be following me a certain show tonight that apparently I
am the only show on the network this entire weekend,
So I decided to rate a bit of a Stargate
SG one reference for the History Nerds. Tonight, there's an
episode of Stargate SG one for the Uninitiative, a sci
fi show where humans find ancient portal to other worlds,
(58:49):
where an advanced ancient culture of sense to a higher
plane or something. It's been a while, but the idea
of people physically disappearing because they became energy brings us
being or went through a portal is right now pure
science fiction. But I can't help joking that if the
Anasazi had found a stargate in the Chaco Canyon, it
would have explained a lot Chevron's sudden luck. Next up
(59:13):
the planet with reliable rainfall. Maybe Corol O'Neil showed up
and said, folks, the relocation program awaits, but at all
serious though the Anasazi story doesn't need wormholes or even ascension,
the reality is compelling enough. It's a story of human
resilience and adaption to mother nature and violent mood swings,
(59:36):
and I know I want to highlight something because I
do know. The phrase the disappearance of the Anasazi can
actually rub some people the wrong way, particularly the descendants,
because from their point of view, nothing disappeared. Their ancestors
(59:56):
simply changed address and kept living, thank you very much.
The narrative of a lost civilization can sometimes ignore the
very much a live civilization that followed. The hope Zuni
and the other public community today treasure their connection to
the ancestral public sites. They consider places elect chocolate messoverita
(01:00:17):
as part of their heritage. In recent years, archaeologists and
native communities have worked together more closely to understand the
past in a holistic way. Scientific findings about drought and
migration mesh with oral traditions about seeking the center place
or following spiritual guidance to a new home. It's kind
of a beautiful convergence of science and tradition. But as
(01:00:41):
we wrap up, let's recap the journey in plane terms.
Over the course of about seven hundred years six hundred
to thirteen hundred AD, the Anasazi went from small pitouse
hamlets to building some of the largest owned complexes in
the New World, to facing environmental and social crisis that
forced them to abandon their magnificent towns. They didn't vanish
(01:01:04):
abruptly or mysteriously, as the spooky headlines often claim. Rather,
they reorganized. They showed flexibility in the face of adversity, migrating,
collaborating with new neighbors, and evating new social and religious structures.
The public world that the Spanish stepped into in the
fifteen hundreds with its pubblos like Taos, with well multi
(01:01:25):
story complexes, Kaccini dances and the networks of corn farmers
was a direct continuation of the Anasazi story. The next
chapter after the quote unquote disappearance and one in fact,
one could argue that Anasazi never disappeared at all. They
just changed their names for legal reasons. It's like saying
(01:01:46):
the British disappeared in seventeen seventy six here in America. No,
they just became Americans. Well, some of them, they moved
on under a new identity. Similarly, the Anisazi became the Pueblos.
What have we learned from the tale of the Anasazi.
I think many things. We learn that climate change can
(01:02:08):
profoundly affect societies when technology isn't there to help them.
We learn that people can adore and adapt. They can
pick up and start anew when the world falls apart.
We also learned that interpretating the past is a bit
of detective work. Things like tree rings, bones, pottery, linguistics,
and legends all come together to give us the full picture.
(01:02:29):
And yes, we learn that sometimes folks will prefer an
alien kidnapping theory over you know, a complex, less lamorous truth.
But hey, that's kind of human nature too. We all
love a fantastical story. Before I sign off for the night,
let me leave you with an image today. If you
(01:02:50):
visits a Canyon de Chla and Arizona or Vandalier in
New Mexico, you might see ruins of cliff dwellings and
pueblos with no one living in them. But if you
listen to the wind, and you might hear something else,
the sounds of a living culture. Because in those same areas,
Navajo she hearders and public farmers carry on living different lifestyles,
was spiritually tied to this land. A Navajo guide might
(01:03:13):
show you a cliff ruin and then take you to
meet her grandmother who still weaves traditional blankets. Nearby, a
hoppy elder might point to the rock art left by
his ancestors on a messa that his family had lived
on for centuries. Since the spirit of the Anasazi is
all around, not gone, just transformed in a way, the
(01:03:34):
disappearance is actually a story of survival. And that's the story,
or rather the epic saga of the so called disappearance
of the Anasazi. From grandeur to hardship to renewal. It's
a tale as dramatic as any in the world history,
yet deeply rooted in the soil of the American Southwest.
(01:03:55):
I hope you enjoyed this journey through time. I know
we went a little over, but Owl's not following us.
Hope your internet gets fixed out. But I do believe
the hones saws you deserved this level of detail. They
gave us seven hundred years of drama, after all. And
if you've ever been in the Four Corners area, takes
some time to visit these ancient sites. Stand in a
(01:04:16):
room at Pueblo Benito and imagine laughter echoing off the
plaster walls. Walk through Cliff Palace and pitch your kids
peeking out the doorways a thousand years ago. These places
aren't just stones, they're storytelling corners where the past can
whisper to us. Saul, thank you for listening to this
episode of Indcrease. I am je doublef your guide through histories,
(01:04:39):
twists and turns until next time when we talk to
the murders of the Hunter Kaifheks. Remember history may not repeat,
but sure as hell does rhyme a lot, and sometimes
it leaves behind one heck of a mystery to Saul.
So stay curious, stay respectful, and most importantly, watch out
(01:05:00):
those mega droughts.
M hm.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The s threshold omens.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Step through.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Paus impressive future.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We are not a time.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
To time sud.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Hello and welcome to Indcrease episode sixty two. I am
your host, jay E doublef. Today we're diving into one
of the great mysteries of North American history, the disappearance
of the Anasazi. Who were they and how does an
entire civilization seemingly vanish? Oh, grab a seat or if
(02:44):
you wish, hang out on a cliff, if you know,
feeling adventurous, And let's explore a bit of this ancient
who've done it? First off, let's start off with a
quick note on the name Anasazi. It's actually from a
Navajo word meaning enemy and ses, which is admittedly kind
of awkward name when you think about can you imagine
(03:05):
your great calling your great grandparents the enemy? Then again,
my great great grandparents did fight for the South in
the confer Civil War, So enough of that. Many of
the descendants of this culture, of the modern Pueblo peoples
understandably for further term ancestral pebluins. But since Anasazi is
the name most folks recognize, and let's face it, it
(03:28):
looks a little bit better on our title card. We'll
use it here with all respect to their ancestors. Just
remember when we say Anisazi tonight, we are talking about
the forebears of today's Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo tribes.
