front cover of The Nature of an Ancient Maya City
The Nature of an Ancient Maya City
Resources, Interaction, and Power at Blue Creek, Belize
Thomas H. Guderjan
University of Alabama Press, 2007
Reveals what daily Maya life was like
 
For two millennia, the site now known as Blue Creek in northwestern Belize was a Maya community that became an economic and political center that included some 15,000-20,000 people at its height. Fairly well protected from human destruction, the site offers the full range of city components including monumental ceremonial structures, elite and non-elite residences, ditched agricultural fields, and residential clusters just outside the core. Since 1992, a multi-disciplinary, multi-national research team has intensively investigated Blue Creek in an integrated study of the dynamic structure and functional inter-relationships among the parts of a single Maya city. Documented in coverage by National Geographic, Archaeology magazine, and a documentary film aired on the Discovery Channel, Blue Creek is recognized as a unique site offering the full range of undisturbed architectural construction to reveal the mosaic that was the ancient city. Moving beyond the debate of what constitutes a city, Guderjan’s long-term research reveals what daily Maya life was like.
 
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front cover of The Neighbors of Casas Grandes
The Neighbors of Casas Grandes
Medio Period Communities of Northwestern Chihuahua
Michael E. Whalen and Paul E. Minnis
University of Arizona Press, 2009
Casas Grandes, or Paquimé, in northwestern Mexico was of one of the few socially complex prehistoric civilizations in North America. Now, based on more than a decade of surveys, excavations, and field work, Michael Whalen and Paul Minnis provide a comprehensive new look at Casas Grandes and its surrounding communities in The Neighbors of Casas Grandes.

This volume provides a fascinating and detailed look into the culture of the Casas Grandes area, involving not just the research of the architecture and artifacts left behind but also the ecology of the area. The authors’ research reveals the complex relationship Casas Grandes had with its neighbors, varying from very direct contact with some communities to more indirect links with others. Important internal influences on the area’s development come to light and population sizes throughout the period demonstrate the absorption of the surrounding populations into Casas Grandes as it reached the peak of its power in the region.

New discoveries suggest the need to revise the previously held beliefs about the age of Casas Grandes and the dates of its rise to power. This ancient civilization may have developed as early as 1180 AD. Such breakthroughs provide fresh insight about not only Casas Grandes but the nearby settlements as well. The Neighbors of Casas Grandes is an important and vital piece of primary field research for all those interested in the Southwest’s archaelogy and history. Its contribution to the knowledge of the Casas Grandes region is monumental in helping us better understand the society that once flourished there.
 
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front cover of Networks of Power
Networks of Power
Political Relations in the Late Postclassic Naco Valley
Edward Schortman
University Press of Colorado, 2011
Little is known about how Late Postclassic populations in southeast Mesoamerica organized their political relations. Networks of Power fills gaps in the knowledge of this little-studied area, reconstructing the course of political history in the Naco Valley from the fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries.

Describing the material and behavioral patterns pertaining to the Late Postclassic period using components of three settlements in the Naco Valley of northwestern Honduras, the book focuses on how contests for power shaped political structures. Power-seeking individuals, including but not restricted to ruling elites, depended on networks of allies to support their political objectives. Ongoing and partially successful competitions waged within networks led to the incorporation of exotic ideas and imported items into the daily practices of all Naco Valley occupants. The result was a fragile hierarchical structure forever vulnerable to the initiatives of agents operating on local and distant stages.

Networks of Power describes who was involved in these competitions and in which networks they participated; what resources were mustered within these webs; which projects were fueled by these assets; and how, and to what extent, they contributed to the achievement of political aims.
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front cover of New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee
New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee
Intellectual, Methodological, and Theoretical Contributions
Edited by David H. Dye
University of Alabama Press, 2016
New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee is a collection of essays that explore how contemporary archaeology was catalyzed and shaped by the archaeological revolution during the New Deal era.

New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee tells the engrossing story of Southeastern archaeology in the 1930s. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act of May 1933 initiated an ambitious program of flood control and power generation by way of a chain of hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee River. The construction of these dams flooded hundreds of thousands of square miles of river bottoms, campsites, villages, and towns that had been homes to Native Americans for centuries. This triggered an urgent need to undertake extensive archaeological fieldwork throughout the region. Those studies continue to influence contemporary archaeology.
 
