The Village of Blue Stone

by Stephen Trimble

The Village of Blue Stone recreates one year in the life of an ancestral Puebloan community nine centuries ago. Beginning with the winter solstice, predicted with painstaking astronomical observation by Old Badger Claws—the Sun Watcher—we follow members of the different clans through their lives.

Carefully researched vignettes bring to life both the people and the now silent ruins of the Chaco Culture of northwestern New Mexico. An afterword dramatizes the work of modern archaeologists hoping to unlock the secrets of the ruined village and connects the stories of the prehistoric people with their inheritors and descendants, the modern Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi Pueblo Indians.

58 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1990

About the author

As writer, editor, and photographer, Stephen Trimble has published 25 award-winning books during 45 years of paying attention to the landscapes and peoples of the Desert West. He’s received The Sierra Club's Ansel Adams Award for photography and conservation and a Doctor of Humane Letters from his alma mater, Colorado College. In 2019, he was honored as one of Utah’s 15 most influential artists.

Trimble speaks and writes as a conservation advocate and has taught writing at the University of Utah. He makes his home in Salt Lake City and in the redrock country of Torrey, Utah. Environmental historian James Aton has said: Trimble's books comprise one of the most well-rounded, sustained, and profound visions of people and landscape that we have ever seen in the American West.

Reviews

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book described a year in the life of the people of one Anasazi village. It was interesting, but more illustrations, and in color, would have been nice. I would read something described and want to see it, but there was no picture.