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"Chaco culture"
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Chaco Canyon
Explores the lives of the site's builders, traces its discovery and scientific investigation, and discusses future study and conservation efforts.
Book
Climate and Culture Change in North America AD 900–1600
Climate change is today's news, but it isn't a new phenomenon. Centuries-long cycles of heating and cooling are well documented for Europe and the North Atlantic. These variations in climate, including the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), AD 900 to 1300, and the early centuries of the Little Ice Age (LIA), AD 1300 to 1600, had a substantial impact on the cultural history of Europe. In this pathfinding volume, William C. Foster marshals extensive evidence that the heating and cooling of the MWP and LIA also occurred in North America and significantly affected the cultural history of Native peoples of the American Southwest, Southern Plains, and Southeast.
Correlating climate change data with studies of archaeological sites across the Southwest, Southern Plains, and Southeast, Foster presents the first comprehensive overview of how Native American societies responded to climate variations over seven centuries. He describes how, as in Europe, the MWP ushered in a cultural renaissance, during which population levels surged and Native peoples substantially intensified agriculture, constructed monumental architecture, and produced sophisticated works of art. Foster follows the rise of three dominant cultural centers-Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, Cahokia on the middle Mississippi River, and Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico-that reached population levels comparable to those of London and Paris. Then he shows how the LIA reversed the gains of the MWP as population levels and agricultural production sharply declined; Chaco Canyon, Cahokia, and Casas Grandes collapsed; and dozens of smaller villages also collapsed or became fortresses.
eBook
The Architecture of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
The structures of Chaco Canyon, built by native peoples between AD 850 and 1130, are among the most compelling ancient monuments on earth. Recognized as a World Heritage Site, these magnificent ruins are consistently featured in scholarly books and popular media. Yet, like Chaco itself, these buildings are anomalous in Southwestern archaeology and much debated.
In a century of study, our understanding and means of approaching these ruins have grown considerably. Important tree-ring dating, GIS research, and computer imaging point to the need for a new volume on Chaco architecture that unifies older information with the new.
The chapters in this volume focus on Chaco Great Houses and consider three overlapping themes: studies of technology and building types, analyses of architectural change, and readings of the built environment. To aid reconsideration there are over 150 maps, floor plans, elevations, and photos, including a number of color illustrations.
eBook
Chaco Revisited
Chaco Canyon, the great Ancestral Pueblo site of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, has inspired excavations and research for more than one hundred years.Chaco Revisitedbrings together an A-team of Chaco scholars to provide an updated, refreshing analysis of over a century of scholarship.In each of the twelve chapters, luminaries from the field of archaeology and anthropology, such as R. Gwinn Vivian, Peter Whiteley, and Paul E. Minnis, address some of the most fundamental questions surrounding Chaco, from agriculture and craft production, to social organization and skeletal analyses. Though varied in their key questions about Chaco, each author uses previous research or new studies to ultimately blaze a trail for future research and discoveries about the canyon.Written by both up-and-coming and well-seasoned scholars of Chaco Canyon,Chaco Revisitedprovides readers with a perspective that is both varied and balanced. Though a singular theory for the Chaco Canyon phenomenon is yet to be reached,Chaco Revisitedbrings a new understanding to scholars: that Chaco was perhaps even more productive and socially complex than previous analyses would suggest.