Now picture the four corners regions of the American Southwest
(03:49):
where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meat and a
landscape of mesas, canyons and desert scrub. This is your
Anasazi country. Starting over two thousand years ago, the ancestors
of the Anasazi were living simple lives, farming maize, building
small pithouses, and slowly mastering the artist's survival in a
(04:12):
very tough environment. And by tough, I mean seriously tough.
This is the high desert, hot summer's, cold winters and
rainfall about as predictable as a second lieutenant with a map.
Periodic droughts, flash floods, and biting winds were all part
of the package. Yannasazi depended on winter snow to mountain
(04:34):
provide precious water for the crops each spring. If you
bad snow years or you know, fickle summarines, and you'd
be in a real bit of trouble. Yet these people
they didn't just survive, they thrived and built one of
the most remarkable cultures in the pre Columbian America. By
around five hundred a D. We see the rise of
(04:56):
village life over the next centuries, transition from pitthhouses to
above ground dwellings, and by roughly nine hundred eighty they
were hitting their stride. Small settlements evolved into bustling villages
and towns. If you time traveled, well, you know, I
kind of write part of this based on Jucks airing
last night. But if you time traveled to the Pueblo
(05:19):
two era nine hundred to eleven fifty a D. You'd
find the true Golden Age unfolding. In Chaco Counyon, north
western New Mexico, something almost miraculous was happening. Massive stone
cities were rising out of the desert floor, and a
Sauzi builders corey huge sandstone box and haul timber from
(05:41):
mountain dozens of miles away to construct fifteen major complexes.
And I know already Ordy is and Chad thank you
for being here. I know you tried. I just couldn't
couldn't resist that time travel jab at it. But they
but the fifteen major complexes. These weren't just big for
their time, They actually ranked among the largest building until
modern steel frames skyscrapers came along in the eighteen hundreds.
(06:05):
Think about that. For centuries, the title of largest apartment
complex in North America was held by an eleventh century
on a Sazi great house, not surpassed until the era
of New York tenements. Not bad for a society without
metal tools or you know, the wheel. It's kind of
(06:28):
hard to overstate how impressive the canyon was around one
thousand and eight. Pictured dusty brown mass under a brilliant
blue sky, and in the midst of that multi story
buildings that carefully fitted stone, rising four or five stories high.
One of these complexes, called Pueblo Benito, had over six
hundred rooms, including a large circular ceremonial chambers known as kiva's.
(06:52):
In fact, many great houses averaged two hundred plus rooms,
with some even reaching seven hundred. Essentially, they were preceded
at condos on a grand scale Byblo Benito alone covered
several acres and may have housed a few hundred people,
with dozens of kivas and a plaza at its foot.
(07:12):
Loomed the cliff and the settlement was laid out in
D shape against it the letter D, not the private
part D shaped almost like a giant amphitheater of stone.
And it wasn't just the size, it's the planning that
actually still Wild's archaeologists. The Anasazi engineers constructed vast sections
of these great houses in single master planned building phases,
meaning they weren't just adding a room here, adding a
(07:35):
room there, as maybe was needed. They actually had a
blueprint in mind, a vision for what was a monumental
community center. And Shaco Canyon wasn't an isolated city either.
It was more like a bustling capital of the Chicogan world.
Reading out from Shacko. The Anasazi building network of roads,
(07:57):
yes yes, actual roads, and some being amazingly straight, winking
dozens of outlying villages and great houses across twenty five
thousand square miles of the Four Corners area. Now, they
didn't have carts or horses, so these roads might have
been more ceremonial or for foot traffic, but the point
is they were connected. Great goods flowed into the hub,
(08:20):
exotic items like macaw feathers from one hundreds of miles
to the south see shells from the Pacific coast and
tons of turquoise. Archaeologists even found kacoa residue in some jars.
It actually turns out that the Anasazi elite might have
been a little bit of chocoholics, And let's face it,
can we blame them all? These non local luxuries proved
(08:43):
the Anasazi trade was far and wide. I remember, we're
talking a pre GPS, pre horse civilization, moving goods across
deserts and mountains through pure human endurance. And know how
the elite living in those big houses dined off fancy ceramics,
hercoy's jewelry, and where like political or spiritual leaders hosting
ceremonies in these great kivas. They had even aligned some
(09:07):
buildings with celestial events, for instance the famous sun dagger
petroglyph on Fjada, Butte and Shako that marks the solstices
with a beam of light. Now, it had to have
taken generations this sky watching and careful planning to align
their architecture to suns and moon cycles, hinting at a
maybe more sophisticated grasp of astronomy than we give them
(09:28):
credit for. So if you're imagining the Anasazi as just
scattered primitive farmers might want to rethink that at their height,
they had an organized society capable of massive projects and
even scientific observation. But today's episode isn't titled the Flourishing
(09:48):
of the Anasazi. No, no, oh, how I wish it was.
It's about their disappearance. But the twelve hundreds, many of
the great houses and Bibert communities were abandoned. Visitors to
places like Pueblo Benito or Mesa Verde today often asked,
what what happened to your Why did they leave? It's
(10:10):
been called one of the greatest of history's mysteries. Now
I'm gonna let you in on something a little little early.
The Anasazi didn't just all drop dead or you know,
get beamed up by aliens. We'll get to the ancient
aliens part of the show later. Don't worry. In reality,
their descendants are still around, and they'll tell you straight up.
(10:30):
The people didn't vanish. They moved, But the way they moved,
the reasons they moved, and the abruptness of it all
does feel mysterious, almost eerie. Imagine thriving towns and sacred
sites occupied for centuries suddenly left silent old cliff cities
(10:51):
emptied out within a generation. For a long time, scientists
scratch their heads and even now they're still piecing together clues.
And that's what we're going to kind of delve into.
The evidence left in the ground will end in the
tree rings and and the bones, and let's submit it here.
Some of it is going to get pretty gruesome. And
the theories both sensible and some for FETs that people
(11:14):
have actually proposed to explain why the Ana Sazi had
an exodus. Now we're going to break this story in
the four segments. First we're setting the stage with who
they were and where and when the world they built,
which is this segment. And next we're going to talk
about the signs of trouble, how a golden age did
(11:34):
turn dark, and then after that we'll have a wonderful
little intermission about four and a half minutes. If you're
thirsty or one a snack, don't worry, we'll give you
a long break for that. So let's jump in to
the segment number two. So here we are at the
(11:58):
height of Anna Sazi civil as in the beginning of
its troubles. When we left off, they were living in large,
great houses far flung trade. You know, all the good stuff,
but no empire or proto empire in this case last forever.
