The Meso-American Southwest - Readings in Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Ethnology (Hardcover)

This collection of thirteen highly orig-inal studies demonstrates the deeply penetrating influence on the American Southwest by a Mesoamerican culture. Many archaeologists have treated the abo-riginal American Southwest as essentially self-contained. Contrary to this long-held belief, the impressive evidence from the articles selected and edited for this volume is that throughout its history the South-west was tied to Mesoamerica by elaborate trade routes along which much of Mesoamerican culture was diffused north-ward. So complete was this dependence, the editors hold, that American South-western cultural development must have more than once been strongly affected by major historical events in far-off central Mexico. The distinguished group of scholars whose work, all dating to the mid-point of this century, is assembled includes Francis Ernest Lloyd, Charles Amsden, Emil W. Haury, Adolph F. Bandelier, Ralph L. Beals, J. O. Brew, J. Walter Fewkes, A. L. Kroeber, and Elsie Clews Parsons. This book of readings is intended as a source book for specialists and students, but will prove fascinating to nonspecial-ists interested in the American Indian and the Southwest.