This is the first specifically designed key to the interpretation of American rock art. Interest in the subject has grown significantly among professional archaeologists and informed lay persons in recent years, but the purpose and meaning that the intriguing symbols had for their creators remain a mystery. Although the significance of the symbols will never be known for certain, educated guesses can be made. The "Field Guide" brings together 600 commentaries on specific symbols by over one hundred archaeologists, anthropologists, researchers, and Native American informants. Intended to be used in the field, as well as a reference, the book includes a pictorial key at the beginning and is organized by tentative meaning or by description. The reader can easily find the one or several of the 500 illustrations that most closely match the symbol in question. Patterson emphasizes the tentative nature of the interpretations and has included an index by neutral archaeological description as well as complete documentation of every excerpted comment. The range of the book is from the northern states of Mexico to Utah and from California to Colorado.
• Richard C Lange → Arizona State Museum U of A 2012
This volume reports on the architecture and cultural affiliation of the cliff dwellings and other sites in the southeastern Sierra Ancha in central Arizona. Maps and architectural descriptions are provided, as well as summaries of the ceramics and rock art present. The area reflects the unsettled times of occupation in the late AD 1200s and early 1300s and puts these sites into the context of wider regional population changes and movements.
Native American cultures have flourished in the Four Corners region for thousands of years, from the early shamans, to the Anasazi, to the tribes of today. Images incised or painted on rock by these people are diverse, mysterious, haunting, and inscrutable. Many occur in the southeastern part of Utah, in and around the Colorado Plateau. Utah may contain more world-class prehistoric rock art than any other region in North Americaover 7,500 sites have been reported. Due to increased interest, more and more rock art sites in Utah are now being managed for public visitation by state, county, and federal agencies. Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region is the most complete guide to these sites. With maps and directions, the book describes more than fifty sites with public access in Utah, the Arizona strip, southern Nevada, and the western edge of Colorado. In addition to site information, the author gives a comprehensive overview of rock art styles, and the cultural traditions that created them. Additional information is provided about preservation, conservation, and how to photograph rock art.
• Todd W Bostwick → University of Arizona Press 2002
High above the noise and traffic of metropolitan Phoenix, Native American rock art offers mute testimony that another civilization once thrived in the Arizona desert. In the city's South Mountains, prehispanic peoples pecked thousands of images into the mountains' boulders and outcroppings--images that today's hikers can encounter with every bend in the trail. Todd Bostwick, an archaeologist who has studied the Hohokam for more than twenty years, and Peter Krocek, a professional photographer with a passion for archaeology, have combed the South Mountains to locate nearly all of the ancient petroglyphs found in the canyons and ridges. Their years of learning the landscape and investigating the ancient designs have resulted in a book that explores this wealth of prehistoric rock art within its natural and cultural contexts, revealing what these carvings might mean, how they got there, and when they were made. Landscape of the Spirits is the first book to cover these ancient images and is one of the most comprehensive treatments of a rock art location ever published. It conveys the range of different rock art elements and compositions found in the South Mountains--animals, humans, and geometric shapes, as well as celestial and calendrical markings at key sites--through accurate descriptions, drawings, and photographs. Interpretations of the petroglyphs are based on Native American ethnographic accounts and consider the most recent theories concerning shamanism and archaeoastronomy. Written in a simple and accessible style, Landscape of the Spirits is an indispensable volume for anyone exploring the South Mountains, and for rock art enthusiasts everywhere who wish to broaden their understanding of the prehistoric world. It is both an authoritative overview of these ancient wonders and an unprecedented benchmark in southwestern rock art research at a single geographic location.
• Mike Burns Gregory McNamee → University of Arizona Press 2012
Mike Burns--born Hoomothya--was around eight years old in 1872 when the US military murdered his family and as many as seventy-six other Yavapai men, women, and children in the Skeleton Cave Massacre in Arizona. One of only a few young survivors, he was adopted by an army captain and ended up serving as a scout in the US army and adventuring in the West. Before his death in 1934, Burns wrote about the massacre, his time fighting in the Indian Wars during the 1880s, and life among the Kwevkepaya and Tolkepaya Yavapai. His precarious position between the white and Native worlds gives his account a distinctive narrative voice.
• David A. Gregory → University of Arizona Press 2007
The Zuni are a Southwestern people whose origins have long intrigued anthropologists. This volume presents fresh approaches to that question from both anthropological and traditional perspectives, exploring the origins of the tribe and the influences that have affected their way of life. Utilizing macro-regional approaches, it brings together many decades of research in the Zuni and Mogollon areas, incorporating archaeological evidence, environmental data, and linguistic analyses to propose new links among early Southwestern peoples. The findings reported here postulate the differentiation of the Zuni language at least 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, following the initial peopling of the hemisphere, and both formulate and test the hypothesis that many Mogollon populations were Zunian speakers. Some of the contributions situate Zuni within the developmental context of Southwestern societies from Paleoindian to Mogollon. Others test the Mogollon-Zuni hypothesis by searching for contrasts between these and neighboring peoples and tracing these contrasts through macro-regional analyses of environments, sites, pottery, basketry, and rock art. Several studies of late prehistoric and protohistoric settlement systems in the Zuni area then express more cautious views on the Mogollon connection and present insights from Zuni traditional history and cultural geography. Two internationally known scholars then critique the essays, and the editors present a new research design for pursuing the question of Zuni origins.By taking stock and synthesizing what is currently known about the origins of the Zuni language and the development of modern Zuni culture, Zuni Origins is the only volume to address this subject with such a breadth of data and interpretations. It will prove invaluable to archaeologists working throughout the North American Southwest as well as to others struggling with issues of ethnicity, migration, incipient agriculture, and linguistic origins.
A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest
Echoes in the Canyons: The Archaeology of the Southeastern Sierra Ancha, Central Arizona
Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession
Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region
Landscape of the Spirits: Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park
Petroglyphs of the Picacho Mountains, South Central, Arizona
The Only One Living to Tell: The Autobiography of a Yavapai Indian
Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology
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