Solving the puzzle of the 700-year-old Anasazi Cave beans
Solving the puzzle of the 700-year-old Anasazi Cave beans The Legend of the Anasazi Cave Beans You've probably heard some version of the mysterious 700-year-old beans found in some unnamed Anasazi (the Ancestral Puebloan) cave presumably in the Lowry Ruins of Southwestern Colorado, a flat land with rich soil, with cave dwellings carved in places with deep sandstone canyons. If the legend is to be believed then the speckled beans, deep maroon with white flecks discovered deep in a cave, carefully preserved in earthen vessels in the early 1980s, surprisingly germinated. Today more than one seed company sells the beans, Fabaceae Phaseolus vulgaris , as Heirloom Aztec Cave Bean, New Mexico appaloosa, Jacob’s Cattle or New Mexico Cave Bean. The Anasazi Caves Anasazi is the Navajo word for “the ancient ones” or "enemy ancestors" The Anasazi (the Ancestral Puebloan) once inhabited vast swathes of land compassing almost 10,000 square miles (26,000 square km), t...