By the mid eleven hundreds, things were starting to change.
(12:19):
If you were not a Sazi elder in eleven fifty,
you might have felt a chill of uncertainty in that
desert air. The climate, once your allied during Chaka's rise,
has started to turn on you, and distant drumbeats of
conflict were echoing in the horizon. One big turning point
was around eleven thirty a d tree ring data and
(12:42):
there's a whole whole science of reading ancient tree rings
called dendrochronology. I almost said that right, Give me credit
for that. Shows A massive drought struck the Southwest during
the eleven thirties, and it lasted nearly fifty years, the
five decades of Inner Minten rainfall failure. Taco Canyon, which
(13:03):
had boomed in a period of decent rainfall, suddenly faced
chronic water shortages. Crops would wither, reservoirs would dry up,
and when you're hauling every drop of water from sparse
seeps in snowmelt a long drought, let's face it as
catastrophic Archaeologists believe this mega drought was the reason the
Chakhan's abandoned the canyon after roughly eleven fifty a d
(13:27):
Now imagine the monumental great houses of Chaco wants the
center of life just slowly emptying out. Roofs would be
stripped for timbers, sacred kievas left to the mice in
the dust. It had to have been heartbreaking, But at
least on one side, they didn't have any more hoa
fees that you know, they needed to pay and make
(13:50):
sure nothing was in their front yard, so not everything
was necessarily bad. But where did the people go after Chaco? Well, well,
they didn't give up on life. They migrated. Many likely
moved northward into what is now Mesa Verda region southwestern
Colorado and other areas with higher elevations that got more rain.
(14:14):
New cultural centers appeared mesa Verde. You've probably seen pictures
of the stunning cliff palaces. It became a hot spot
in the late twelfth century. Interestingly, people in Mesa Verde
and other areas started building their homes differently, instead of
open plazas and accessible ground level villages like Chaco. Around
the twelve hundreds, they began carving dwellings high in cliff
(14:34):
altcoves or positioning villages on masa tops with steep drop offs.
So why the change? I mean, okay, the location screens defense.
A cliff dwelling like cliff palace is tucked under a
rock overhang on the side of a canyon wall. Basically
you'd have to climb hand in toe to reach it
(14:56):
or use a ladder that Let's honestly, the villagers could
just pull up behind them and knock them over. It's
the medieval equipment of living in a fortress on a cliff.
In fact, archaeologists say the Anasazi were driven to these
defensible positions by increasing competition and conflict admits the changing
climactic conditions, or in planar terms, resources were getting more scarce,
(15:19):
and because drought will do that, and neighbors might not
have been so neighborly anymore, the once relatively peaceful Annasazi
world had become a more dangerous place to live. Let's
talk about Maso bear Day's cliff Palace, the poster child
of cliff dwellings, built around twelve hundred a d Cliff
(15:41):
Palace is an all inspiring complex of about one hundred
and fifty rooms in twenty three kivas, all tucked into
a huge sandstone alcove halfway up a canyon. It might
have housed roughly one hundred people. There's still some debate
on that, and it's clear it wasn't easy to get
in or even out. One side is a sheer cliff.
(16:01):
Do you ever hang shelters it above? The Anasazi here
had turned into living inaccessible on purpose? Why once again
when our archaeologists would put it increasing competition, which is
a nice way of saying, they were likely getting raided
and there was warfare in the area. And if you're
farming maize on the Mesa tops and every harvest counts
(16:25):
a few armed raiders stealing your corn could be the
difference between life and starvation. Anyone who's playing Minecraft can
tell you this. How do you protect your family? You
literally move under a rock. It's kind of like saying,
come at me, bro if you can climb, you know,
one hundred foot vertical wall first, with me throwing things
at you now, but move to cliff. Dwellings in the
(16:50):
High Mason's were part of a broader trend in the
late twelve hundreds across the Anasazi homeland, many communities relocated
to more defensible, water accessible spots. You will see small
farmsteads clustered into larger villages on hilltops, often with some
sort of protective wall, and Arizona's Caynte region, for example,
(17:11):
villages had been in open canyons moved up into high,
narrow mesas around this time. Archaeologist Jonathan Has studied some
of these sites and concluded that people were moving weren't
moving just for the view, they were moving for safety.
These Masa villagers' top billage tops have learned they had
(17:31):
the high ground, something Obi i Knubi would be a
very very proud of. But they were far from water
and fields, so why accept that inconvenience? Because there were
strength in height and numbers, Has suggests these isolated communities
were on guard against enemies and that rating and warfare
(17:53):
were becoming all too common in the thirteenth century here
and elsewhere. Who were these enemies? Sometimes other Anasazi groups
desperate times, you know, can pit Ken against Ken. But
there were also new kids on the block. The late
twelve hundreds in the southwest saw an influx of outsiders
(18:14):
moving into the region. Numik speaking people's ancestral utes, Jashones
pieties starting expanding out to what's now California, and the
Dnne were migrating from the north. Those Dinna would later
be known as the Navajo and Apache. Now you have
to be a little careful here. It's not like a
(18:34):
Game of Thrones Howard sweeping in all at once. But
evidence suggests that as these new groups arrived, competition for
the resources just simply intensified. The well established Anasazi farming
villages suddenly had nomadic or even semi nomadic newcomers eyeing
the same game animals and water sources. Combine that with
(18:56):
a string of you know, poor rainfall years, and I
kind of have a bottle powder keg gonn adjust something
here real quick? Were you?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
There we go. Meanwhile, even before the outsider showed up,
the Anasazi heartland was hitting the ecological limits of what
it could actually support. Take Chaco Canyon. Remember all these
trees they hauled in for beams, Well, they pretty much
clear cut the nearby forest by the eleven hundreds. And
(19:30):
as villagers and their villages grew, so did the demand
for wood, you know, for construction, for fire, for warmth,
and for arable land and wild game. By the twelve hundreds,
many areas were ecologically stressed. One theory holds that the
Anasazi effectively exhausted their environments, leading to deforestation and declining productivity,
(19:53):
which in turn would spark conflict. Basically fighting over a
pie that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It's it's
kind of like a very slow motion train wreck. Climate
stress plus human pressure equals boom. Let's put ourselves in
(20:14):
the sandals of an Anasazi villager around twelve seventy a d.
