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Stephen Plog.
Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest.
Thames & Hudson. 1997

Most people are familiar with the famous Precolumbian civilizations of the Aztecs and Maya of Mexico, but few realize just how advanced were contemporary cultures to the north, in the American Southwest. Here lie some of the most remarkable monuments of America’s prehistoric past, such as Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. Visitors marvel at the impressive ruined pueblos and spectacular cliff dwellings, but often have little idea of the cultures that produced these prehistoric wonders. Stephen Plog, who has spent decades working in the region, now provides the most readable and up-to-date account of the predecessors of the modern Hopi and Pueblo Indian cultures.

Humans first colonized this seemingly inhospitable landscape 10,000 years ago, with its scorching hot deserts and upland areas that drop below freezing even during the early summer months. The initial hunter-gatherer bands gradually adapted to become sedentary village groups, and the high point of Southwestern civilization was reached with the emergence of cultures known to archaeologists as Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon in the first millennium AD.

Chaco Canyon became the centre of a thriving Anasazi cultural tradition. It was the hub of a trading network extending over hundreds of miles whose arteries were a series of extraordinary roads that even now are still being discovered and mapped. To the south lay the settlement of Snaketowm, focus of the Hohokam, where the inhabitants built ballcourts for a ritual ball game, yielding intriguing echoes of ancient Mexican practices. The Mogollon people of the Mimbres Valley created some of the world’s finest ceramics, decorated with human figures and mythical creatures.

Interweaving the latest archaeological evidence with early first-person accounts, Stephen Plog explains the rise and mysterious fall of Southwestern cultures. As he concludes, however, despite the depredations and diseases introduced by the Europeans, the Southwest is still home to vibrant Native American communities that carry on many of the old traditions.