Experts say a petroglyph in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon may depict a solar eclipse from 920 years ago.
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Elite ‘Dynasty’ at Chaco Canyon Got Its Power From One Woman, DNA Shows
New DNA evidence shows that elite leaders at Chaco Canyon weren’t just members of the same class — they were members of the same extended family, a “dynasty” that traced its ancestry to a single woman.
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Chaco’s Elites Were Natives of Chaco Canyon, Not Migrants, Their Remains Show
The elites of Chaco Canyon were born and raised there, and weren’t migrants from distant regions, as many thought, new research finds.
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How Did People of Chaco Canyon Grow Their Food? Expert Says, They Didn’t
Recently, researchers have been at odds over a simple, central question in Southwestern archaeology: How did the people of Chaco Canyon manage to grow their food? According to new research: They didn’t.
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900-Year-Old Village Recorded in Volcanic Badlands of New Mexico
A 900-year-old village hidden in New Mexico’s black-rock badlands reveals its unique ties to Chaco Canyon.
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Cocoa, Caffeinated ‘Black Drink’ Were Widespread in Pre-Contact Southwest, Study Finds
Stimulating drinks made from exotic plants, like the cocoa tree and a type of southern holly, were consumed much more widely across the prehistoric Southwest than was thought, according to…
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Bones of Exotic Macaws Reveal Early Rise of Trade, Hierarchy in Chaco Canyon
A new look at some unusual remains found at New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon may change our understanding of when, and how, the culture of the Ancestral Puebloans felt the first…
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Twin 1,300-Year-Old Villages Discovered in Arizona Sand Dunes
Archaeologists exploring the high desert of northern Arizona have found a pair of “matching” villages that date back some 1,300 years, revealing evidence of a crucial phase in Southwestern prehistory….
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Violence in the Ancient Southwest Offers Insights Into Peace, Study Says
Despite some recent sensational claims that the prehistoric Southwest was the site of the worst violence in American history, the archaeologist often cited for that assertion says that, in fact,…
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‘Hidden Architecture’ of 1,000-Year-Old Village Discovered in New Mexico
For more than 40 years, archaeologists have been coaxing what they could from the traces of an ancient Puebloan settlement in New Mexico they call Blue J. Buried under a thousand…
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Mesa Verde’s ‘Mummy Lake’ Was Built to Hold Rituals, Not Water, Study Says
A grand, sandstone-walled pit in Mesa Verde National Park has for decades been seen as an achievement of prehistoric hydrology, part of a system of cisterns and canals used by…
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Grisly Mass Grave in Utah Cave Is Evidence of ‘Prehistoric Warfare,’ Study Says
Nearly a hundred skeletons buried in a cave in southeast Utah offer grisly evidence that ancient Americans waged war on each other as much as 2,000 years ago, according to…
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‘Impressive’ Pueblo Great House, Dozens of Ruins Found in Petrified Forest National Park
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA — A fuller picture of Arizona’s past is starting to emerge from the desert north of Petrified Forest National Park, a year after officials revealed that the park’s…
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Earliest Use of Chocolate in America Discovered, Suggesting Ancient Immigrants
Some strange pottery found at an ancient settlement in southeastern Utah contains the oldest known traces of chocolate in the United States, an anthropologist says. The site dates back to…
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New ‘Pueblo Bonito’ Discovered in Arizona
An ancient multi-room pueblo resembling Chaco Canyon’s largest and best-known great house, Pueblo Bonito, has been discovered in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, according to park officials. The site, along with nearly…
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