New research supporting the theory that some of the Ancestral Puebloans were cannibals was discussed Friday by field-research presenters at the 2000 Pecos Conference, a gathering of Southwestern archaeologists and researchers at the Dolores Line Camp.

The conference, co-sponsored by Mesa Verde National Park, the BLM Anasazi Heritage Center, the Cortez Cultural Center, the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, and the Hisatsinom Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society, kicked off on Thursday evening.

"The existence of cannibalism is one of the most controversial issues in the archaeology of the Southwest," said Richard Marlar, research and lab director at the Denver Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Marlar and several others studied the Cowboy Wash site on the southern piedmont of Sleeping Ute Mountain.

The study revealed that cut, broken, and bashed human bones were in the ruins. "It looks to us as though they had been processed to be cooked in a pot," said Banks Leonard, an archaeologist with Soil Systems, Inc..

The scorching patterns on the human bones looked like cooking and defleshing took place before and after the fire, Leonard said.

The artifacts found in three of the pit structures on the southern piedmont indicated that the area was suddenly abandoned around 1150 A.D., he said.

The site also contained a tool kit that was probably used to butcher human victims. It tested positive for human blood.

The most conclusive findings came from the testing of human fecal matter for human remains. Mylar tested the fecal matter for human myoglobin. Myoglobin is a protein molecule found in the muscles of humans. Extensive testing revealed that the fecal matter contained only human myoglobin, and none from native animals.

"The only species we have been able to detect in the human coprolite (fossilized human excrement) is human," said Marlar. The biochemical method revealed human brain protein in the coprolite as well.

Researchers also studied the cause of rib lesions, or bony plaques formed on the internal surface of ribs, that have been found on skeletons in the area.

Patricia Lambert, a researcher with Utah State University, determined that the cause was most likely an outbreak of puliminary tuberculosis.

She studied 51 skeletons from sites that dated from 1075 to 1280 A.D. She said that seven of the people were found multilated, cut up, and burned. Several skeletons of children were found with cranial trauma.

Lambert said that social stresses likely caused the tuberculosis pathogen to become active. "People seemed to be having a really hard time," she said, "but social stresses were exacerbating the problems."