by Douglas Preston
More than a century ago, American travellers in the Southwest were astounded to find ruined cities and vast cliff dwellings dotting the desert landscape. Surely, they thought, a great civilization had once flourished here. It looked to them as if the people who created it had simply walked away and vanished: the ruins were often littered with gorgeous painted pottery and also contained grinding stones, baskets, sandals hanging on pegs, and granaries full of corn. The Navajo Indians, who were occupying much of the territory where this lost civilization once existed, called them the Anasazi--a word meaning "Ancient Enemy"--and they avoided the ruins, believing they were inhabited by chindi, or ghosts.
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