Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

In the past month, several articles have appeared in the local AZ press promulgating theories as to which tribe is related to the Anasazi. Recent scientific discoveries provide fresh information concerning the underlying cause for the largest forced relocation in US history because archaeologists using the latest technology for studying human DNA have unearthed evidence that calls into question the historical assumptions on which US policy was based. In the Black Mesa region of Northeastern Arizona, over 12,000 Navajo have been forcibly relocated as a result of US legislation that ended their right to remain on land within a reservation created in 1882. The relocation has cost US taxpayers over $400 million and has had a devastating impact on the Navajo. A former director of the relocation program, Leon Berger resigned saying that the program was "a tragedy of genocide and injustice that will be a blot on the conscience of this country for many generations".

The events in question began a thousand years ago when the Hopi, a pueblo tribe, took up residence upon the buttes which they have continued to occupy until the present time, making their villages the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the United States. Archaeologists have long been aware of other pueblo tribes, collectively called the Anasazi, whose occupancy in the region preceded the Hopi. Thousands of Anasazi sites have been identified on Black Mesa. Also at the same time, a migration of Athabascan people from Canada was in progress that would ultimately reach the region. When the Europeans arrived five hundred years later, the Hopi remained in their villages on the buttes, but the Anasazi had disappeared and the surrounding region was occupied by the Navajo, whose language was clearly derived from the Athabascan migrants.

In 1882, the US created a large reservation that was centered around the Hopi villages, but also included surrounding land occupied by the Navajo. When the US later transferred much of the control of the reservations to tribal governments, the control of this reservation was given to a government consisting exclusively of the Hopi, which left the status of the Navajo upon the rest of the reservation in bureaucratic limbo. In 1940, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs proposed making a region adjacent to the Hopi villages called District 6 into an exclusively Hopi reservation and transferring jurisdiction over the surrounding areas to the neighboring Navajo tribal government, but this solution was never implemented.

The discovery of mineral wealth on Black Mesa increased the stakes in the situation. The Navajo-occupied areas of the 1882 Reservation contained deposits of low-sulfur coal with a value estimated in the billions of dollars. High profile attorneys entered the situation to fight for control of this wealth, and in 1956, the courts were asked to resolve the land title in a lawsuit known as Healing v. Jones.

In the trial, the attorneys for the Hopi convinced the court that the Navajo were recent emigrants into the area as shown in the court's decision:

        "No Indians in this country have a longer authenticated history than the Hopi..."

        "From all historic evidence, it appears that the Navajos entered what is now Arizona in the last half of the eighteenth century" [from Healing v Jones, US District Court Arizona, Sept 28, 1962]

The court accepted the premise that the Navajo were encroachers upon traditional Hopi territory, and this played a significant role in its decision to award the Hopi government 100% control of District 6 and a 50% interest in the rest of the 1882 reservation. In 1974, Congress would accept the same arguments in passing legislation partitioning the area outside District 6 into separate Hopi and Navajo territories, and requiring the relocation of all Navajo living in the Hopi Partitioned Lands. The relocation tragedy is ongoing, as many families have resisted relocation efforts for 26 years and are still fighting to remain on their land.

Most archaeologists would strongly dispute the court's assertion that "all historic evidence" pointed to an 18th century arrival for the Navajo. Archaeological studies have demonstrated an Athabascan presence in the region as early as 1500, and many suspect that future discoveries may push back this date several centuries earlier. But some archaeologists have a different interpretation of the ancient history of the region: they question whether it is accurate to describe the Navajo as a purely Athabascan tribe.

While no one disputes the Athabascan-roots of the Navajo language, it has long been recognized that Navajo religion and culture contain a pueblo influence that was much too deep to be explained by casual contact with neighboring tribes. Archaeologist David Brugge suggested that these cultural infusions might have resulted from a different cause: that the current Navajo tribe formed as a synthesis of Anasazi and Athabascan ancestors. In a 1998 paper "Navajo Religion and the Anasazi Connection", David Brugge outlined how the Athabascan emigrants may have absorbed the Anasazi into their tribe.

This theory has received support from recent studies of DNA. Later in 1998, Francine Romero published a paper "A Population Genetic Study of Athabascan-speaking Populations in the American Southwest", which studied founding lineages or haplogroups in mitochondrial DNA samples. The Navajo were found to have a genetic make-up that was a mixture of Athabascan and pueblo haplogroups. In April of 1999, a more startling discovery was announced in the release of a paper "Biological Evidence pertaining to the Navajo Claim of Affiliation with the Anasazi" by Archaeologist David Smith of the University of California at Davis.

Recent advances in technology have allowed the extraction of mitochondrial DNA from prehistoric skeletal material. Dr. Smith was able to examine the haplogroups of ancient Anasazi skeletons and to compare these to samples from current populations. The study showed a makeup that was consistent with previous studies showing the Anasazi to be part of the pueblo family that includes the Hopi and other tribes in the Southwest. But the study also revealed the presence of another haplogroup which appears similar to an "X" haplogroup found in the Navajo but which has not been found in the Hopi. He states that if the Anasazi samples are found to match the "X" haplogroup, "the Navajo- and Tanoan- speaking pueblo groups are likely to include the most genetically defensible candidates for descendants of Anasazi culture in the Southwest".

As Dr. Smith points out, the ethnic characterization of populations formed as an admixture of multiple lineages is not an issue that can be handled just by genetic studies. But the DNA evidence supports evidence from oral histories as well as from religious and cultural studies that suggests a strong connection between the Anasazi and the modern day Navajo. This has always been the understanding of the Navajo. To the extent that the Navajo are at least in part descendants of the Anasazi, their presence in the region may predate that of the Hopi, and in any event they have been joint tenants of the region for over a thousand years.

This evidence calls into question the handling of the situation by the United States government, which based its tragic policies in the region upon a false understanding of history. The 18th century date used in Healing v Jones for the Navajo arrival into the region has long been contradicted by archaeological evidence pushing the date back into the 1500's, and the link to the Anasazi validates a claim to residency that goes back a thousand years. The United States has always justified its extreme and devastating policy of relocation as being necessary to correct a trespass upon Hopi territory by the Navajo. The latest advances in science are adding further proof that the Navajo are residing upon land that their ancestors have occupied since ancient time.

As we near the end days in the relocation resisters struggle to remain on their ancestral land, evidence such as this calls into question the myth upon which the US government was able to "legalize" its actions in the region.

Yours sincerely,

/S/ Marsha Monestersky
Consultant to Sovereign Dineh Nation
Black Mesa, AZ