An anthropologist in Arizona says alleged incidences of cannibalism among Indians in the Southwest can be explained another way.

Andrew Darling, who has been working with the Gila River Indian Community, says American archaeologists "have gone to very great lengths to prove that cannibalism took place in the Southwest." But he says there is an alternate explanation: witchcraft.

In research he is presenting tonight, Darling says ritual witch killings account for deaths that others attribute to cannibalism. He bases his theory on a decade of research in the Southwest.

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New theory: Early Indians killed witches (The Arizona Daily Star 12/6)