The long history of field research at Grasshopper, a massive, 500-room pueblo in an isolated mountain meadow in east-central Arizona, has produced a wealth of architectural information. Drawing on this extensive research, Charles Riggs reconstructs the pueblo, and provides a glimpse into the everyday life of the community at a critical time in Southwest prehistory.

Between AD 1300 and 1330, a group consisting mainly of newcomers to the area established and then enlarged Grasshopper. From the architectural remnants excavated by the University of Arizona Archaeological Field School it is possible to determine that the earliest arrivals settled Grasshopper relatively quickly and that subsequent groups from the region and the Colorado Plateau built their houses next to kinsmen. The houses of locals and immigrants remained separate in discrete room blocks despite their occupants’ participation in communal groups.

Ultimately short-lived, by AD 1330 the influx of immigrants tapered and the architecture came to reflect a more seasonal, less intensive use of the area. Eventually the community was abandoned and the walls were left to crumble. In The Architecture of Grasshopper Pueblo, Riggs gives us a new view of community life at this ancient Puebloan site.

The vast and beautiful landscape of the American Southwest has long haunted artists and writers seeking to understand the mysteries of the deep affinity between the land and the Native Americans who have lived on it for centuries. In this pioneering study, art historian Vincent Scully explores the inhabitants' understanding of the natural world in an entirely original way—by observing and analyzing the complex yet visible relationships between the landscape of mountain and desert, the ancient ruins and the pueblos, and the ceremonial dances that take place with them. Scully sees these intricate dances as the most profound works of art yet produced on the American continent—as human action entwined with the natural world and framed by architectural forms, in which the Pueblos express their belief in the unity of all earthly things.

Scully's observations, presented in lively prose and exciting photographs, are based on his own personal experiences of the Southwest; on his exploration of the region of the Rio Grande and the Hopi mesas; on his witnessing of the dances and ceremonies of the Pueblos and others; and on his research into their culture and history. He draws on the vast literature inspired by the Native Americans—from early exploration narratives to the writing of D. H. Lawrence to recent scholarship—to enrich and support his unique approach to the subject.

To this second edition Scully has added a new preface that raises issues of preservation and development. He has also written an extensive postscript that reassesses the relationship between nature and culture in Native American tradition and its relevance to contemporary architecture and landscape.

"Coming to Pueblo architecture as he does from a provocative study of sacred architecture in ancient Greece, Scully has much to say that is both striking and moving of the Pueblo attitudes toward sacred places, the arrangement of structures in space, the lives of men and beasts, and man's relation to rain, earth, vegetation."—Robert M. Adams, New York Review of Books

The continuing work of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center has focused on community life in the northern Southwest during the Great Pueblo period (AD 1150– 1300). Researchers have been able to demonstrate that during the last Puebloan occupation of the area the majority of the population lived in dispersed communities and large villages of the Great Sage Plain, rather than at nearby Mesa Verde. The work at Sand Canyon Pueblo and more than sixty other large contemporary pueblos has examined reasons for population aggregation and why this strategy was ultimately forsaken in favor of a migration south of the San Juan River, leaving the area depopulated by 1290.

Contributors to this volume, many of whom are distinguished southwestern researchers, draw from a common database derived from extensive investigations at the 530-room Sand Canyon Pueblo, intensive test excavations at thirteen small sites and four large villages, a twenty-five square kilometer full-coverage survey, and an inventory of all known villages in the region. Topics include the context within which people moved into villages, how they dealt with climatic changes and increasing social conflict, and how they became increasingly isolated from the rest of the Southwest.

Seeking the Center Place is the most detailed view we have ever had of the last Pueblo communities in the Mesa Verde region and will provide a better understanding of the factors that precipitated the migration of thousands of people.