America's Ancient Cities

by Gene S. Stuart, Richard A. Cooke III (Photographer), H. Tom Hall (Painter)

"America, say historians, was peopled by savages; but savages never reared these structures, savages never carved these stones." So concluded explorer John Lloyd Stephens in 1839 as he gazed upon the silent ruins of Copan in Honduras. He promptly bought the Maya city for 50 dollars and recorded his observations. Stephens was not the first to delve into mysteries of ancient urban America - and today his successors investigate sites throughout the continent.
Spanning more than 14,000 years of human history, America's Ancient Cities reveals how settlements evolved and how urban centers grew and functioned. Millennia ago, prehistoric hunters and gatherers dispersed and peopled the continent. Later, Eastern Woodland cultures constructed mounds and earthworks, and fishing and whaling villages developed along the Northwest Coast. With the rise of agriculture, bison-hunting farmers settled along rivers in present-day Nebraska and the Dakotas. In the Southwest, the Anasazi built the multiroomed pueblos of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde.
Urban centers in Mesoamerica surpassed all others in size and magnificence. Lofty Monte Alban dominated Mexico's Oaxaca Valley. Maya kings ruled city-states - Coba, Uxmal, and Mayapan among them. The Aztecs were so awed by the pyramids of Teotihuacan they believed gods had built them, while their own capital of Tenochtitlan became the New World's greatest city.
Many sites lie unexplored, and intriguing questions remain unanswered. Experts still study Copan, and one archaeologist calls its piles of carved stones "the largest jigsaw puzzle in Mesoamerica." Another notes that the real charm of archaeology is "not what old mysteries it solves, but what new ones it poses."
Mysteries are explored and recent discoveries described in Gene Stuart's thoughtful text; Rik Cooke's haunting photographs capture the grandeur of ancient cities and the artistry of vanished cultures; and specially commissioned paintings by H. Tom Hall bring to life ceremonies and customs of the past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

199 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Connor Magary]

Very cool wow

[Wendelle]

tantalizing look at the way of life, landscape structures and myths of American native peoples in the Northwest, Southwest, Plains, Mesoamerica etc demonstrating the richness and sophistication of technically Stone Age cultures

[Reid Burroughs]

An overview of North American indigenous cultures through some of the Cities Archeologists have dug. There is information about Eastern and North Western tribes. The Mesoamerican is the bulk of the work and there aren’t many connections to the North American Southwest sometimes expressed in the book but beautiful photos of amazing sites and beautiful illustrations depicting Ancient North American people and their cities. It’s not exhaustive but still remarkable as a book.

[Angela Kershner]

This book had some good information as a general overview. I learned quite a lot. I was surprised, however, that the Inca were not mentioned. Basically, it deals with the civilizations of North and Central America, but not South America. So, really the title should read "North America's Ancient Cities." My second problem with this book is that the author sometimes assumes that the readers know more than they do and neglects to define certain words that have to do with the culture/architecture being discussed. The Main example of this is the word "Kiva." It is first mentioned on page 6 in the caption for an aerial picture of city ruins. That's part of the foreword, so its not being defined there can be forgiven, however it is next mentioned on page 87 and many times in the discussion of the southwestern cultures. Being stubborn, I did not look it up online or in an encyclopedia, instead insisting that this is something that the author HAD to make clear at some point or other, but there is no definition in the entire book. The word is used many times over the next 20 pages, and through context clues one can eventually figure out that a kiva is a round room that has something to do with religion, but just to give you an idea of how far afield one can be in those early pages, I at first thought it might have been a sort of cistern. The author often mentions that a certain village was "served by" however many kivas, and it's fairly clear from that picture on page 6 that a kiva is a round structure - they stick out quite obviously in the photo - but the actual function is never explicitly stated. I was on page 100 and complaining about the lack of a definition to my husband when he decided to just look it up and read the definition to me from Wikipedia.

[Stacy Croushorn]

Not a detailed look at the cities or cultures, but interesting.

[Ernie Dawson]

A largely pictoral book. It's truly amazing what's out there.

[Mom's Books]

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