eBook
A Study of Southwestern Archaeology
In this volume Steve Lekson argues that, for over a century, southwestern archaeology got the history of the ancient Southwest wrong. Instead, he advocates an entirely new approach—one that separates archaeological thought in the Southwest from its anthropological home and moves to more historical ways of thinking. Focusing on the enigmatic monumental center at Chaco Canyon, the book provides a historical analysis of how Southwest archaeology confined itself, how it can break out of those confines, and how it can proceed into the future. Lekson suggests that much of what we believe about the ancient Southwest should be radically revised. Looking past old preconceptions brings a different Chaco Canyon into view: more than an eleventh-century Pueblo ritual center, Chaco was a political capital with nobles and commoners, a regional economy, and deep connections to Mesoamerica. By getting the history right, a very different science of the ancient Southwest becomes possible and archaeology can be reinvented as a very different discipline. Notes https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2019/04/Lekson-Notes.pdf
eBook
The Chaco meridian: one thousand years of political and religious power in the ancient southwest
In this return to his lively, provocative reconceptualization of the meaning of Chaco Canyon and its monumental 11 th -century structures, Stephen H. Lekson expands-over time and distance-our understanding of the political and economic integration of the American Southwest. Lekson's argument that Chaco did not stand alone, but rather was the first of three capitals in a vast networked region incorporating most of the Pueblo world has gained credence over the past 15 years. Here, he marshals new evidence and new interpretations to further the case for ritual astronomical alignment of monumental structures and cities, great ceremonial roads, and the shift of the regional capital first from Chaco Canyon to the Aztec Ruins site and then to Paquimé, all located on the same longitudinal meridian. Along the line from Aztec to Paquimé, Lekson synthesizes 1000 years of Southwestern prehistory-explaining phenomena as diverse as the Great North Road, macaw feathers, Pueblo mythology, the recycling of iconic symbols over time, founder burials, and the rise of kachina ceremonies-to yield a fascinating argument that will interest anyone concerned with the prehistory and history of the American Southwest.
eBook
Engendering Households in the Prehistoric Southwest
The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once described a village as \"deserted\" when all the adult males had vanished. While his statement is from the first half of the twentieth century, it nonetheless illustrates an oversight that has persisted during most of the intervening decades.Now Southwestern archaeologists have begun to delve into the task of \"engendering\" their sites. Using a \"close to the ground\" approach, the contributors to this book seek to engender the prehistoric Southwest by examining evidence at the household level.Focusing on gendered activities in household contexts throughout the southwestern United States, this book represents groundbreaking work in this area. The contributors view households as a crucial link to past activities and behavior, and by engendering these households, we can gain a better understanding of their role in prehistoric society. Gender-structured household activities, in turn, can offer insight into broader-scale social and economic factors. The chapters offer a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to engendering households and examine topics such as the division of labor, gender relations, household ritual, ceramic and ground stone production and exchange, and migration.Engendering Households in the Prehistoric Southwestultimately addresses broader issues of interest to many archaeologists today, including households and their various forms, identity and social boundary formation, technological style, and human agency. Focusing on gendered activities in household contexts throughout the southwestern United States, this book represents groundbreaking work in this area. The contributors view households as a crucial link to past activities and behavior, and by engendering these households, we can gain a better understanding of their role in prehistoric society. Gender-structured household activities, in turn, can offer insight into broader-scale social and economic factors.
eBook
The Chaco meridian
Revisiting his ground-breaking synthesis of Southwestern prehistory, Lekson expands our understanding of the political and economic integration of the American Southwest to encapsulate over 1000 years and 1000 km, from AD 500 to the arrival of the conquistadors, and from Chaco Canyon to Aztec Ruins to Paquime and even Culiacan in Sinaloa, Mexico.
eBook
Chaco Canyon
New Mexico, northwestern corner. Here, amidst the greasewood bushes and clouds of dry, sandy soil, are the silent ruins of colossal mud and wooden houses, a mysterious remnant of an ancient civilization. In Chaco Canyon, readers learn about the discovery of these amazing structures and follow generations of archaeologists as they uncover the secrets of the canyon's past. A veritable early Native American detective story, the book includes numerous sidebars on archaeological techniques, timelines, related sites, photographs and illustrations of the sites and artifacts, and a fascinating interview with archaeologist Gwinn Vivian who grew up in the canyon. Series copy: Buried treasure, high adventure, lost civilizations--Join archaeologists as they dig for the past at exciting sites around the world. From the first excitement of the original find to the excavation and scientific breakthrough, these richly illustrated books team professional archaeologists with established science writers to bring the fascinating world of the archaeological process to life.
eBook