Review by Choice Review
The American Southwest, encompassing the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, constitutes a vast region within which ancestral Pueblo peoples flourished from 500 to 1542 CE. Here, ancient traditions transitioned from semi-sedentary pithouse villages to fully sedentary agricultural, multistoried apartment compounds such as Chaco Canyon and the Rio Grande Pueblos. The region has challenged generations of scholars to assess the otherwise complex archaeological record of the ancient peoples and traditions of the Greater Southwest, an immense region encompassing a culture area extending well into northern Mexico. In this handsome Oxford edition, editors Mills (Arizona) and Fowles (Barnard) have assembled a truly comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of 44 chapters describing the archaeology and ethnohistory of a region whose roots extend deep into prehistory. Moreover, the editors have advanced a unifying historical framework of the chapters grouped in three broad sections--"Introduction," "The Shape of History," and "The Stuff of History"--encompassing history, descendant communities, and material cultures and ecologies spanning some 13,200 years of human cultural development. Drawing on the contributions of over 80 of the most prolific teachers and scholars of the region, Oxford University Press has once again achieved the highest standard in representing one of the most significant scientific laboratories and cultural incubators of the ancient world. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. --Rubén G. Mendoza, California State University, Monterey Bay
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