Say you live in one of these cliff dwellings in
Mesa Verde. You've seen your parents talk about how things
weren't always this precarious. Grandma remembers when the rains were
reliable and the story's rooms were full of corn. Now
each year you worry that the crops will fail. You've
(20:38):
heard rumors at a village a day's walk away was burned,
maybe by strangers or maybe by feuding cousins. No one
is sure. At night, the kiva ceremonies to pray for
rain have an added prayer for protection. You post lookouts
(20:58):
on the Mesa edge, you perhaps even seeing violence up close.
Desperate times can really do ugly things to people. Well,
the question becomes how ugly well. Archaeologist found the stark
example at a small site called Cowboy Wash and today's
(21:19):
southwestern Colorado. There, in a pitthouse, they uncovered the remains
of at least twenty four people who met a very
gruesome fate. These skeletons, dating to the late twelve hundreds,
show signs of violent death and even dismemberment, cutting marks
on bones, skulls cracked open. The evidence strongly suggests cannibalism. Yep,
(21:42):
you heard that right, those peace eleven Indians. There are cannibals.
It appears some on a zazie we're butchering and possibly
eating other humans. Now before anyone imagines a Southwestern hannibal elector,
let's put this a little bit in context. This could
have technically been survival cannibalism. And here we thought the
(22:03):
Donner party was the first one. You know, people starving
during a famine will do some very unthinkable things. Or
perhaps this is just the result of warfare victor's terrifying
their foes with a bit of I just ate Frank,
what are you gonna do about it? Really good psychological warfare.
(22:24):
Some researchers even proposed it could have had a ritual
aspector been done by outside invaders to scare the inhabitants away.
The truth is no one knows the exact motive, but
we do know it was a very exceptionally bad day
in Cowboy Wash. The site was abandoned immediately afterwards. Whether
because the survivors fled in horror or there was simply
(22:45):
no one left to flee, we're not sure. And that said,
Cowboy Wash isn't an isolated case. There have been other
sites with unburied mangled remains from this period. It really
does paint a chilling picture of just how dire things
can turn toward the end. Now I realized this did
(23:08):
take a very unexpected dark turn. And you might be thinking,
I chaff I tuned in for a history mystery, not
Cannibal Corpse twenty eighty eighty tour. I get it. I
get it. But these grim clues are part of the
archaeological detective story, one that Aggie would be proud of
if she was here. They tell us that they'd be that.
(23:30):
By the final decades of the thirteenth century, social order
was breaking down in some areas, Hunger, sheear and violence
were likely commonplace, and the worst hit regions. In a way,
it's a testament to how stress tests the Anasazi were
by then, Drought after drought, failing crops, increasing conflict, the
(23:54):
center could not hold. Now. Once again, speaking of droughts,
we talked about the eleven thirties drought that we can cheko. Unfortunately,
that wasn't the last big, thirsty spell. Paleoclimate records like
tree rings from ancient pines indicate another series of mega
droughts in the late twelve hundreds. One particular and famous,
(24:17):
infamous drought began around twelve seventy six and lasted roughly
twenty three years to twelve ninety nine, once dubbed the
Great Drought. Imagine being born in twenty or twelve sixty
and by the time you're hitting midlife, you've never known
a truly good harvest year, just unrelentless dryness with a
(24:37):
few wet reprieves that didn't last. If there was any
hope of clinging on in the Cliff villages in Mesa villages,
that Great Drought pretty much sealed that deal. With food
production systems constantly disrupted. Even the well defended cliff side
villages could not last. By thirteen hundred a d, virtually
(24:59):
all they Anasazi settlements in the Four Corners region, including
Cliff Palace and its neighbors in Mesa Birde, was abandoned.
The exodus was essentially complete, So we walked through the
Anasazi Golden Age and into the gathering storm. First we
(25:20):
had a drop driven move from one canon too a
nuxt the rising conflict and defensive strategies, and finally that
one two punch of warfare and more mega droughts that
brought their world basically to the tipping point. It's a
bit like watching a slow collapse of a house of cards,
except these were with people's lives. Now we've gotten to
(25:42):
the point where it's time to step out of the
kiva for a moment and catch our breath. We've already
been through a lot, and we've only been on the
air for twenty five minutes. We've had busting great houses,
perilous cliff dwellings, a dash of cannibalistic madness. If this
was a movie, that would be when the lights come
up for few minutes so you can process and refill
your popcorn or you know, if you're a Navajo Nation
(26:04):
water canteen A it's not a real sponsor, but I'm
opening to any sponsors I would like to reach out
to me. So just remember what a lighter note. The
Honest House did leave behind some really amazing art petroglyphs
and pictographs on rock walls. Some are handprints, some are
(26:27):
animals or spirals, and I like to think maybe one
of those handprints was kind of an ancient prank, like
tag I was here. Even eight thousand years ago, people
had a sense of humor. Maybe somewhere on a cliff
is the cooling of a smiley face face or you
know Dick pics.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You know they're there.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
There has to be at least one, right, And speaking
of humor, let's address the giant extraterrestrial in the room.
And know I'm not talking about me. Ancient aliens. You
know that TV show where very unexplained things in history
is attributed to Little Green men. You just know these
(27:10):
guys couldn't resist the Chaco Canyon and merse messe Verde
inhabitants mysteriously advantaged the advanced knowledge of astronomy.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Could it be.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Aliens? But don't give them a point for entertainment, if
not necessarily for accuracy. Ancient astronaut arrists have entered the
chat folks, and we'll deal with them soon enough with
a bit of healthy dose of skepticism and sass. But
with that, I'm going to refill my beer and propet
(27:41):
for the next half of the show. In a moment,
we'll return the thirteenth century America, where the stage is
set for the climax of our story, the Great Disappearance. Well,
answer the question what became of them? What are left
of those cliff cities and great houses? Did they catch
a ride on a ufl And if they did, why
did they not send me any post cards? So stretch
(28:01):
your legs, imagine you're scaling a ladder to a cliphouse
for the view, and enjoin me back here for segment three.
In about four and a half minutes, we will be
right back.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Footsteps fade and sandstone dust, echoes left, and woven dust.
We carved our names, and nothing use than the windows wove.