The state of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley were especially well suited research targets thanks to their mild climate and long field seasons. A third benefit in the 1930s was the abundance of labor supplied by Tennesseans unemployed during the Great Depression. Within months of the passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, teams of archaeologists fanned out across the state and region under the farsighted direction of Smithsonian Institution curators Neil M. Judd, Frank H. H. Roberts, and Frank M. Setzler. The early months of 1934 would become the busiest period of archaeological fieldwork in US history.
 
The twelve insightful essays in New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee document and explore this unique peak in archaeological study. Chapters highlight then-new techniques such as mound “peeling” and stratigraphic excavation adapted from the University of Chicago; the four specific New Deal sites of Watts Bar Reservoir, Mound Bottom, Pack, and Chickamauga Basin; bioarchaeology in the New Deal; and the enduring impact of the New Deal on contemporary fieldwork.
 
The challenges of the 1930s in recruiting skilled labor, training unskilled ancillary labor, developing and improvising new field methods, and many aspects of archaeological policies, procedures, and best-practices laid much of the foundation of contemporary archaeological practice. New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee offers an invaluable record of that pivotal time for professional, student, and amateur archaeologists.
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front cover of New Deal Archaeology in the West
New Deal Archaeology in the West
Edited by Kelly J. Pool and Mark L. Howe
University of Utah Press, 2023
From 1933 to 1944, a wide range of archaeological and cultural heritage projects were funded across this country as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The results of work east of the Mississippi River are amply documented in other publications. However, little has been reported or synthesized regarding western archaeological work, its role in economic recovery, or its impact on the direction and knowledge of the discipline. This volume shares previously untold stories of New Deal archaeology from across the American West and explores insights into the past revealed by these projects.
 
Descriptions of New Deal projects and their contributions to our understanding of the past, as well as the stories of those involved—archaeologists, avocationalists, and others—are woven together across the chapters. Also documented are lost or scattered artifacts, records, and ancestors’ remains; incomplete analyses; unpublished reports; inconsistent application of scientific methodology; and the loss of Native sacred sites and traditional lands and lifeways. Authors highlight characteristics that distinguished the American West from the East during the Depression and affected the nature of New Deal projects, including the extent of federal land available in the West, the reliance of sparsely populated areas upon tourism, the presence of large resident Native populations with deep histories, and the wide-ranging degree of existing archaeology infrastructure in each state. This volume demonstrates that despite regional differences, New Deal-funded archaeological and cultural heritage projects created a legacy of knowledge and practice across the nation.
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front cover of New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology
New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology
Three Millennia of Human Occupation in the North American Southwest
Edited by Barbara J. Roth, Patricia A. Gilman, and Roger Anyon
University of Arizona Press, 2018
In the early 1970s, understanding of the Mimbres region as a whole was in its infancy. In the following decades, thanks to dedicated work by enterprising archaeologists and nonprofit organizations, our understanding of the Mimbres region has become more complex, nuanced, and rich.

New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology brings together these experts in a single volume for the first time. The contributors discuss current knowledge of the people who lived in the Mimbres region of the southwestern United States and how our knowledge has changed since the Mimbres Foundation, directed by Steven A. LeBlanc, began the first modern archaeological investigations in the region. Many of these authors have spent decades conducting the fieldwork that has allowed for a broader understanding of Mimbres society.

Focusing on a variety of important research topics of interest to archaeologists—including the social contexts of people and communities, the role of ritual and ideology in Mimbres society, evidence of continuities and cultural change through time, and the varying impacts of external influences throughout the region—New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology presents recent data on and interpretations of the entire pre-Hispanic sequence of occupation. Additional contributions include a history of nonprofit archaeology by William H. Doelle and a concluding chapter by Steven A. LeBlanc reflecting on his decades-long work in Mimbres archaeology and outlining important areas for the next wave of research.
 
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front cover of Newberry Crater
Newberry Crater
Anthropological Papers Number 121
Thomas Connolly
University of Utah Press, 1999

The research in this volume derives from investigations conducted in connection with proposed widening and realignment of the Paulina-East Lake Highway, located within the caldera of Newberry Volcano. Formal evaluation of 13 localities and data recovers at four sites produced a wealth of information regarding human uses of the caldera and vicinity throughout the Holocene.

