HereTakeThisBooger

HereTakeThisBooger t1_iu5u6jw wrote

A similar thing happened in the southwest U.S. Anthropologists were studying the people who lived in the Four Corners region between about 700-1200 CE before abruptly disappearing. In the 1930s, recognizing that then-current Navajo people might have some cultural connection to the lost civilization, scientists asked Navajo historians about them. The Navajo referred to them as Anasazi, and for close to 100 years, scientific documents and museum displays readily referred to the lost civilization as the Anasazi.

The only problem was that in the Navajo language, "Anasazi" means "ancient enemies." In other words, the Navajo viewed the lost civilization as interlopers and enemies of their Navajo ancestors. It took about 75 years before anybody noticed, but once they did, it was decided that calling this lost civilization "enemies" probably wasn't the best idea. So "Anasazi" is now a deprecated term, and the lost civilization is officially known as the "Ancestral Puebloans."

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