In Piros and Prehistory, David Leedom Shaul turns his attention to the Piro language, once spoken by the people of the Piro pueblos in New Mexico but extinct since approximately the year 1900. While arguments have been made in favor of Piro belonging to the Tiwa branch of the Tanoan family, Shaul counters this classification with a detailed rebuttal, firmly establishing Piro within the Tanoan family but outside of the Tiwa branch.

Shaul’s arguments use linguistic analyses coupled with historic and prehistoric records of migration and cultural interaction. Following the establishment of Piro as a Tanoan language, much of the linguistic analysis involves determining the aspects of Piro that were inherited from the earlier Proto-Tanoan versus those that were incorporated later as a result of borrowing from other languages through cultural interaction. This book lays out the linguistic argument that the similarities between Piro and Tiwan languages result from borrowing, not common ancestry, and it provides a record of contact between groups and linguistic evolution based on these movements.

David Leedom Shaul is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of A Linguistic Prehistory of Western North America: The Impact of Uto-Aztecan; Ausaima Language and Culture: Perspectives on Ancient California; Esselen Studies: Language, Culture and Prehistory; and Salinan Language Studies, among others.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments

Part I
Chapter 1. The Tanoan Languages and the Piro Language
Chapter 2. Piro as a Tanoan Language
Chapter 3. Piro Not as a Tiwan Language
Chapter 4. The Tanoan Homeland
Chapter 5. The Tanoan Dialect Chain
Chapter 6. Piro in the Context of Tanoan
Chapter 7. Piro and Contact with Non-Tanoan Languages: The Jornada Linguistic Area
Chapter 8. The Pecos Component in Tanoan and Southwestern Prehistory
Chapter 9. Piro Linguistic Prehistory: Reprise
Part II
Chapter 10. A Linguistic Sketch of Piro
Chapter 11. The Lord’s Prayer in Piro
Chapter 12. A Piro Lexicon
Chapter 13. English-Piro Index
Chapter 14. Tanoan Cognate Sets and Tanoan Segmental

Correspondences
References Cited
Index