Why read In Search of Chaco?

Book cover of In Search of Chaco: New Approaches to an Archaeological Enigma

Book description

Startling discoveries and impassioned debates have emerged from the Chaco Phenomenon since the publication of New Light on Chaco Canyon twenty years ago. This completely updated edition features seventeen original essays, scores of photographs, maps, and site plans, and the perspectives of archaeologists, historians, and Native American thinkers. Key topics…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked In Search of Chaco as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Stephen H. Lekson

Author

Chaco Canyon was a great capital of the Pueblo world, flourishing from about 850 to 1130 in an unlikely remote, desolate canyon in northwestern New Mexico. In that bleak setting, monumental “Great Houses” rose, the ruling elites’ (relatively) palatial homes. Chaco’s region was about the size of Ohio, with perhaps 100,000 people in 200+ villages, scattered at likely agricultural areas – wet places in the high desert. At each settlement, a small Great House loomed over the town, on a rise or hill. The far-flung villages were connected to Chaco (and to each other) by a network of “roads” and…

From Stephen's list on southwestern archaeology.