The Meso-american Southwest: Readings in Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Ethnology

About this book

This collection of thirteen highly original studies demonstrates the deeply penetrating influence on the American Southwest by a Mesoamerican culture. Many archaeologists have treated the aboriginal 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 Southwest was tied to Mesoamerica by elaborate trade routes along which much of Mesoamerican culture was diffused northward. So complete was this dependence the editors hold that American Southwestern 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 nonspecialists interested in the American Indian and the Southwest.