(28:56):
You're from Fred and thunder fed the sky from my
trembling hands. Now you're chasing clouds down canyons where I
can not walk. Stone your eyes, hell fires a nerve,
silence spoken shifting stone.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And when the drum beats stopped at dusky phone, but
no banished. He had not lost the path. Winds it
were en offered again the bad hell it frost. The
sunset's different. Now still keep the door, a john, listen
(29:39):
for that gentle footfall that left with no nor star.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I left the bowl for your return, but shadows dranket dry.
The song you hum now haunts the cliffs where feathered
spirits fly. Were you taken by starlid theil? Did you
walk beyond marriage? I asked the elders, asked the bones.
(30:38):
They only blinked beneath the bridge, and.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So fish to be in their mad soundstead of befo God,
you whispered? Was the wind on's each Now it's all God, God,
go becoming sits a night you have no tracing. You
(31:31):
filled with fragments of your light stories and they just
stop being, and so unfinished them in dreams and protect them.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I called you vanished, I call you so let's see
a bad You are free.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And welcome back to and the crease. Hope you enjoyed
that music. When we left off, the year was around
thirteen hundred a d. And the Anasazi heartland had effectively
emptied out. How it's time to answer that burning question,
where the hell did everyone go? And this following segment
(32:59):
is all out the aftermath, the exit itself, and the
evidence we have for why it happened. We've hinted that
big factor at the big factor's drought, war and resource stress.
But now let's piece them together and follow the people
as they journey to their new homes. And just for
those listening, you would enjoy the fact that I got
a phone call from Aggie during the intermission. Now, first,
(33:24):
let's correct the old myth. The Anasazi did not just
vanish in the thin air. This isn't the Roanoke Colony,
which I hope Juxtaposition will do another extent episode one
now that they're going two hours when they are able
to air with its mysterious lost English settlers. In the
(33:44):
case of the Anasazi, we'd actually track their movements through
both archae logical and oral histories. When the rines failed
and the conflicts melted, the Anasazi migrated to areas in
the Southwest with more reliable Basically, they voted with their
feet and said May said Verda. It's been real, but
(34:07):
we gotta go where the river flows. Many moves south
and east, closer to the Rio Grande Valley in New
Mexico and the Little Colorado River in Arizona, regions that
while not exactly lush and more dependable streams and springs
that the drought stricken than the drought stricken Four Corners did.
(34:29):
Some went west towards the Hoope Messees, Messas and Arizona,
others south into what's now New Mexico. And if you
look at a map, you'll notice modern Pueblo villages Hoopee, Zuni,
a Coma, Laguna, Zia, Taos, et cetera, are mostly on
the periphery of the old Anasazi lands. This isn't a coincidence.
(34:52):
These are the places where water was available year round,
I think rivers or even high elevation water tables, or
just where the Anasazi refugees held refuge and the archaeological
evidence backs us up. In the fourteenth century, we see
knew villages springing up in these areas, and the pottery, styles, architecture,
(35:14):
and other facts show continuity with the Anazazi culture, with
perhaps a few tweaks here and there. It's basically like
they packed their u hauls or okay, their turkeys and
dogs carrying baskets since those were their beasts of burdens,
and just simply relocated, merging with or setting up communities
and these better watered locales. For instance, by about thirteen
(35:37):
twenty five, there were large publo towns in the Rio
Grande and New Mexico, some with hundreds of rooms where
before there had been none. Something clearly changed after thirteen
hundred people flooded into these regions. And who were those people? Well,
(35:59):
buy and law Arxiana Sazi now become the ancestral pueblo
of the new area. So let's bring in the voices
of the descendants themselves. Peblo oral history is rich with
stories of migration. Many Pueblo people today, the Hope, Zuni,
Caras to Yua, have traditions about coming from somewhere else.
The Hope, for example, speak of journeys through different worlds
(36:21):
and lands before subtly on the mesas where they've lived now.
The San Il Defonso people in New Mexico specifically believed
that their ancestors used to live up north in the
mesa Verde region and also in the canyons of Bandolier
before moving to the Rio Grande area. These stories were
told long before archaeologists ever came along. They're not about
(36:42):
droughts and wars per se. They're often crouched in more
spirital terms, but they essentially say our ancestors came from
those ancient ruins out west. So when early twentieth century
our anthropologists started asking, Hey, what happened to the folks
who build all these wonderful, amazing cliff pound houses, Peblo
elders were like, dude, we are what happened. We're still here.
(37:06):
We just moved our van down alongside the river. And
they kind of have a point. Most modern Publo peoples
assert that Tianasassi did not vanish at all. They just
simply migrated and became the famous in various pueblo nations
that the Spanish encountered to the fifteen hundreds. I'm from
a scientific perspective, this absolutely makes perfect sense. It's not
(37:31):
like tens of thousands of people can just die off
without leaving a trace. There's always a trace. Sure, some
may have perished in famines or fighting, but most probably
saw the writing on the wall and moved out before
things got fatal, and it might not even have been
a single coordinated evacuation. You know, no one sent out
a mass flower saying hey. By twelve ninety, everyone meet
(37:52):
at the canyon exit. But gradually, over a few decades,
family by family and village by village, the population moved.
One year, you help your neighbors build a new grain
storage in your clif dwelling. A couple years later you're
patching the roof less, maybe not planning the upper field.
(38:14):
Then you hear your cousin left last spring to join
the distant relatives near a river, and finally you say
fuck it. Next summer, if the corn fails, we're headed
there too. In an oddly relatable way, it's not unlike
modern people leaving a drought stricken rural town for a
city with jobs and water. It's a tough decision, but
survival dictates change. The final generation of the Anasazi on
(38:41):
the original homeland must have been bittersweet. Imagine being a
teenager and say twelve eighty five in a cliff dwelling.
A twelve ninety half year village is gone, left for
supposed greener pastures. A twelve ninety five, you're one of
the last holdouts, and each evening your parents or having
a debate do we stay or do we go? You've
(39:05):
got ancestors buried here, sacred sites all around, and the
very identity of your people is tied to the land.
But your little siblings are hungry and your parents are worried. Ultimately,
perhaps guided by spiritual signs or sheer pragmatism, they finally
decide to join the migration. You gather what you can carry, tools,
(39:26):
precious potter, and maybe a ceremonial mask or two, and
you walk away. You climb down the cliff ladder, perhaps
for the final time, and you do not look back.
It's a somber trek. Maybe some elderly folks couldn't make
the journey, maybe some dying route. But eventually you reach
a place where the river is still flowing and the
(39:47):
corn can still grow. There you meet other bands of migrants.
