The Mystery of the Anasazi Civilization

The surface of the Earth over the last two million years provides evidence of the occurrence of eighteen ice ages each lasting about a hundred thousand years. Between them there were short periods of warming, which lasted no more than twelve thousand years. Those were the times when new life cycles would begin. Life blossomed, the planet turned green, and the sounds of various living beings could be heard most everywhere.
We are now at the end of one such temporary warm period which began 11,500 years ago. We are rapidly approaching another ice age. Climate changes will intensify, cold regions will become even colder, warm regions even warmer. Another cycle will come to an end. The dominant civilization will come to an end and it will take many generations before another cycle starts over from the beginning.
The thread which connects the civilizations of various warm periods will be lost. Or it may survive here and there through oral tradition or perhaps some written document. Then it will become a legend which will, with time, be dissolved in the forces which are connected by myth and imagination.
Will our distant descendants know about us or will they think that they are the “first intelligent civilization on Earth” just as we proudly imagine ourselves to be, in our ignorance? Will they be able to appreciate the variety and spirituality which we seem to be incapable of comprehending? Looking toward the future, we shall talk about the past. Not a particularly distant past. A people who arose at the same time that we ourselves did. And who shared one small part of our planet. And about whom we have forgotten as if they had never existed.
Not much of them has been left behind. The ruins of buildings and structures for astronomy. An occasional glyph in the stone. And an occasional legend told by those who came long after they had departed.
Three hundred years is not a long time for a civilization. In fact, by strictly scientific standards it would be difficult to talk about this as a “civilization”. Especially since we do not have any reliable data about where they came from, there are no written documents describing what they knew, and it is still a mystery as to why they abandoned their homes never again to return.
Their cities have been named by names which we have given them. We do not know what names they gave them. The purpose of certain strange structures we can only guess at. That is the challenge of this book. From the depth of cosmic history to bring to the surface at least some small part of the knowledge of those who are no longer here.
So that it should not be forgotten.
We call them the “Anasazi”.