Blood Flowed Like Water

NOTICE: This video includes images and discussions of human remains which may be disturbing to some viewers.
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In this Archaeology Café, Dr. James T. Watson presented "Blood Flowed Like Water: Violence among the Sonoran Desert’s Earliest Irrigation Communities."
The earliest evidence for violence in the Desert West is found in early irrigation communities strewn across the Sonoran Desert (circa 2,000-4,000 years ago) and takes a variety of forms. Blunt-force and projectile trauma from clubs and darts, broken and callused bones, and irreverent interments are evident in people’s remains. Dr. Watson will consider the causes of this violence, which apparently ceased as this volatile period drew to a close some 2,000 years ago.
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View upcoming Archaeology Café presentations at: www.archaeologysouthwest.org/...

[@laurapope3685]

That was such an awesome watch! I really appreciated the time and effort put into making this! Excited for more to come!

[@mjungwir]

How has no one commented on this? I have watched this like 4-5 times and really enjoyed the content. Thank you for the amazing channel!

[@robhead22]

What a great presentation. Thank you!

[@CmacKw]

Very interesting, for what it implies about Phoenix Basin Hohokam.

[@benwolf5264]

Good stuff! Thanks for posting!

[@kathyjoanderson6430]

Fascinating! Loved it!

[@ollimekatl]

Thank you for conducting the research and sharing your findings. I’d be interested in knowing more about what items, markings, etc, found in the archaeological evidence would determine a thing is dealing with witches, ceremonies, or sacrifices. Regarding corn, I’ve read before, not sure which journal, that corn was first cultivated 9-10 ka and was in Peru by 6 ka. Maybe i read wrong? I do not think so but i will double check.

[@coltonzack8714]

@Michael Jungwirth I know it right it's honestly really sad these people were amazing and smart and this history behind it is just amazing I use to live in new mexico as a kid I use to go to all of the cliff dwellings and pow wows from my dads friends going to the cliff dwellings in person is so different from just seeing it you can feel the ancient history there and all around peace at each site

[@Zaroffmom]

@ Michael Jungwirth maybe the topic blood and violence reduced the number of people that watched it long enough to comment. He does touch on cannibalism also which freaks some people out. Interesting because I thought it was good also.

[@frankedgar6694]

One argument I hear about large projects like the canals and large stone buildings is that it requires technology blah, blah, blah. Look at our interstates. In Dallas, Interstate 35 has had continuous work sites and improvements for the last 40 plus years I’ve lived in the area. Imagine not have a Western mindset with our ideas of time. They could work on a canal for 509 years and not bat an eye. It just needed doing because people needed it and didn’t hav restrictions.

[@frankedgar6694]

And along that line, the coast of California and the Gulf coast of Texas were within walking distance.

[@Merlin-ur1dz]

Stories Chaco Canyon was a place games of death of winning over other young ones and ladies and control over humans you had to beat your challenge live in community and more Stories about what happen at the waterhole.

[@coltonzack8714]

the violence and cannibalism I have a problem with because archaeologists and scientists wanna say that these people were doing it to each other but I honestly dont believe that based on how these people lived and believed these people before they left to go live in cliffs were land people then at a certain time period they moved to the cliffs some even 100ft in the air where there children and babies would also live I believe these people were trying to hide from other people who were hunting them the cliffs they built looked out over the whole valley most of the time 180 degrees they would be able to see any enemies or predators coming for them miles away

[@petebondurant58]

The cannibalism has been proved scientifically beyond a shadow of a doubt. Science means more than emotion.

[@christymartin6281]

@@petebondurant58 My grandfather was an ammeter archeologist, and I believe that the cannibalism came from the "red-haired giants" that have been investigated more and more in recent years, and that is why I believe they moved into the cliff dwellings and caves.

[@_ballchinian1594]

There was cannibalism but listen to the stories of the people in the region. There was a huge drought in the region during the time when the ancient ones were being destroyed. This forced them to destroy themselves.

[@zemog1025]

The Native Americans of the SW have the slavery and cannibalism recorded in their verbal histories and the bones and evidence of conflict are strewn across the region. That Native Americans were some utopian peaceful society living in harmony with nature is a relic of the 1960s late Baby Boomer White American revisionist thinking, for the Natives of the SW were also human and subject to human behaviors.

[@SolaceEasy]

The speaker seems to be mostly assuming homogeneity among societies except for a few female captives. Without a DNA study of these differential types of burials it's difficult to tell if there could be subgroups within society that were receiving differential treatment, not unlike today. In europe, for example when the farmers came in there were interactions with the hunter-gatherers and I could assume the same would have happened in the Southwest. There is sure to be a cline in variation in DNA between peoples. Although raiding was a major part of society, having smaller subgroups of people among larger societies was most likely also common. Please reference another talk on the Safford Basin from this same society regarding Puebloan migrants among Sinaguan and other southern Arizona communities and the influences those immigrant peoples had on religion in the areas they settled in. There was not as much heterogeneity in prehistoric southern Arizona society as many scholars believe.

[@markopolozoomanitty6574]

No.. it's the giant Monsanto corn we have now

[@ethereal72]

You can have all the certifications degreesand academic credentials in the world but if you don't have charisma while you're teaching it's not that exciting

[@cadilacdesert]

How do we know that the American army didn't throw the mother and the baby and the pit?

[@petebondurant58]

America did not exist until 1776, and this occured several centuries prior to that. This occurred before the Europeans arrived.

[@brandonwilson5311]

How do we know you are extremely bias? that you hate your country? How do we know you have been ill informed and ill educated by school and colleges? The "noble savage" never existed, the savages did "own" the land, they went to war, killed, raped, tortured, committed genocide against other native tribes to steal "their" land. Stolen land. Never fall for the lies that the evil white man stole the land.They did what every other group of people have done. The white man took over the land yes, and the natives tribes they found had already stolen that land from other native americans, and before that they destroyed and exterminated the cultures that existed here before them.

[@roderichroby6236]

All experts agree it was the American Air Force.

[@zemog1025]

The NATIVE AMERICANS have the wars, cannibalism and slavery recorded in their own oral histories to go along with the archaeology.

[@zemog1025]

@@petebondurant58 Spaniards were in the SW in the 1500s doing their Christian Salvation and Conquistadores thing. Crazy, are they not teaching history in High School any longer?