Foundations of Anasazi Culture
Foundations of Anasazi Culture

Author: Paul F. Reed

Publisher: University of Utah Press

Published: 2002-08-29

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780874807455

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This major synthesis of work explores new evidence gathered at Basketmaker III sites on the Colorado Plateau in search of further understanding of Anasazi development. Since the 1960s, large-scale cultural resource management projects have revealed the former presence of Anasazi within the entire northern Southwest. These discoveries have resulted in a greatly expanded view of the BMIII period (A.D. 550-750) which immediately proceeds the Pueblo phase. Particularly noteworthy are finding of Basketmaker remains under those of later periods and in sites with open settings, as opposed to the more classic Basketmaker cave and rock shelter sites. Foundations of Anasazi Culture explores this new evidence in search of further understanding of Anasazi development. Several chapters address the BMII-BMIII transition, including the initial production and use of pottery, greater reliance on agriculture, and the construction of increasingly elaborate structures. Other chapters move beyond the transitional period to discuss key elements of the Anasazi lifestyle, including the use of gray-,red-, and white-ware ceramics, pit structures, storage cists, surface rooms, full dependence on agriculture, and varying degrees of social specialization and differentiation. A number of contributions address one or more of these issues as they occur at specific sites. Other contributors consider the material culture of the period in terms of common elements in architecture, ceramics, lithic technology, and decorative media. This work on BMIII sites on the Colorado Plateau will be useful to anyone with an interest in the earliest days of Anasazi civilization.

The Origins of Southwestern Agriculture
The Origins of Southwestern Agriculture

Author: R. G. Matson

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2016-12-15

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0816536767

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Presents a new model for the origins of Basketmaker II culture based on the evolution of maize use, focusing on the changes in maize growing rather than on the changes in, or to, the people involved.

The American Southwest and Mesoamerica
The American Southwest and Mesoamerica

Author: Jonathon E. Ericson

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1489911499

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Regional approaches to the study of prehistoric exchange have generated much new knowledge about intergroup and regional interaction. The American South west and Mesoamerica: Systems of Prehistoric Exchange is the first of two volumes that seek to provide current information regarding regional exchange on a conti nental basis. From a theoretical perspective, these volumes provide important data for the comparative analysis of regional systems relative to sociopolitical organization from simple hunter-gatherers to those of complex sociopolitical entities like the state. Although individual regional exchange systems are unique for each region and time period, general patterns emerge relative to sOciopolitical organization. Of significant interest to us are the dynamic processes of change, stability, rate of growth, and collapse of regional exchange systems relative to sociopolitical complexity. These volumes provide basic data to further our under standing of prehistoric exchange systems. The volume presents our current state of knowledge about regional exchange systems in the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. Each chapter synthesizes the research findings of a number of other researchers in order to provide a synchronic view of regional interaction for a specific chronological period. A diachronic view is also prOvided for regional interaction in the context of the developments in regional SOciopolitical organization. Most authors go beyond description by proposing alternative models within which to understand regional interaction. The book is organized by geographical and chronological divisions to pro vide units of the broader mosaic of prehistoric exchange systems.

Prehistoric Culture Change on the Colorado Plateau
Prehistoric Culture Change on the Colorado Plateau

Author: Shirley Powell

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2016-02

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0816532877

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A collection of writings by participants in the Black Mesa Archaeological Project offers a synthesis of Kayenta-area archaeology, examining the ancestral Puebloan and Navajo occupation of the Four Corners region, and analysing faunal, lithic, ceramic, chronometric, and human osteological data, to construct an account of the prehistory and ethnohistory of northern Arizona that demonstrates how organizational variation and other aspects of culture change are largely a response to a changing natural environment.

The Archaeology of Rock-Art
The Archaeology of Rock-Art

Author: Christopher Chippindale

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 9780521576192

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Pictures, painted and carved in caves and on open rock surfaces, are amongst our loveliest relics from prehistory. This pioneering set of sparkling essays goes beyond guesses as to what the pictures mean, instead exploring how we can reliably learn from rock-art as a material record of distant times: in short, rock-art as archaeology. Sometimes contact-period records offer some direct insight about indigenous meaning, so we can learn in that informed way. More often, we have no direct record, and instead have to use formal methods to learn from the evidence of the pictures themselves. The book's eighteen papers range wide in space and time, from the Palaeolithic of Europe to nineteenth-century Australia. Using varied approaches within the consistent framework of informed and proven methods, they make key advances in using the striking and reticent evidence of rock-art to archaeological benefit.