An 800-year-old structure in Mesa Verde National Park was built using the same basic geometry found in ancient monuments around the world, a new study reports.
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Mesa Verde’s ‘Mummy Lake’ Was Built to Hold Rituals, Not Water, Study Says
A grand, sandstone-walled pit in Mesa Verde National Park has for decades been seen as an achievement of prehistoric hydrology, part of a system of cisterns and canals used by…
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How Did People of Chaco Canyon Grow Their Food? Expert Says, They Didn’t
Recently, researchers have been at odds over a simple, central question in Southwestern archaeology: How did the people of Chaco Canyon manage to grow their food? According to new research: They didn’t.
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Cocoa, Caffeinated ‘Black Drink’ Were Widespread in Pre-Contact Southwest, Study Finds
Stimulating drinks made from exotic plants, like the cocoa tree and a type of southern holly, were consumed much more widely across the prehistoric Southwest than was thought, according to…
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Western Digs’ Top 5 Archaeology Stories of 2014
They were made at sites ranging from Hawaii to Colorado. They date back to the dawn of agriculture in the Southwest and to the end of the last ice age…
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Twin 1,300-Year-Old Villages Discovered in Arizona Sand Dunes
Archaeologists exploring the high desert of northern Arizona have found a pair of “matching” villages that date back some 1,300 years, revealing evidence of a crucial phase in Southwestern prehistory….
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Violence in the Ancient Southwest Offers Insights Into Peace, Study Says
Despite some recent sensational claims that the prehistoric Southwest was the site of the worst violence in American history, the archaeologist often cited for that assertion says that, in fact,…
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1,500-Year-Old Village, A Sign of ‘Revolution’ in the Southwest, Excavated in Colorado
CORTEZ, COLORADO — In a high-end housing development north of Cortez, Colorado — just 25 kilometers from the monumental cliffhouses of Mesa Verde National Park — archaeologists have uncovered a…
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Grisly Mass Grave in Utah Cave Is Evidence of ‘Prehistoric Warfare,’ Study Says
Nearly a hundred skeletons buried in a cave in southeast Utah offer grisly evidence that ancient Americans waged war on each other as much as 2,000 years ago, according to…
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Nevada Petroglyphs Are the Oldest in North America, Study Finds
Inscrutable symbols etched on a limestone boulder in western Nevada — herringbone patterns, series of pits, and chain-like links — are the oldest known petroglyphs in North America, scientists say….
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Photos: Watch the ‘Shadow Dagger’ Solar Calendar Mark the Equinox
See for yourself how ancient petroglyphs found in Arizona mark the spring equinox with a “shadow dagger.”
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Prehistoric Meteorite ‘Shrines’ in Arizona May Be Linked, Says Archaeo-Astronomer
Two twelfth-century settlements a hundred kilometers apart in Arizona were apparently built by discrete cultures, but they have at least one trait in common: In each complex is a hidden,…
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