Initial evaluations were conducted in 1990 at nine sites. Text excavations the following year were conducted at four additional localities. The results of data recovery excavations undertaken at four sites in 1992 are reported in this volume.
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front cover of North America's Galapagos
North America's Galapagos
The Historic Channel Islands Biological Survey
Corinne Heyning Laverty
University of Utah Press, 2019
North America’s Galapagos: The Historic Channel Islands Biological Survey recounts the story of a group of researchers, naturalists, adventurers, cooks, immigrants, and scientifically curious teenagers who came together in the late 1930s to embark upon a series of ambitious expeditions never before, or since, attempted. Their mission: to piece together the broken shards of the Channel Islands’ history and evolution. California’s eight Channel Islands, sometimes called “North America’s Galapagos,” each support unique ecosystems with varied flora and fauna and differing human histories. The thirty-three men and women who set out to explore the islands hoped to make numerous discoveries that would go down in history along with their names. More than eighty years ago, a lack of funds and dearth of qualified personnel dogged the pre-WWII expeditions, but it was only after America entered the war and the researchers were stranded on one of the islands that the survey was aborted, their work left for future scientists to complete.
 
This untold saga of adventure, discovery, and goals abandoned is juxtaposed against the fresh successes of a new generation of Channel Island scholars. Engagingly written, North America’s Galapagos illuminates the scientific process and reveals remarkable modern discoveries that are rewriting archaeological textbooks and unraveling the answer to the age-old question: how and when were the Americas populated?
 
Anyone interested in the work conducted behind closed museum doors will want to read this book—so will history buffs, environmentalists, scientists, and general readers curious about our world.

Visit the author's website: 
https://www.channelislandscalifornia.com/
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front cover of The Northern Titicaca Basin Survey
The Northern Titicaca Basin Survey
Huancané-Putina
Charles Stanish, Cecilia Chávez Justo, Karl LaFavre, and Aimée Plourde
University of Michigan Press, 2014
This landmark book synthesizes the results of more than a decade of fieldwork in southern Peru—where Stanish and his team systematically surveyed more than 1000 square kilometers in the northern Titicaca Basin—and it details several hundred new sites in the Huancané-Putina River valley.
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front cover of Northwest Coast
Northwest Coast
Archaeology as Deep History
Madonna L. Moss
University Press of Colorado, 2011
From the SAA Press Current Perspectives Series, this concise overview of the archeology of the Northwest Coast of North America challenges stereotypes about complex hunter-gatherers. Madonna Moss argues that these ancient societies were first and foremost fishers and food producers and merit study outside socio-evolutionary frameworks. Moss approaches the archaeological record on its own terms, recognizing that changes through time often reflect sampling and visibility of the record itself. The book synthesizes current research and is accessible to students and professionals alike.
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front cover of The Northwest Florida Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore
The Northwest Florida Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore
Clarence Bloomfield Moore
University of Alabama Press, 1999

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

This comprehensive compilation of Moore's archaeological reports on northwest Florida and southern Alabama and Georgia presents the earliest documented investigations of this region. 

When Clarence Bloomfield Moore cruised the rivers of Florida in search of prehistoric artifacts a century ago, he laid the groundwork for archaeological investigations to follow. This volume reflects Moore's fieldwork along the northwest Florida coast, the most archaeologically rich area of the state, as well as Southern Alabama and Georgia.

Here readers will share Moore's first look at the area in 1901-1903 and additional observations made in 1918 during what was to be his last field season. Moore's works reveal ceramics, tools, skeletal remains, and exotic artifacts excavated from the earthen mounds and shell middens built by native peoples over the last two millennia.

In the introduction to this edition, David Brose and Nancy Marie White place Moore's investigations within the context of the science, natural history, and antiquarianism of his day. They document what happened to the sites he explored, tell how his findings fit into the body of his research, and explain how those findings should be interpreted in the context of Southeastern culture history and modern archaeological theory.

Moore was the most knowledgeable Southeastern archaeologist of his time; his writings are a benchmark for anyone studying those areas today.


 

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front cover of Not so Far from Paquimé
Not so Far from Paquimé
Essays on the Archaeology of Chihuahua, Mexico
Edited by Jane Holden Kelley and David A. Phillips Jr.
University of Utah Press, 2017
Archaeologists are slowly peeling back the mysteries surrounding the Casas Grandes culture of Mexico, although most of that work has focused on the principal site of Paquimé and its immediate vicinity. In this volume, Jane Kelley and her colleagues probe the southern edge of the Casas Grandes culture area—an area little explored by archaeologists until now. The book provides the first solid foundation for research on prehistoric west-central Chihuahua. Readers will find descriptions of the southern branch of the pottery-making, village-dwelling farmers of the Casas Grandes culture and learn that, as Paquimé became the most complex site in the region, the southern Casas Grandes people mostly held back from the “Paquimé revolution.” The studies presented here confer a more nuanced understanding of the tremendous diversity within one of the region’s great prehistoric cultures, an area that extends unbroken from deep in Mexico north to central Utah. 
 
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