Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory
Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory

Author: Linda S. Cordell

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2006-05-28

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 0817353518

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Emerging from a School of American Research, this work reviews the general status of archaeological knowledge in 9 key regions of the Southwest to examine broader questions of cultural development, which affected the Southwest as a whole, and to consider an overall conceptual model of the prehistoric Southwest after the advent of sedentism.

The Anasazi in a Changing Environment
The Anasazi in a Changing Environment

Author: George J. Gumerman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1988-10-27

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9780521346313

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An outline of a 1000 year chronicle of environmental and cultural history which attempts to explain broad patterns of interaction between humans and their environment. It uses North American geological and botanical remains, and looks at the behaviour of the Anasazi - prehistoric Pueblo Indians.

Living and Leaving
Living and Leaving

Author: Donna M. Glowacki

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2015-04-02

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 081650248X

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The Mesa Verde migrations in the thirteenth century were an integral part of a transformative period that forever changed the course of Pueblo history. For more than seven hundred years, Pueblo people lived in the Northern San Juan region of the U.S. Southwest. Yet by the end of the 1200s, tens of thousands of Pueblo people had left the region. Understanding how it happened and where they went are enduring questions central to Southwestern archaeology. Much of the focus on this topic has been directed at understanding the role of climate change, drought, violence, and population pressure. The role of social factors, particularly religious change and sociopolitical organization, are less well understood. Bringing together multiple lines of evidence, including settlement patterns, pottery exchange networks, and changes in ceremonial and civic architecture, this book takes a historical perspective that naturally forefronts the social factors underlying the depopulation of Mesa Verde. Author Donna M. Glowacki shows how “living and leaving” were experienced across the region and what role differing stressors and enablers had in causing emigration. The author’s analysis explains how different histories and contingencies—which were shaped by deeply rooted eastern and western identities, a broad-reaching Aztec-Chaco ideology, and the McElmo Intensification—converged, prompting everyone to leave the region. This book will be of interest to southwestern specialists and anyone interested in societal collapse, transformation, and resilience.

The Reconstructed Past
The Reconstructed Past

Author: John H. Jameson

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2004-01-13

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0759115893

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To reconstruct or not to reconstruct? That is the question facing many agencies and site managers throughout the world. While reconstructed sites provide a three-dimensional pedagogic environment in which visitors can acquire a heightened sense of the past, an ethical conflict emerges when on-site reconstructions and restorations contribute to the damage or destruction of the original archaeological record. The case studies in this volume contribute to the ongoing debates between data and material authenticity and educational and interpretive value of reconstructions. Discussing diverse reconstruction sites from the Golan Region to Colonial Williamsburg, the authors present worldwide examples that have been affected by agency policies, divergent presentation philosophies, and political and economic realities.

Chaco and After in the Northern San Juan
Chaco and After in the Northern San Juan

Author: Catherine M. Cameron

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2018-06-27

Total Pages: 854

ISBN-13: 0816538751

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Chaco Canyon, the great Ancestral Pueblo site of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, remains a central problem of Southwestern archaeology. Chaco, with its monumental “great houses,” was the center of a vast region marked by “outlier” great houses. The canyon itself has been investigated for over a century, but only a few of the more than 200 outlier great houses—key to understanding Chaco and its times—have been excavated. This volume explores the Chaco and post-Chaco eras in the northern San Juan area through extensive excavations at the Bluff Great House, a major Chaco “outlier” in Utah. Bluff’s massive great house, great kiva, and earthen berms are described and compared to other great houses in the northern Chaco region. Those assessments support intriguing new ideas about the Chaco region and the effect of the collapse of Chaco Canyon on “outlying” great houses. New insights from the Bluff Great House clarify the construction and use of great houses during the Chaco era and trace the history of great houses in the generations after Chaco’s decline. An innovative comparative study of the northern and southern portions of the Chaco world (the northern San Juan area around Bluff and the Cibola area around Zuni) leads to new ideas about population aggregation and regional abandonment in the Southwest. Appendixes present details and descriptions of artifacts recovered from Bluff: ceramics, projectile points, pollen analyses, faunal remains, bone tools, ornaments, and more. This book is one of only a handful of reports on Chacoan great houses in the northern San Juan region. It provides an in-depth study of the Chaco era and clarifies the relationship of “outlying” great houses to Chaco Canyon. Research at the Bluff Great House begins to answer key questions about the nature of Chaco and its region, and the history of the northern San Juan in the Chaco and post-Chaco worlds.