[Aztlan] Chief Archaeologist Jim Potter on the cannibalism story

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

Despite the fact Jim Potter was quoted by the reporter on cannibalism at Ridges Basin, apparently, Potter did not say these things at all. Here is his response;

Mike


To all,

this is my response to Friday’s article in the Durango Herald that claimed that there evidence of cannibalism was found in Ridges Basin


Editor,

I’d like to offer a correction to Mr. Armijo’s December 3rd piece entitled “Taboo topic: Ridges Basin evidence suggests cannibalism among ancestral Puebloans.” The reality is that we found no evidence for cannibalism—that is, one person consuming the flesh of another—in our Ridges Basin excavations. We indeed found a large assemblage of mutilated human remains contained within a 1,200 year old pit house. But this does not necessarily indicate that cannibalism occurred. Indeed, in the recent edition of Journal of Anthropological Archaeology my colleague and I laid out an argument as to why cannibalism is a probably not the best explanation for the assemblage, instead arguing that ethnic conflict was a better fit with the data. Since I communicated this to Mr. Armijo, including sending him a copy of this article, I am at a loss as to why he focused on cannibalism as the core of his article. I would suggest that it is not a taboo topic, but the wrong topic.

And getting this wrong is a big deal. Archaeologists have been working for decades to gain the trust of Native Americans by being sensitive to their past and by being careful not to overly and needlessly sensationalize it by heedlessly using terms like cannibalism. We can’t control the media, though. All we can do is try to get through to the public that the story the media are telling is not accurate, neither from an archaeological “scientific” perspective nor a native “traditional” perspective.

Sincerely,
James M. Potter

Jim Potter
Regional Scientist, Archaeology
Series Editor, SWCA Anthropological Research Papers
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