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SEPTEMBER 7, 2000

Researchers in this week's issue of Nature, a science journal, say they have the first direct evidence that cannibalism was practiced in an ancient Puebloan community in southwestern Colorado.

Although anthropologists for years have been citing evidence they believe proves cannibalism was practiced in the Southwest, the researchers make no bones about asserting the existence of "Colorado's Cannibals," based on the evidence unearthed, with the approval of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, at a site known as Cowboy Wash.

Not only are the conclusions made by the team hard to stomach for many, the way the researchers came to their conclusion is equally unpretty. The team examined a piece of coprolite, otherwise known as fecal matter, dating back to approximately 1150 AD.

Believing the coprolite to be "consistent with human origin," the researchers conducted a series of tests on the matter to see if evidence of the consumption of humans could be detected in it. They specifically looked for the presence of human myoglobin, a protein which carries oxygen from the bloodstream into muscle cells and can only come from skeletal and cardiac muscle.

According to their studies, anywhere from 540 to 1860 nanograms (ng) of human myoglobin was present in a sample of fecal matter which weighed a total of 30 grams (g). For the mathematically inclined, these figures represent 0.0000162 g to 0.0000558 g in the coprolite.

In other words, the amount of human myoglobin detected is 1 million times smaller than 1 milliliter (ml) of water. A couple of drops from an eye dropper is about 1 ml.

Besides the 850-year-old coprolite attributed to a human, researchers say the site contained the body parts of several people, both male and female and of various ages. They say the bodies were defleshed and "cooked as if for consumption by other humans."

However, the research only contains analysis of the fecal matter which could have only come from one individual, not several.

Researchers also uncovered one pot, which they call a "cooking pot," and say these tested positive for human myoglobin. Other items were also found and tested positive for human blood.

Human coprolite has also been discovered at various sites throughout the Southwest. But out of the hundreds which have been found, the coprolite uncovered at Cowboy Wash and attributed to a human is the only one so far that contains evidence of human myoglobin.

The researchers also point out that the coprolite may be the only one of its kind ever in the Southwest. It was found undisturbed inside a hearth in the three-room structure at Cowboy Wash.

Researchers did test 20 other samples of human coprolite from another Puebloan site alleged to have contained evidence of cannibalism. However, none of those contained human myoglobin and researchers said the samples predated any alleged cannibalism there.

None of the researchers involved in the study were available for comment yesterday. Their findings appear in Nature as a letter and the journal includes a commentary by Jared Diamond, an author who once supposed that ancestors of today's Indians caused the extinction of large pre-historic animals in the Americas.

Get the Research:
Biochemical evidence of cannibalism at a prehistoric Puebloan site in southwestern Colorado (Marlar, Leonard, Billman, Lambert, Marlar. Letters to Nature. Nature 407, 74 - 78, 2000)

Relevant Links:
Colorado's Cannibals, Nature - www.nature.com/nature/fow/000907.html
Nature - www.nature.com

Related Stories:
Controversy over cannibalism (Indian U. 05/16)

From Amazon.Com:
Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest
Christy Turner, Jacqueline Turner
University of Utah Press