They speak dialects you most likely understand, after all, they
were your neighbors a decade ago. Together and form a
new village bigger than any you lived in before. You
built plaza centric pueblos and receive your ceremonies to bless
(40:09):
this new start. Life goes on, but in a different key.
No one has to ask, how can we assure these
new public communities were the on Asazian, not some other group.
(40:29):
Maybe it was another group and some Anasazi, or maybe
there was none an a Sazi at all. What archaeologist
gives us some connecting threads, in particular the style of pottery.
Right around thirteen hundred, a distinct type of pottery known
as Saladeo polychrome appears in the Southwest, blending influences from
(40:50):
different regions. It's kind of like a material signature of
formally distant groups coming together sharing styles. Also, certain key
of the designs and clan symbols and rock cards continue
from the old sites to the new and as mentioned,
the Pueblo peoples themselves kept songs, dances and stories that
reference these old places. To this day, some Peblo families
(41:14):
have rituals to honor places like Choco and Messi Verde
as part of their heritage. Now we have to acknowledge
also that not every single person left. Some areas, particularly
on the very fringes, might have kept small groups for longer,
and culturally some ana Zaza groups had already diverged for instance,
(41:37):
the hocm south and southern Arizona and the Mongolan in
southern New Mexico, where distant cultures related to the ancestral pueblence,
and they too underwent changes or collapse around the fourteen hundreds,
likely influenced by this same clematic downturn. The ho cam
famous for their Phoenix area canals based floods and droughts,
(41:59):
and by fourteen fifth the other big towns were gone.
It was a region wide shakeup, so the disappearance of
the Anasazi wasn't necessarily one event, but was a larger
theories of processes, a migration and cultural transformation. By thirteen fifty,
the Four Corners region went quiet. The great houses falled
(42:20):
in the ruin, when blue sand over abandoned fields, and
critters scurried through empty rooms that once echoed with prayer
songs and children's laughter. But far to the south and east,
along the Rio Grand and the Mongolan Rim and the
Hoofi Messa Messas, the descendants were laying new routes. They
were the genesis of the pueblo societies that would later
(42:42):
greet Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century with ears of
corn and turkey. Turkey, feather blankets, and probably a healthy
skepticism of these hot European looking people. Interestingly, when the
Spanish did arrive around fifteen forty and met the Pueblo peoples,
those Pueblos had memories of migrations and upheavals, but they'd
been settling their new homes for about two hundred and
(43:02):
fifty years by then, which you know, is as long
as the United States basically has existed today, give or
take twenty five years. So from their perspective, the old
times we're really really old, and life had moved on.
Early Spaniards noted ruins in the landscape and as the
(43:23):
Pueblins about them, and the Pueblans basically said, those are
the houses of our ancestors. We don't live there anymore.
One Spanish soldier in fifteen forty wrote about seeing massive
ancient ruins, quite possibly Choco were similar and being amazed.
Little did he know that people giving him directions to
the next water source for the very hairs of those
abandoned cities. So let's sum up the key causes of
(43:50):
the Anasazi exodus that the evidence points too. Climate change,
in this case just drought when people use the word
in climate change. Now everyone goes, oh, this was just
the climate changed as it does on its own. With
the prolonged droughts, notably the ones starting around twelve seventy six,
(44:13):
leading to crop failures and unstabled conditions. The corn agriculture
that was the foundation of Anazazi life basically disappeared when
the rains left, so the people did too. We have
resource depletion after centuries of population and growth, local resources
pre game and perhaps most importantly, fertile soil were overused
(44:37):
in some corn areas. Chocoate forests, for example, never fully
recovered from the logging, less resources than people had to
move or face starvation, conflict and warfare. Evidence of violence.
We have burned villages, skeletal trauma, and defensive posturing, with
the cliff dwellings and palisades, showing that the twelve hundreds
(45:01):
were a time of unrest, whether it was intersign warfare
among Anasazi factions, raided by newcomers, or perhaps already's favorite
thing embraced the power of and here the fear of
attack was a real push factor. If staying in our
homes meant risking being killed or abducted, you'd strongly consider moving.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Now.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Some anthropologists suggest there could have been a loss of
faith in leadership or religion, something we really hadn't talked
about yet. If the priest or chiefs couldn't bring the
rain or stability, maybe people just decided to break away.
There's an intriguing though highly speculative lineup thought that the
Anasazi deliberately dismantled their ceremony structures during the migration because
(45:45):
they felt something had gone spiritually wrong, essentially a ritual
closing of one chapter to start anew pueblo oral or
hints that the people might have thought their issues of
spiritual powers contributed to the imbalance of nature needed to
abandon or even destroy the old ritual spaces to set
things right now. Once again, take this with a bit
(46:06):
of a grain of salt. It's hard to interpret, and
they're still working on this theory today. And you have
external pressures, as mentioned, groups like the Navajo and Nude
which entered the region, and it could have exacerbated the situation.
It's not that these groups caused the Ansazi to disappear.
(46:26):
They were probably just one factor among many opportunistically moving
into into the Anasazi. We're forced to move out, kind
of like a tag team migration, you know, one peaceful
Indian group to another. That said, the one thing to
kind of really emphasize is I don't think there was
(46:49):
a single villain in the story, not a singular war,
one bad king or anything like that. It was more
a confluence of natural and human stresses. If the climate
had a nosedive, maybe the Anasazi could have managed the
social stresses. If there hadn't been social stress, maybe they
could have hung on through the drought. But both well,
(47:13):
that combo was lethal to their way of life in
the Four Corners. By thirteen hundred, the Anasazi as we
defined them archaeologically, ceased to exist in the record of
that region, but they do reappear as something new in
new locales. In a way, it's kind of like a
company that rebrands and relocates its headquarters. The old office
(47:33):
sits empty, but the business is still running elsewhere under
a new name. The Anasazi became the Pueblo peoples. Culturally,
things shifted, new languages evolved, new religious practices or formed,
like the Kichina caught among the Rio Grand pueblos that
took hold in the fourteenth century, possibly as a way
to cope with and understand the hardships their ancestors went through.
