Digging for the Truth

Mystery of the Anasazi (1x13)

: 09, 2005

In the American Southwest, there is no more puzzling mystery than the magnificent stone cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. Why did the Anasazi Indians suddenly move their villages to these perilous cliffs in the 13th century--and then abandon them just decades later--and seemingly disappear from history? Was it drought? Invading tribes? Or an insidious ""cancer"" from within that may have caused them to turn to fierce warfare and even cannibalism? In search of answers, our host, the intrepid explorer and survival expert Josh Bernstein, travels from Mesa Verde, Colorado to remote canyons in Utah where the Anasazi took refuge. Piecing together the story from both archaeologists and Native Americans, he finally ends up, in his search for the truth, in the eerie and desolate ruins of the Anasazi's greatest cultural center--Chaco Canyon.