Comments on: Anasazi America (Part 2)

By: John Baez

John Baez — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:12:47 +0000

Thanks!

By: Mark Blevins

Mark Blevins — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:50:50 +0000

Hi,

Recently stumbled on Azimuth. Great. Thanks.

Enjoyed these posts especially as I live in this neck of the woods.
You may have read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X

… if not, you might enjoy it. J. Tainter examines Roman, Lowland Maya and Chacoan societal collapse. Concludes that ‘diminishing marginal returns on complexity’ are root cause, if I read him right. Might bear on our current situation, and some of your themes…

Cheers!
MB

By: Mesa Verde Trip, September 2009 « Good River Gallery

Mesa Verde Trip, September 2009 « Good River Gallery — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:38:26 +0000

Last week, I talked a bit about a side-trip I took to Fallingwater with Barb. I thought I’d follow that up with a trip the two of us took a few years ago to Mesa Verde.

By: Ruggero

Ruggero — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:43:13 +0000

If you are interested I took some poor man’s 3D pictures of the Mesa Verde park. Since most of the places are visible from across the canyons, I took a pictures, then walked laterally for about 30 meters, then took a second picture.
This gives the idea that the position of the pictures is much closer, standing up in the air. Of course this kind of parallax trick has his (flattening etc. limits) but it’s not too bad and the results aren’t terrible.
https://plus.google.com/photos/105241415567258830015/albums/5838384413111495377?authkey=CMWoqpmU98TkgAE

By: John Baez

John Baez — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:55:47 +0000

Glad you liked this post! I'm jealous of you... I didn't make it all the way to Chaco Canyon this time. On the day were going to go, it started snowing... and the next day was Christmas, and we realized the park would probably be closed. I was really bummed out. I'll have to try again. And I want to see Mesa Verde, too. You might like the whole book Anasazi America, where I got most of my information. It's well written.

By: Jeff Posey

Jeff Posey — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:14:04 +0000

Great round-up of Anasazi history, evidence, and interpretation, John. Every synthesis I see makes me think and see things a little differently, a little more deeply. I’ve been hiking their stomping grounds for a couple decades, and sometimes just standing there you get a chill or a shudder, and you know, you just know, something happened there. You just don’t know what. Most of the evidence has washed away. Only a scintillating scatter of hard remnants. Thanks for putting this together. I’m glad I found it.

By: John Baez

John Baez — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:21:04 +0000

I haven't heard that, and I imagine I would have if people had noticed something ilke this. After all, I did read---and mentioned in Part 1---that in earlier times skeletal remains showed increased osteoporosis due to a low-mineral diet (too much corn, not enough green vegetables or meat), and bone damage due to overwork. But I guess not all diseases can be read off from skeletal remains!

By: Peter Morgan

Peter Morgan — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:12:57 +0000

Do we know from the archaeology whether there was illness?

By: Florifulgurator

Florifulgurator — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:43:32 +0000

The shocking and dramatic end! They were probably chased off by cannibals: • Karl Reinhard, A Coprological View of Ancestral Pueblo Cannibalism, American Scientist 94 (2006) (Perhaps unappetizing, but fascinating read. To add insult, one cannibal defecated in the victims' fire place, leaving a coprolith for modern analysis...)

By: Michelle Beissel

Michelle Beissel — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:10:41 +0000

Super post!

En bref, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.