British Museum realises 'vase' is in fact an ancient mace-head upside down

one of my favorite books of all time.

I actively look for these books I remember little snatches of... I thought this one was a Stanislaw Lem book, and though I really, really enjoyed "Memoirs found in a bathtub" - but that wasn't this. The chant of "sanitized for your protection" during the ritual use of the toilet really sticks out in my childhood memory. I wonder if it will be as great, reading it as an adult?

I doubt kids in the past would hear from their parents such bullshit like "you can't dice these eggs with this, it's for dicing onions", etc.

Chaco Canyon is not very close to any large-ish city to begin with. Just driving from Albuquerque is about 3 hours to get to the 4-wheel-drive-only road into the park. That road is generously described as 'washboard' in the best of conditions, which are rare. Once there, there is only tent camping. Water and toilets are available, but not any food or drink though, 'amenities' are sparse. It's difficult to get to and stay at, so you really have to want to be there. Though I may not know too much about the current zeitgeist of Insta' , I'd imagine that Chaco is not 'worth' the trip if you are just there for the photos and likes. However, if you are there to experience the archeology, the people, and the astounding mystery of the Chacoans, the effort is very much worth it. Besides, the stars at night are some of the clearest I've ever seen, and those show up terribly on a phone camera.

Acoustic studies of the kiva pits show that giant drums, beaten with the feet, had resonances that may have interacted with canyon walls too. But the largest kiva in existence at Chetro Ketl, perfectly south of Pueblo Bonito, is no where near the canyon walls and the size of the kiva makes the resonance in the far sub-sonic for human hearing. In the kiva at Chetro Ketl, there is also evidence of layers of burn sand and dust going down many meters into the ground. There's at least a dozen PhD theses waiting in that dirt.

Also, the layout of Pueblo Bonito is only the first few stories of the building. For preservation, they have buried the lower stories of the pueblo. When you look at the full design plan, it makes zero sense. The mostly rectangular rooms have doors that lead to all kinds of weird places. There are nearly no hearths, and the rooms would have been in total darkness, as little evidence is found of suit on what remains of the roofs (lots of destruction has taken place, so who knows in the end).

We do have evidence from the oldest parts of Pueblo Bonito (the Pueblo was built in stages over about 300 years), that near total darkness was the norm. Skeletons of macaques (yes, from the Yucatan!) show severe deformities associated with lack of sunlight. Also, pottery shards have cacao residue on them from other parts of Central America. The oldest part of Pueblo Bonito is also the only part that has burial of human remains. There, 4 people (likely some form of sub-priest) were interned above 2 other people (likely higher priest-like persons), one of whom likely died of leg wounds just before burial, all in the structure and above the ground level at the time. Coincidentally, half of all the turquoise ever discovered via archeology was found with these 6 people. That's a LOT of turquoise. No other bodies have ever been discovered in the Canyon and very little 'trash' is in the Canyon as well.

Sorry for the ramble. But Chaco really is a place of questions, not answers. It's very unique in the world for this reason and well worth the visit and deep-dives into it.

Most Puebloan peoples seemed to have gathered at Chaco a few times a year, during the heyday. There is some evidence of continuous habitation at Chaco, but not as many as you'd expect. To me, an interesting thing is that the Puebloan peoples do not share genetic markers that would indicate that Chaco was used as a place to mix and mingle the bloodlines, so to speak. It's very strange that the young people would not 'notice' each other in the large gatherings every year. Also, the kivas have very different usages in the different tribes, despite their near universal religious significance in all the tribes. Some are used as sweat-lodge type structures, some are sprouting houses for crops, some have foot powered drums in them, etc.

So despite the common heritage, each tribe of Puebloan peoples is still very distinct, even genetically. Again, Chaco is a place of questions, not answers. The closer you look, the stranger it gets.

It is possible that a mace head with cuneiform inscriptions served a ceremonial purpose. Executions of captured prisoners, maybe? I imagine it would have been like Negan from the Walking Dead, except barbed wire hadn't been invented yet.

You say that, but there's data on media from 40 years ago that can't be accessed either because of bit rot or because the technology no longer exists. Hell, most of the content on the internet from 20 years ago has since vanished forever.