UA News

The UA Press has published two new books, both in the area of archaeology.

The University of Arizona Press has published two new books, both of them in the area of archaeology.

The newly published books are "Chaco and After in the Northern San Juan Excavations at the Bluff Great House" edited by Catherine M. Cameron and "The Neighbors of Casas Grandes: Medio Period Communities of Northwestern Chihuahua" by Michael E. Whalen and Paul E. Minnis.

Cameron's volume speaks about excavations in the southeastern region of Utah and presents new ideas about the role of Chaco Canyon, which is located in northern New Mexico.

This book is one of only a handful of reports on Chacoan great houses in the northern San Juan region. It provides an in-depth study of the Chaco era and clarifies the relationship of "outlying" great houses to Chaco Canyon. Research at the Bluff Great House begins to answer key questions about the nature of Chaco and its region, and the history of the northern San Juan in the Chaco and post-Chaco worlds.

The volume speaks to the effects of the location's collapse and provides new insight into both the use of great houses and the causes of aggregation and abandonment in the southwest.

Chaco Canyon, the great Ancestral Pueblo site of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, remains a central problem of southwestern archaeology.

Chaco, with its monumental "great houses," was the center of a vast region marked by "outlier" great houses. The canyon itself has been investigated for over a century, but only a few of the more than 200 outlier great houses-key to understanding Chaco and its times-have been excavated.

The book explores the Chaco and post-Chaco eras in the northern San Juan area through extensive excavations at the Bluff Great House, a major Chaco "outlier" in Utah. Bluff's massive great house, great kiva, and earthen berms are described and compared to other great houses in the northern Chaco region.

Those assessments support intriguing new ideas about the Chaco region and the effect of the collapse of Chaco Canyon on "outlying" great houses. New insights from the Bluff Great House clarify the construction and use of great houses during the Chaco era and trace the history of great houses in the generations after Chaco's decline.

"The Neighbors of Casas Grandes," which provides a detailed look into the culture of the Casas Grandes area, involves not only the research of the architecture and artifacts left behind, but also the ecology of the area.

Whalen and Minnis worked together to study the complex relationship Casas Grandes had with its neighbors, varying from direct contact with some communities to more indirect links with others.

The two also detailed the important internal influences on the area's development, particularly related to population sizes throughout the period, which demonstrated the absorption of the surrounding populations into Casas Grandes as it reached the peak of its power in the region.

Casas Grandes, or Paquimé, in northwestern Mexico was of one of the few socially complex prehistoric civilizations in North America. Now, based on more than a decade of surveys, excavations, and field work, Whalen and Minnis provide a comprehensive new look at Casas Grandes and its surrounding communities in their co-authored book.

New discoveries suggest the need to revise the previously held beliefs about the age of Casas Grandes and the dates of its rise to power. This ancient civilization may have developed as early as 1180 A.D. Such breakthroughs provide fresh insight about not only Casas Grandes but the nearby settlements as well.