Anasazi America: Seventeen Centuries on the Road from Center Place

Impressive. The implications of Professor Stuart's analysis of the Chaco Canyon and later Pueblo cultures in Anasazi America blows one away. Certainly some of the social data from our own culture and time period, which he uses for comparison, are scary! The book has a very interesting concept, namely that we can apply what we know of modern economics to the ancient world and what we discover of economic outcomes in the ancient world to our own. While I'm none too certain this is a valid premise, it certainly made for interesting reading! I am by no means an expert in prehistoric Southwestern America, but I have done some reading on the subject, and I can't recall when I've read a volume that made so much sense of the mystery of the collapse of ancient indigenous cultureUnlike many students of ancient history and culture, this author does not stop with a simple description of the data or the sequence of events. He extrapolates principles relevant to all cultures, including our own. Most authors on the American Southwest make much of the climate changes which made life in the area nearly impossible; Stuart's analysis of this data and of the timing of the furious building activity that occurred toward the end of the phase uses economic principals and modern sociology. This technique makes the period come alive. Stuart points out that all human behavior is motivated, and motivated not just by basic biological needs but by social and cultural needs and expectations as well. Stuart uses evidence of violence, even of possible cannibalism that occurred as a climax to the period to understand the implications of decline, violence and collapse on the evolution or extinction of a society. He also applies what he discovers of human behavior in this setting to what he sees as occurring in our own culture. As middle and lower socio-economic classes feel more and more disenfranchised, modern society is facing a possible withdrawal from its principles and leadership. Some of Stuart's summary of the succession of cultures in New Mexico and the Four Corner's region are arguably speculative. The assumptions he makes about why people did things-like move away from their homes and property-so long as they relate to such factors as climate, infant and maternal mortality rates, nutrition and malnutrition, etc. seem quite sound. When it comes to less quantifiable issues-like personal values, the sense of community among society's constituency, religious intent, etc,-his observations, while certainly very credible, are also not testable.With these caveats in mind, the reader will discover through this discourse that our own lifestyle as it is currently practiced, may not be indefinitely sustainable. The US might well be facing a cultural disintegration not unlike that of the Anasazi. If the social statistics in the author's final analysis are correct, and they certainly seem reliable to me, the effects of our rather profligate style of consumerism are

The Anasazi America is a book which answers the request for *more detail* about the Anasazi of the Chaco Canyon region. Dr. Stuart writes with an engaging style while satisfying the thirst for knowledge and understanding about these not-so-ancient people. The book is full of referenced details. This material may be too much if this is your first book on the Anasazi unless you have already visited the ruins or share genetics with the Anasazi. If you have been lit on fire with a desire to know more, and if that fire is burning in your soul, then while you read this book you will thank Dr. Stuart and Susan Moczygema-McKinsey for their efforts in bringing so much research about the Anasazi into your hands!

At the height of their power in the late 11th Century, the Chaco Anasazi dominated a territory in the American Southwest that was larger than any European nation at the time. The Anasazi enjoyed a vast and powerful alliance of thousands of farming hamlets and nearly one hundred major towns integrated through economic and religious ties, with the whole system being interconnected with hundreds of miles of roads. It took the Anasazi more than seven centuries to lay the agricultural, organizational, and technological groundwork for the creation of classic Chacoan civilization. Only to have it last a mere two hundred years and completely collapse in 40 years. Anasazi America explains what such a great society collapsed, who survived the collapse, how they survived, and what useful lessons modern societies can draw from the Anasazi experience. Anasazi America is a superb written contribution to Native American studies and reading lists.

"[David Stuart's]characterization of an emerging Chacoan elite is convincingly argued. These debates are far from over, but Stuart's contributions reach out with commendable clarity, backed by well-researched discussions of archaeological evidence and impressive endnotes. Perhaps the book's greatest contribution is a well-crafted dialogue that unites archaeology with our present world. ANASAZI AMERICA contrasts community conflit one thousand years ago with the bloodshed in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, making links that bring the Native American past into a tumultuous yet understandable present. Stuart relates the painful circumstances of high infant mortality among the ancestral Pueblo peoples to similarly devastating conditions in less economically developed parts of our own world. Stuart's depiction of the Chaco system as a failed experiment in power politics and overspecialized agricultural startegies is both compelling and correct. From a dry and dusty archaeology, Stuart crafts an understandable story that is depicted in a thought-provoking and contemporary context."--Michael Adler, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX. (c)2000 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

This easy-to-read volume presents an interesting perspective on human adaptation. When to hold on, when to move, when to experiment, or when to commit to new technology are personal or family decisions, yet when made by large numbers of people at approximately the same time, the consequences of each set of choices shapes the future of many generations. The prehistoric Puebloan experiment with the growing power of an elite who organized a broad region through ritual and economic exchange failed when drought forced the movement of farmers to upland areas. They made several changes, each time making adjustments that eventually resulted in reorganized groups living in more ecologically diverse lands. Stuart combines anthropological theories and data in his fascinating and thought-provoking comparison of past and present Puebloan lifeways with contemporary America. Will we have the foresight to recognize the consequences of our choices for long-term social good and make intelligent decisions? Will we endure and survive?