(47:56):
Many core traditions ended up surviving. Before we move into
the final segment, where we'll entertain some of the more
creative theories and then wrap up the show, let's address
one more archaeological finding that adds a pointed book into
this story, and a site called Sacred Ridge near Durango,
(48:17):
Colorado evacuations excavation sorry revealed a brutal scene multiple individuals
who had been massacured and mutilated around the late seventeen
or early eighteen hundred, s ad earlier than the Final Exodus,
but illustrative of conflict. Some researchers Potter and Chupaca argued
(48:37):
it might have been an instance of ethnic cleansing or
social pershing, essentially one group completely annihilating a community. While
that event was earlier, it shows that conflict and extreme
and the very extreme violence were not unheard of in
Anasazi history. Now, the reason I mentioned this is to
(48:57):
underscore that the Anasazi world was not in a changed
eden of harmony. It had political intrigue, factions and possibly
oppressed minorities. When resources got tight, Those simmering tensions could
and often would explode. People often romanticize ancient cultures, but
they were human societies with all the messiness that entails
(49:19):
of being human, So the end might have been as
much about internal social fractures as about external pressures or
even the lack of rain. And in any case, by
the time the dust settled literally yess ron literally, the
ancestral lands of the Anasazi were largely empty. Nature began
(49:41):
to reclaim the terraces and roads. The disappearance was really
a relocation in cultural metamorphosis. The people survived, but in
the different form and place. But as we're prepared to
look at some of the more speculative inter interpretations of
the Anasazi disappearance, let's keep in mind OCAM's razor. The
simplest explanation or explanations drought, resource stress and conflict leading
(50:04):
to migration. It's usually the right one. Well, let's face it,
humans they love a mystery. They love to fill in
gaps with imagination, and boy have there been some imaginative
theories about the Anasazi. So let's have a little fun.
Shaw we We're gonna let down our hair a little
(50:29):
bit and explore the speculative side of the Anasazi disappearance. Now,
I think I've covered the scientific consensus fairly well, you'll
be the judge of that, but hopefully I have. But
no epic mystery is complete without some very wild theories.
The Anasazi migrations have inspired everything from spiritual explanations to
(50:52):
alien abduction stories. So we're gonna talk about a few
of them with respect where do and with humor where do?
And then bring it home with their closing thoughts? Shall
we very one? They were taken by aliens, not of
Alpha Centauri. Yes, as promised, here we go. The ancient
(51:17):
aliens hypothesis of the Anasazi usual hinges on the idea
that their accomplishments, such as big buildings astronomically alignments, were
too advanced for primitive people, So q the extraterrestrials. Perhaps
aliens help them build and then whisk them away for
some unknown reason. Maybe the Anasazi were extraterrestrials themselves stranded
(51:39):
on Earth who finally picked up the phoney went eight
found maybe maybe, or maybe they just got an uber
spaceship picked up around thirteen hundreds, who knows. Now, if
you've ever seen the meme of the guy with the
crazy hair saying I'm not saying it was a Aliens,
(52:00):
but it was Aliens.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
We all know his name.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
You know this line of thought. Certainly it's entertaining, but
in this case, there's zero evidence for any of it.
All the achievements of Anasazi can be explained by human ingenuity.
There's no Martian masonry needed, and their disappearance doesn't literally
mean they disappeared off the pace of the Earth. They
(52:22):
just moved to a safer's zip code that said. Still.
The image of a UFO hovering over Cliff Palace beaming
up people in pottery makes for some fun B movie
type stuff, and we can chuckle but also acknowledge something.
These alien theories often, perhaps unintentionally, do a disservice by
(52:43):
suggesting native people couldn't possibly engineer such feats or make
tough decisions. There's plenty of ancient alien stuff that could
be more doubtful. This is not one of them. So
ancient alien dudes, thanks for the laugh, but we're gonna
file ancient alien theory on at least regards to the
people of the Ona Sazi highly unlikely. We do have
(53:11):
another interesting theory two, A single catastrophic event. Now, some
have wondered and proposed if one huge calamity did the
Ona Sazi end like a super volcano or even an earthquake.
Let's face it, the Southwest is seismically active. That said,
(53:32):
there's been no sign of a region wide quake leveling
sites around thirteen hundred, no volcano eruptions either, Certainly nothing
like wiping up populations. So what about disease? Could an
epidemic or pandemic have swept through? Possibly, but we lack
(53:54):
evidence like mass grave epidemics or clear pathogen signs, and
remains in the few sites with more than a handful
of people show warfare. The seas alone wouldn't cause people
to systematically relocate to better watered areas. That response fits
drought and hunger way better. So, while an apocalyptic style
disaster is kind of a neat narrative and not necessarily
(54:16):
out of range of possibility that people started getting sick,
the archaeological records suggest a drawn up struggle, not an
overnight cataclysm. Y three, they became something more a spiritual transformation.
(54:36):
Here we enter the mystical realm in touching one. Maybe
some alien stuff. Again, there are suggestions and some from
Pueblo lore. Some from New Age thinkers that maybe the
Honestasi under a a sort of mass spiritual migration that
they simply transcended into another planet of existence, or went
underground to live in Sifapoo or a place of emergence
(54:58):
a hoppy for and since have stories of emerging from
earlier words world through Sipipus and the Kachina's spirit beings
guiding them away. A very poetic notion is that perhaps
the Honazazi didn't just walk to new villages, maybe they
ritually closed one world and open a new one. This
ties to what I mentioned about possibly dismantling kivas and
(55:19):
tribes deliberately, not necessarily aliens, but maybe more of a
spiritual rebirth. Some have even linked it to the legendary
migrations in the Book of Exodus or other cultural sagas
a chosen people journeying to a promised land under divine guidance,
leaving behind a sinful and spent land. Now, as a
(55:42):
amateur historian, I view this as metaphorical. They physically moved,
but the way they understood it could have been well
through a spiritual lens. They might have believed the gods
are spirits or deemed the move So in a subtle way,
this isn't incompatible with the actual facts in the case,
it's just the interpretation of these causes. In the minds
(56:04):
of the people. Rout could be seen as the world
telling them to move on, for instance. And I admittedly
do find this angle fascinating because it reminds us that
real people lived this experience and they had to make
sense of it somehow. They didn't have climate science, they
had prayers and omens. If the sun turns scorching and
(56:26):
the rain stops, you might conclude that the rain gods
became angry, or that you need to go find the
place of the rising sun foretold in the dream. Thus,
the spiritual transformation theory has a bit of kernel of
truth in how the migration might have been viewed by
the Anasazis themselves. Even im materially it was about finding
water and peace. Theory four Mass violence are genocide by invaders. Now,
(56:58):
some have positive that many invading enforces, maybe you know
the toll Tas the Aztecs from Mexico or local nomads
swept in and basically killed or drove them out. There
was an older idea that perhaps a toll Tech or
Aztec empire might have extended a hand up north. That
doesn't simply hold water. Though meso america influence on the
(57:20):
Anasazi was limited to trade of goods and maybe ideas.
