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.

 

Linda S. Cordell is Director of the University of Colorado Museum, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, andauthor of Archaeology of the Southwest and Ancient Pueblo Peoples. George J. Gumerman is a Senior Scholar at the School of American Research and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute where he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs.

"The best current summary of southwestern archaeology. . . . Cordell and Gumerman propose a 'general temporal scheme with behavioral referents for the Southwest as a whole,' that is, a 'Pecos System' that crosscuts the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon. . . . The volume may be profitably read by anyone with a basic knowledge of southwestern prehistory. Each author is an established authority for his or her area, and each is an original and innovative thinker."-- American Indian Quarterly