Princeton Legacy Library
1 total work
Cannibalism is one of the oldest and most emotionally charged topics in anthropological literature. This analysis of human bones from an Anasazi pueblo in southwestern Colorado, site 5MTUMR-2346, reveals that nearly 30 men, women and children were butchered and cooked there around 1100 AD. Their bones were fractured for marrow, and the remains discarded in several rooms of the pueblo. By comparing the human skeletal remains with those of animals used for food at other sites, the author analyzes evidence for skinning, dismembering, cooking and fracturing to infer that cannibalism took place at Mancos. As White evaluates claims for cannibalism in ethnographic and archaeological contexts worldwide, he describes how cultural biases can often distort the interpretation of scientific data. This book applies and introduces anatomical, taphonomic, zooarchaeological and forensic methods in the investigation of prehistoric human behaviour.