“This is the barbecue pit,” says Blackhorse, pointing to the foot of a well-preserved, two-story building that archaeologists have interpreted as a rare, above-ground religious chamber known as a tower kiva. Unlike most Navajo who have strong taboos against dealing with the deceased, Blackhorse is not afraid of burials or places associated with the dead, such as ancient sites like Kin Klizhin.

“Yep,” agrees Stein. “They be cooking up some stuff here.” He walks carefully around the tower kiva’s perimeter as if he were examining it for the first time. A beanpole with a droopy mustache, Stein is an Anglo who has spent the better part of his life safeguarding archaeological sites for the Navajo Nation. He has put in 40 years studying Chaco alone and is the supervisory archaeologist for the Chaco Sites Protection Program, which represents Navajo interests in the management of sites associated with the canyon.

Both are well regarded in Southwestern archaeological circles, but I’m confused by their talk of cookouts. The National Park Service (NPS) signpost at the path’s entrance vaguely describes Kin Klizhin as a place of “ceremonial function.” But Blackhorse explains that the kiva served as a human sacrificial altar and a center for ritual cannibalism. His story, like everything else about Chaco according to Navajo belief, is about the Gambler, an evil magician with a hooked, crooked nose who enslaved the ancient Navajo and forced them to build the great houses of Chaco.

According to Blackhorse, the Gambler rode out to Kin Klizhin on a large reptile that was his guardian. His priests sacrificed humans at the site, and the Gambler, says Blackhorse, came here “to swallow their souls.” This is not the tale the NPS tells visitors to Chaco.

Much of Chaco’s history remains shrouded in mystery, but the orthodox interpretation is that by 1050, it had become a ceremonial, administrative, and economic center. The massive great houses, the largest of which stood more than three stories tall, were connected by roads linking 150 of them in the Four Corners region.

Most scholars agree Chaco served as a special gathering place, where many Pueblo peoples and clans converged to share their ceremonies and traditions. But Blackhorse and Stein disagree with this benign view of Chaco. They also don’t think that the modern Hopi of Arizona and the Rio Grande Pueblo groups of New Mexico are the sole heirs to Chaco’s cultural heritage. Instead, the two contend that Chaco was a melting pot of various Native American groups, and argue that Navajo cosmology, oral tradition, and Chaco’s building design all point to a strong link between the Navajo and the Anasazi. Blackhorse’s master narrative is straight out of Navajo oral history: Chaco was designed and built by the Navajo at the behest of the Gambler, a Lex Luthor-type villain who came from the south and enslaved the Navajo after beating them at games. He then used Chaco’s dark energy to gain control over nature and build a sprawling empire in the Four Corners. According to the Navajo legend, the Gambler also enslaved the Pueblo people.

But the evidence for this story in the archaeological record is slight. When I ask NPS archaeologist Roger Moore if he knows anything about Kin Klizhin being used for human sacrifice and cannibalism, he tells me the site hasn’t been officially excavated. “There’s no way of knowing,” he says. “From an archaeological standpoint, we can’t substantiate it and we can’t deny it.” Stein concedes the theory that the Navajo descend from the Anasazi is “incredibly unpopular” among Southwestern archaeologists. (The very word Anasazi, a Navajo noun Blackhorse translates as “ancient ones,” is controversial.) The NPS, despite its Pueblo-centric narrative, is more receptive. Prompted by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the NPS ruled in 1999 that the Navajo–along with 18 modern-day Pueblo tribes–had ancestral affiliation to Chaco Canyon, which borders the Navajo reservation. The decision came after federal researchers completed an exhaustive inventory of Chaco’s collection of human remains and ceremonial objects.

First built around 1700, Three Corn Ruin is one of many pueblitos, or small masonry dwellings, that the Navajo constructed on mesas and other defensible locations in the Four Corners area. (Courtesy National Park Service)

But no archaeological evidence for the Navajo’s prehistoric ties to Chaco was cited in the decision. Rather, the NPS relied largely on Navajo oral history. The story of the Gambler, and its significance in Navajo culture, was cited specifically.

The decision stunned the archaeological world. The scientific consensus is that the Navajo belong to the Athabascan language group, whose members are found mainly in Alaska and Canada (the Apache are also Athabascan). It’s thought that the ancestors of the modern Navajo didn’t even enter the Four Corners until about the 1500s, almost 300 years after Chaco was abandoned. Archaeologists believe the Navajo adopted some Pueblo traits after their arrival in the Southwest. Following the Pueblo Revolt against the Spaniards in 1680, some Pueblo groups sought refuge with the Navajo. The two groups intermarried and their cultures became entwined to a certain extent. “The Navajo weren’t Navajo until they started integrating Pueblo traits,” contends Michael Yeatts, an archaeologist with the Hopi tribe. As an example, he points to the Navajo Yeibechi healing ceremony, which he says resembles certain Hopi rituals.

There are other intriguing cultural similarities between the Navajo and Pueblo tribes. The Acoma, a Pueblo tribe in New Mexico, have a similar Gambler story that explains the ruins of Chaco, but omits the Navajo. Additionally, numerous mythological characters, including the Hero Twins, also found in Mesoamerican lore, figure prominently in both Navajo and Pueblo origin stories.

Unsurprisingly, the Navajo chafe at the notion that they co-opted Pueblo history as their own. “We have always been here,” says Blackhorse, referring to the Four Corners area.Read more here .