A History of the Ancient Southwest

by Stephen H. Lekson

According to archaeologist Stephen H. Lekson, much of what we think we know about the Southwest has been compressed into conventions and classifications and orthodoxies. This book challenges and reconfigures these accepted notions by telling two parallel stories, one about the development, personalities, and institutions of Southwestern archaeology and the other about interpretations of what actually happened in the ancient past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Anthropology, Native American

452 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2008

Reviews

[Clif · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the the desert Southwest and history so this book was bound to please. But even if you don't share my affections, Lekson's lively writing style keeps what could be a very boring account from being so. He's fond of idioms so you'll run into phrases like "what happens in Chaco, stays in Chaco". He brings the subject to life.

When I visited Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico after a long drive down a lonely dirt road, I was stunned by the size and condition of the ruins. No, it isn't nearly as impressive as Teotihuacan in Mexico, but it is equally mysterious and quite a sight if one is used to the low prehistoric mounds of the eastern United States (Cahokia excepted). The isolation of the place only adds to the feeling of stepping back in time 800 years.

I have also lived in Phoenix, Arizona and had heard of the canal works of the Hohokam culture, but modern civilization has wiped out the extensive settlements that once sat along the Salt River there. Long before the Spanish came to the Southwest, the Hohokam culture was gone with the canals abandoned as completely as was Chaco Canyon.

Why did these prehistoric peoples leave? Where did they go? How are they related to the current Native American residents of the area and to each other? These are major questions, but only a part of what Lekson writes about.

He arranges his chapters by pairing up the ancient periods of the people that archeologists study with periods in the history of the science of archeology itself. The reader gets to see how ideas on the Southwestern cultures have changed along with the mindset of those who do the studying and the technologies available for it.

There are many things that cannot be said with certainty about ancient times, but Lekson has spent his life in the field and is well qualified to make this survey of what is likely to have happened. Along the way we are treated to vivid descriptions of many sites along with photos and drawings that take us there. What made the book important to me was his tying together the entire Southwest. No group was isolated from the others, long distances could be covered even on foot, word of what happened in one place spread with time to all others, there were no coincidences because all were informed to some extent about their distant neighbors. Even the Mississippian culture along the river of that name would have been known about out west.

The book concludes with a concise summation, good to have for future reference. You'll get some satisfying "answers" to what went on so long ago in what is now Arizona, Utah, Southern Colorado, New Mexico and Mexico.

[GJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contrarian and provocative interpretation of what happened over this vast geographic space and vast time scale. No clue if what he says is valid. I take the author to be drawing attention to the various changing forms of political and social formations in the southwest and how they were connected to larger North American continent, and those changing forms of organization don’t fall into linear evolutionary model of states and societies studied by archeologists elsewhere. I thought the point about Hohokam being an event, social movement, or cult to be really interesting. The book’s biggest claim is that Chaco Canyon was a state, a complex and hierarchical society, and there was a class revolt that self-consciously rejected that political structure. Afterwards, chaos, migration and assimilation happened—mostly a southward movement of people. By the time Europe showed up in the southwest, a more egalitarian and decentralized Pueblo society had taken shape. That hierarchical society in Chaco was a state, it was an imitation of the hierarchical states in Mexico and Cahokia, near contemporary St. Louis. This is also an opinionated introduction to archeological theory and history of the field, it’s honestly self-reflective about having an axe to grind. The book kinda reads like it was written by dictation, or from a lecture recording. Strange use of exclamation marks. You kinda have to at least watch the Great Courses lectures on North American and Mesoamerican archeology—or some other more orthodox intro—before reading this to have a sense of the sites he’s re-interpreting. Really fun book. Grateful I discovered it and bought this last year ahead of a trip to Arizona, but neglected to start it until last week.

[litost · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, a comprehensive, logical, readable history of the southwestern US before colonization. Lekson twins that history with the history of archaeology of the Southwest, so that we understand the limits we've placed on our thinking, and allow ourselves to see it differently. And Lekson does this very well, he is clearly not afraid to take on conventional thinking.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good basic textbook although somewhat dated.

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tries to reconstruct the political history of the pre-European cultures of what's now the southwestern U.S. The timespan is supposedly 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D., but actually it doesn't say much about anything before 400 A.D. It centers on the cultures archaeologists call the Anasazi (on the southern Colorado Plateau) and the Hohokam (in the lowland deserts just south of the plateau) which both lasted for most of the 400-1500 timespan, with a good deal about the Mimbres culture in the area between them, and the town of Paquimé, which arose even further south after the Anasazi and Hohokam collapsed. Lekson takes an awfully argumentative tone about an awful lot of things, which I found off-putting even when (as often happens) he was taking the side of an issue that I was predisposed to agree with. Because of that, even though he usually seems pretty good about indicating where most other archaeologists disagree with what he says, I would have done better to make this my second or third book about southwestern archaeology than my first. The gist of it is that Paquimé, the Anasazi, and the latest Hohokam were ruled by wannabe Mesoamerican kings, and the earlier Hohokam would have had wannabe Mesoamerican kings if they hadn't kept them under control with their religion.

[Kirk Astroth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lekson has to be a controversial archaeologist of the Southwest, but his books make compelling arguments for large states in the region-Hohokam, Chaco, Aztec ruins and Paquimé all connected and related. Interesting narrative of the history and Archaeology of the region. There is still so much to learn and understand about the past before Europe arrived.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be a cutting edge book as it kicks sand in the face of some established research, pulls in an overview as opposed to the silo experience of area research and specialization and throws in some new large ideas to throw around.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I've read on the ancient Southwest. Possibly the best book discussing North American history before Columbus.