No Aztec army marched into Utah, as far as anyone
can currently tell. As for genocide by nomads, the evidence
doesn't show an entirely external conquest. We admittedly we do
see violent episodes, but if an outside tribe had wiped
out the Anasaza, you'd expect to see that tribe occupying
(57:42):
those sites afterward, or at least some clear signature of
a new cultural group sitting on top of the ruins. Instead,
we see the sites mostly empty out. It looks more
like flight than fight. Invaders might have been one pressure though,
as we discussed, but not a one slide side at
(58:04):
slaughter scenario. If it were, the story would likely have
been preserved by the victors, and the Pueblo peoples didn't recount.
And then the Naba host lewis a hall. In fact,
navajo O oral history paints the puebloists sometimes hostile to them,
so it was a bit of a complex dynamic. Now
(58:27):
I wrote this next section, thinking I was going to
be following me a certain show tonight that apparently I
am the only show on the network this entire weekend,
So I decided to rate a bit of a Stargate
SG one reference for the History Nerds. Tonight, there's an
episode of Stargate SG one for the Uninitiative, a sci
fi show where humans find ancient portal to other worlds,
(58:49):
where an advanced ancient culture of sense to a higher
plane or something. It's been a while, but the idea
of people physically disappearing because they became energy brings us
being or went through a portal is right now pure
science fiction. But I can't help joking that if the
Anasazi had found a stargate in the Chaco Canyon, it
would have explained a lot Chevron's sudden luck. Next up
(59:13):
the planet with reliable rainfall. Maybe Corol O'Neil showed up
and said, folks, the relocation program awaits, but at all
serious though the Anasazi story doesn't need wormholes or even ascension,
the reality is compelling enough. It's a story of human
resilience and adaption to mother nature and violent mood swings,
(59:36):
and I know I want to highlight something because I
do know. The phrase the disappearance of the Anasazi can
actually rub some people the wrong way, particularly the descendants,
because from their point of view, nothing disappeared. Their ancestors
(59:56):
simply changed address and kept living, thank you very much.
The narrative of a lost civilization can sometimes ignore the
very much a live civilization that followed. The hope Zuni
and the other public community today treasure their connection to
the ancestral public sites. They consider places elect chocolate messoverita
(01:00:17):
as part of their heritage. In recent years, archaeologists and
native communities have worked together more closely to understand the
past in a holistic way. Scientific findings about drought and
migration mesh with oral traditions about seeking the center place
or following spiritual guidance to a new home. It's kind
of a beautiful convergence of science and tradition. But as
(01:00:41):
we wrap up, let's recap the journey in plane terms.
Over the course of about seven hundred years six hundred
to thirteen hundred AD, the Anasazi went from small pitouse
hamlets to building some of the largest owned complexes in
the New World, to facing environmental and social crisis that
forced them to abandon their magnificent towns. They didn't vanish
(01:01:04):
abruptly or mysteriously, as the spooky headlines often claim. Rather,
they reorganized. They showed flexibility in the face of adversity, migrating,
collaborating with new neighbors, and evating new social and religious structures.
The public world that the Spanish stepped into in the
fifteen hundreds with its pubblos like Taos, with well multi
(01:01:25):
story complexes, Kaccini dances and the networks of corn farmers
was a direct continuation of the Anasazi story. The next
chapter after the quote unquote disappearance and one in fact,
one could argue that Anasazi never disappeared at all. They
just changed their names for legal reasons. It's like saying
(01:01:46):
the British disappeared in seventeen seventy six here in America. No,
they just became Americans. Well, some of them, they moved
on under a new identity. Similarly, the Anisazi became the Pueblos.
What have we learned from the tale of the Anasazi.
I think many things. We learn that climate change can
(01:02:08):
profoundly affect societies when technology isn't there to help them.
We learn that people can adore and adapt. They can
pick up and start anew when the world falls apart.
We also learned that interpretating the past is a bit
of detective work. Things like tree rings, bones, pottery, linguistics,
and legends all come together to give us the full picture.
(01:02:29):
And yes, we learn that sometimes folks will prefer an
alien kidnapping theory over you know, a complex, less lamorous truth.
But hey, that's kind of human nature too. We all
love a fantastical story. Before I sign off for the night,
let me leave you with an image today. If you
(01:02:50):
visits a Canyon de Chla and Arizona or Vandalier in
New Mexico, you might see ruins of cliff dwellings and
pueblos with no one living in them. But if you
listen to the wind, and you might hear something else,
the sounds of a living culture. Because in those same areas,
Navajo she hearders and public farmers carry on living different lifestyles,
was spiritually tied to this land. A Navajo guide might
(01:03:13):
show you a cliff ruin and then take you to
meet her grandmother who still weaves traditional blankets. Nearby, a
hoppy elder might point to the rock art left by
his ancestors on a messa that his family had lived
on for centuries. Since the spirit of the Anasazi is
all around, not gone, just transformed in a way, the
(01:03:34):
disappearance is actually a story of survival. And that's the story,
or rather the epic saga of the so called disappearance
of the Anasazi. From grandeur to hardship to renewal. It's
a tale as dramatic as any in the world history,
yet deeply rooted in the soil of the American Southwest.
(01:03:55):
I hope you enjoyed this journey through time. I know
we went a little over, but Owl's not following us.
Hope your internet gets fixed out. But I do believe
the hones saws you deserved this level of detail. They
gave us seven hundred years of drama, after all. And
if you've ever been in the Four Corners area, takes
some time to visit these ancient sites. Stand in a
(01:04:16):
room at Pueblo Benito and imagine laughter echoing off the
plaster walls. Walk through Cliff Palace and pitch your kids
peeking out the doorways a thousand years ago. These places
aren't just stones, they're storytelling corners where the past can
whisper to us. Saul, thank you for listening to this
episode of Indcrease. I am je doublef your guide through histories,
(01:04:39):
twists and turns until next time when we talk to
the murders of the Hunter Kaifheks. Remember history may not repeat,
but sure as hell does rhyme a lot, and sometimes
it leaves behind one heck of a mystery to Saul.
So stay curious, stay respectful, and most importantly, watch out
(01:05:00):
those mega droughts.
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