Massacre at Sacred Ridge
A violent Pueblo incident sparks debate regarding prehistoric genocide
By Bruce Bower
Attackers with a deadly plan climbed a knoll to a Pueblo village called Sacred Ridge around 1,200 years ago. What happened next was anything but sacred.
At least 35 people, roughly half of those living in the village, were brutalized, killed and sliced into thousands of small pieces. Fellow Pueblo from nearby villages battered victims’ feet hard enough to break toes and fracture heels. Blows delivered with blunt weapons crushed the faces and heads of men, women and children. Scalps, and possibly eyes and ears, were removed, perhaps as trophies.
Wielders of sharp stone implements chopped up victims’ bodies in at least four Sacred Ridge structures. Attackers removed the roof of a large house and threw in heaps of human body parts, some of which had been fished from burning hearths. Several village dogs met the same fate.
“This extreme level of violence came as a complete surprise,” says archaeologist James Potter, who directed the excavations that uncovered this murder at Sacred Ridge. “I was blown away from the start at how many human remains we were finding.”