Chaco Canyon


Book Description

The first complete account of Chacoan archaeology, from the discovery of the ruins by Spanish soldiers in the seventeenth century, through the scientific analyses of the 1970s.




The Anasazi of Chaco Canyon


Book Description

Perhaps the most fascinating chapter in Southwest history is the tale of the mysterious, "vanished" Anasazi Indians. Their tremendous achievements can be found in many places, including the spectacular cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde National Park. But the crest of the Anasazi wave was in Chaco Canyon, a shallow, windswept wash in northwest New Mexico. Here, 1,000 years ago, strange and unexplained events unfolded; events which continue to intrigue scientists and visitors today. During the years 850-1150 AD, multi-story buildings comparable in size to the Roman Coliseum were constructed. Advanced astronomy, water works, and agriculture flourished. Exotic artifacts from Central America were traded over routes spanning thousands of miles. And after 300 years, they carefully sealed everything up, left, and never returned. The Anasazi of Chaco Canyon offers insight into the unknowns of the "Chaco Phenomenon," including the story of Kyle's journey of discovery. In addition, it draws on the latest research, personal experiences, and interpretations of oral traditions, leading the reader to a startling conclusion. Influenced by the writings of Edward Abbey and James Michener, Kyle Widner is a desert wanderer, amateur Anasazi ruins hunter, and internet business expert in his spare time. He lives in Boulder City, Nevada with his wife Jean, two golden retrievers, and two cats. This book is the companion guide to an educational video game and 3D computer simulation of Chaco Canyon for Mac and PC computers. Learn more at Shadowplay.com.




Anasazi Regional Organization and the Chaco System


Book Description

This updated version includes a chapter "Chaco Update 2000" which addresses research on Chaco settlements since the original publication of this volume in 1992.




Anasazi America


Book Description

At the height of their power in the late eleventh century, the Chaco Anasazi dominated a territory in the American Southwest larger than any European principality of the time. A vast and powerful alliance of thousands of farming hamlets and nearly 100 spectacular towns integrated the region through economic and religious ties, and the whole system was interconnected with hundreds of miles of roads. It took these Anasazi farmers more than seven centuries to lay the agricultural, organizational, and technological groundwork for the creation of classic Chacoan civilization, which lasted about 200 years--only to collapse spectacularly in a mere 40. Why did such a great society collapse? Who survived? Why? In this lively book anthropologist/archaeologist David Stuart presents answers to these questions that offer useful lessons to modern societies. His account of the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi brings to life the people known to us today as the architects of Chaco Canyon, the spectacular national park in New Mexico that thousands of tourists visit every year.




Chaco Canyon


Book Description

Beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, "Chaco Canyon" draws on the very latest research on Chaco and its environs to tell the remarkable story of the people of the canyon, from foraging bands and humble farmers to the elaborate society that flourished between the 10th and 12th centuries A.D.




The Archaeology of Chaco Canyon


Book Description

The site of a great Ancestral Pueblo center in the 11th and 12th centuries AD, the ruins in Chaco Canyon look like a city to some archaeologists, a ceremonial center to others. Chaco and the people who created its monumental great houses, extensive roads, and network of outlying settlements remain an enigma in American archaeology. Two decades after the latest and largest program of field research at Chaco (the National Park Service's Chaco Project from 1971 to 1982) the original researchers and other leading Chaco scholars convened to evaluate what they now know about Chaco in light of new theories and new data. Those meetings culminated in an advanced seminar at the School of American Research, where the Chaco Project itself was born in 1968. In this capstone volume, the contributors address central archaeological themes, including environment, organization of production, architecture, regional issues, and society and polity. They place Chaco in its time and in its region, considering what came before and after its heyday and its neighbors to the north and south, including Mesoamerica.




The Ancient Southwest


Book Description

Over twenty-five years ago, David Stuart began writing award-winning newspaper articles on regional archaeology that appealed to general readers. These columns shared interesting, and usually little-known, facts and stories about the ancient people and places of the Southwest. By 1985, Stuart had penned enough columns to fill a book, Glimpses of the Ancient Southwest, which has been unavailable for years. Now he has rewritten most of his original articles to include recently discovered information about Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde. Stuart's unusual perspective focuses on both the past and the present: "Want to know why gasoline now costs $4.00 a gallon, and is headed higher, yet we have no instant solution? Chacoan, Roman, even Egyptian archaeology all provide elemental answers." The Ancient Southwest shares those with us.




Richard Wetherill


Book Description

Biography of the man who discovered the prehistoric ruins at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and began the excavation of Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.




Marietta Wetherill


Book Description

While her husband Richard excavated ruins and created a trading post empire at the turn of the century, Marietta learned the rituals and reality of Navajo life from medicine men.




Thunderhead


Book Description

Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written sixteen years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich---the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country. Searching for her father and his glory, Nora begins t unravel the greatest riddle of American archeology. but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors...