On a sultry July afternoon last summer, at the height of Arizona’s rainy season, archeologist John Hohmann and his team of three fanned out over the ruins of a 15-acre pueblo settlement near Springerville. Their grail: eaves that locals had long believed were used as burial sites by the Mogollon tribe who lived there 800 years ago. Hohmann-in full Banana Republic regalia-had already tasted success: hacking away with his machete at muscular vines choking the rocky cliffs, he spied an intricate spiral stairway built into the rock. He then began rappelling into the deep fissures that cleave the cliff, carefully passing by sunbathing rattlesnakes. At the bottom, he slithered forward on his belly through a low-ceilinged chamber, flashlight in one hand and pistol in the other. Then suddenly Hohmann felt the euphoria that every digger of the lost past yearns for: an extensive network of chambers, some of them vaulted, opened before his eyes. He had discovered what may be the first catacombs-a subterranean cemetery with galleries for tombs-ever found in the Southwest. “It was wondrous,” says Hohmann. “This is going to change our understanding of the prehistoric people of this region.”
The find at the settlement of Casa Malpais is only the latest fruit of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act. A sort of stones-and-bones analogue of the law mandating environmental impact statements, it requires that anyone who wants to develop federally owned land first determine whether the site holds archeological treasures. The requirement has bred a whole new industry, contract archeology, that thrives outside the dusty confines of museums and universities. These latterday Indiana Joneses have unearthed the first city hall in New York City, the remains of what may be the Boston Great House where Gov. John Winthrop lived and Los Angeles’s original Chinatown, dating from the 1800s. Springerville (population: 2,000) had hired Hohmann, of the Phoenix consulting firm Louis Berger and Associates, when it wanted to develop Casa Malpais as an archeological park.
The catacombs lie beneath a large pueblo and ceremonial gathering room, built on the largest of five terraced platforms cut into massive basaltic cliffs. Each of the dozens of tunnels in the catacombs has its own natural entrance, varying from small circular openings to door-size passageways, and leads to vaulted chambers as big as 20 feet high and 100 feet long. The Mogollon apparently constructed the rooms out of a natural underground labyrinth. Hohmann’s team found traces of human remains as well as soil that the Mogollon may have brought in to form floors in which to inter the dead. “It looks like we’re dealing with an interesting variation on how people dealt with death,” says Stephen Lekson of the Museum of New Mexico.
Why did the Mogollon not bury their dead in an unused room of the pueblo, or an adjacent cemetery, as did other Southwestern Indians? Earlier digs at Casa Malpais told archeologists that these mountain people farmed corn, squash and other crops, hunted antelope, deer, elk and turkey, and were skilled artisans: their bone jewelry, including barrettes, is some of the finest found in the Southwest. But their religious, social and cultural life remains an enigma, as does the reason they disappeared so suddenly in 1400. The guess is that they succumbed to a prolonged drought. The site may supply answers, but researchers warn that “It’s a little early to decide that Casa Malpais is the new Pompeii,” as Lekson puts it. The find has not undergone scholarly evaluation. And Hohmann’s means of announcing it - to reporters after a presentation at a meeting of the Society for American Archaeology last month-was unorthodox.
Still, if past digs are any guide, this one could prove invaluable for understanding the Southwest’s Indians: relics of death often reveal as much about a vanished people as do the artifacts of life. The discovery that Neanderthals buried their dead, sometimes with flowers, electrified anthropology with its suggestion that people considered nasty and brutish had a conception of an afterlife. A carefully laid out corpse tells scientists that a society thought of its dead as more than rotting flesh. A disarticulated skeleton may imply that the dead body was moved about. North American Plains Indians of the 19th century wrapped a corpse in a shroud, arranged it on a scaffold and buried it only when the flesh rotted, suggesting a complex culture with a rich spiritual life.
Graves may also show where a person ranked in the social hierarchy, and when she acquired that status. The flattened foreheads of the Maya mark those born to a high station (much as foot-binding was a sign of status in pre Mao China), for instance, while gold ornaments and broken spears identify a Peruvian as an ancient Moche leader. The very presence of such class divisions is evidence of social and economic sophistication. And worldly goods in a tomb suggest a belief that, for a pleasant afterlife, the corpse would do well to bring along what he had here-be it Emperor Qin Shi’s soldiers or King Tut’s chariot.
New techniques turn bones into texts on the deceased’s health and habits. Large molars with thick enamel suggest a diet of seeds and nuts, for instance. A thin mineral deposit, visible on X-rays of arm and leg bones, forms during an extended period of malnutrition, stress or fever, and thus can be a barometer of well-being. Finding the bones of an elderly Neanderthal with serious arthritis was evidence that these early humans cared even for those who could not work, and nurtured them long and well enough to see them into old age.
It’s too soon to tell whether Casa Malpais will yield similar insights, but Springerville believes it has gotten its money’s worth. It hopes to develop the site into a “living archeological park” where visitors can study and even help excavate pueblos. (Out of respect, the catacombs will not be disturbed further.) Already, word of the find has attracted tour buses, and at the local motor inn business is up.
