With all of their talents, there may have been a dark side to the Anasazi. Recent discoveries have revealed evidence that the Anasazi may have practiced cannibalism. Bones and skeletons have been uncovered with telltale signs of having been cooked and scraped clean of flesh. Some archaeologists believe that proves cannibalism was practiced. Others claim the damage to the bones was done during burial practices. Some believe they may have performed rituals to dismember and desecrate the bodies of enemies they had captured or killed in battle. Once again, everyone simply agrees to disagree.
So why were the Anasazi cities abandoned in the 12th and 13th centuries? What happened to the engineers who designed the cities? It's just not human nature for creative people to stop creating, yet there was no natural progression of new cities with better designs to follow those that were abandoned. When settlers from the East began moving into the area a few hundred years later, they found the Anasazi cities unoccupied and decaying. Local tribes considered the ruins to be haunted and avoided going anywhere near them. Nothing existed to indicate any of the crafts and talents exhibited by those who built the Anasazi cities had been passed down to other tribes.
Lone Writer (Larry E. Heck) does not claim to be any kind of expert on the Anasazi or on Indian tribes, but he wonders if the answer may be in the definition, "Ancient Enemy." Although most historians believe the Anasazi left the cities and blended in with other tribes, does it make sense that those tribes would welcome people into their midst who were considered enemies? Maybe it's more logical to assume an all-out war broke out, and the Anasazi were killed off. They simply took their engineering talents with them to the grave.