According to archaeologist Stephen H. Lekson, much of what we think we know about the Southwest has been compressed into conventions and classifications and orthodoxies. This book challenges and reconfigures these accepted notions by telling two parallel stories, one about the development, personalities, and institutions of Southwestern archaeology and the other about interpretations of what actually happened in the ancient past. While many works...

"How did Southwestern peoples subsist in the arid reaches of the Great Basin? When and why did violence erupt in the Mesa Verde region? Who were the Fremont people? How do some Hopis view Chaco Canyon? These are a few of the topics addressed in Living the Ancient Southwest. The essayists in this new highly-illustrated anthology also write about the beauty and originality of Mimbres pottery, the rock art in Canyon de Chelly, the history of the Wupatki...