TWINKLE TOES
Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico was a ritual centre of the Anasazi, a now extinct Native American culture ancestral to the Pueblo Indians of today. The canyon contains ruins of extensive pueblo complexes called ‘Great Houses’, and has deeply enigmatic dead straight and wide roads, sometimes running in parallel, converging on it from distant locations, despite the fact that the Anasazi had neither the wheel nor horses.
The Anasazi culture, along with the nature of what went on in the canyon, has been the subject of research by scholars for decades. Increasingly exact archæological techniques are continuing to reveal more and more about the mysteries of this place. Two recent findings and observations stand out.
The largest of the Great Houses is multi-storied Pueblo Bonito (pictured above left), covering 1.2 hectares (3 acres) and containing 800 rooms. Scores of skeletons have been found in some of them. Many individuals buried in one of Pueblo Bonito’s oldest rooms, known to researchers as Room 33, shared maternal ancestry: in the recent studies, researchers from Penn State University extracted mitochondrial DNA (which is typically passed from mother to child) from skeletons of nine of 14 individuals interred in the room. Members of this Pueblo Bonito group, the researchers reported, inherited mitochondrial DNA that was similar enough to indicate shared kinship with a female line. Nuclear DNA recovered from six Room 33 skeletons identified two as mother and daughter and two others as a grandmother and grandson. The earliest burials in Room 33, essentially a crypt, carbon-date to circa AD 800. It seems women featured significantly in the life of Chaco Canyon, perhaps in terms of a matriarchy, something that had not been properly appreciated previously.
The other line of research involves a particularly puzzling and weird factor: it seems the ancient denizens of Chaco regarded six-toed people as special. (This condition apparently affects about 2.4 of every 1,000 Native Americans today.) Three of the burials in Pueblo Bonito were six-toed, and footprints and handprints displaying six digits also appear on several plastered walls at Pueblo Bonito. Rock art generally in Chaco Canyon depicts almost 800 human feet, with anywhere from three to eight toes (like those found behind Pueblo Bonito, pictured above). Of 13 ancient sandals recovered at Pueblo Bonito, seven include woven extensions for a sixth toe. “Having six toes brought social honor in Chaco society,” claims archæologist Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. But she added: “We don’t know why Chaco people were so interested in feet or what feet symbolized to them.” Science News, 17 May 2017.