Glimpses of the Ancient Southwest by David E. Stuart

by David E. Stuart

Book by Stuart, David E.

Paperback

About the author

David E. Stuart is professor and associate provost at the University of New Mexico. He is broadly trained in both anthropology and archaeology. His previous books include Prehistoric New Mexico (with R.P. Gauthier), Glimpses of the Ancient Southwest, and The Magic of Bandelier National Monument. His passion is undergraduate teaching.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Southwest -- nowhere in the United States are the ancient and the modern so intricately interwoven. New Mexico alone boasts nearly 40,000 archeological sites! Consulting anthropologist David Stuart describes how archeologists find and probe these riches from the ancient past -- from urban Albuquerque to remote mesa-tops and arroyos in Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Colorado. Prehistoric hunters, agriculturalists, and potters come alive in his vivid sketches of life in little-known places like Sapello, Apache Creek, Mariana Mesa, the Bisti badlands, and Peach Springs in the Navajo Nation. Rediscover the Gila Country, the Pecos Valley, the Galisteo Basin, Zuni, and the more famous National Monuments at Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Gran Quivera, White Sands, and Bandelier. Here too are the stories of how black cowboy George McJunkin discovered Folsom man, of the very early corn found at Bat Cave in Catron County, and of Silver City's Cosgoves, who excavated and preserved Mimbres ruins from pot hunters. Photograqphs, drawings, maps, and a full index add to these 'glimpses' of the ancestors of contemporary Southwestern Indians and the archeologists who are their chroniclers."
~~back cover

Getting trained as an archaeologist, and learning to write for academic journals, ruins you as a writer. You can no longer talk about archaeological sites, or the artifacts that define a culture, in everyday English -- you can't even think in anything but the "language of archaeology" that you have to learn to be able to talk and write to other archaeologists.

Mr. Stuart makes a valiant effort to speak to the man in the street, but it falls short, devolving into dry, technical details much of the time. It's an interesting book about a fascinating part of America, but I'm afraid it would be offputting for most readers.