100 Books Like Discovering Paquimé

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 an intricate line-of-sight signaling system, working with smoke and mirrors.

We didn’t know any of this when I started out in archaeology in the early 1970s. The hot textbook of that time lamented, regarding Chaco, that “Less is really known about the area than of almost any other southwestern district.”… show more.

The cliff-dwellings of Mesa Verde National Park are the most famous ruins in the Southwest. Mesa Verde was the USA’s first archaeological site to make UNESCO’s World Heritage list (later joined by Chaco Canyon, Cahokia, and Poverty Point). But there was much more to the story than the cliff-dwellings – defensive settlements, the last-gasp before the entire “Four Corners” region was completely depopulated, with towns moving out to modern descendant communities from the Hopi Pueblos on the west through the Pueblos of Zuni and Acoma, and to the many Rio Grande Pueblos on the east. More than cliff-dwellings: the largest “Mesa Verde” sites are not in the National Park, but instead villages and towns found across a 100-mile stretch from northwest New Mexico to southeast Utah. The organization doing the most important research in that larger Mesa Verde area is Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, in Cortez, Colorado – an organization… show more.

Contemporary with Mesa Verde’s cliff-dwellings and Chaco’s Great Houses, the Hohokam of southern Arizona too often fly under the radar. Their extensive settlements were constructed of mud and thatch – materials of the desert – and consequently Hohokam sites are mostly flat fields littered with potsherds. Ansel Adams never photographed a Hohokam site. There are exceptions: towering berms delimit oval ball courts (a local version of the Mesoamerican ball game) and vast canal systems which moved water many miles to the farm fields that underwrote the civilization. Hohokam was centered in Phoenix, but the civilization stretched from Gila Bend, Arizona on the west to Safford, Arizona on the east, and from Flagstaff on the north to Tucson on the south – the latter, the setting for my brief Hohokam fieldwork in the late 1980s. That fieldwork and my studies of Hohokam collections in museums, opened my eyes: I had no… show more.

My archaeological career began in 1971 in the Mimbres region of Southwestern New Mexico. I continued to work in the area, on and off, until 2013. Along the way, I wrote four books and many chapters/articles about Mimbres, and I formed some strong opinions on ancient Mimbres history.

Centered in the Mimbres River valley, the Mimbres built about twenty sizable stone villages at the same time as Chaco Canyon, from 1000 to 1125. Their towns were notably large for the time, fueled by sophisticated canal irrigation (probably adopted from the Hohokam, see above). But Mimbres is most famous for its remarkable black-on-white pottery: artfully-painted bowl interiors show bugs, fish, antelopes, birds, and people – people doing things, tableaus of daily life, esoteric rituals, mythical events. These images appeal strongly to us, today. In ancient times, however, Mimbres bowls and Mimbres art seems to have been limited to the Mimbres region… show more.

I remember reading this when it first came out and being unable to put it down. The Mayan decipherment is still ongoing, and Michael Coe wrote with the knowledge and expertise of someone on the front line of researchers. The decipherments of Hieroglyphic Egyptian and Linear B are usually told as ‘hero-narratives’, in which one individual’s genius was able to make the breakthrough. This book reminds us that all decipherments are made incrementally, and gives due space to the many different contributions made to a decipherment.

This book, for me, is something of a guiding star. It is profound, scientific, powerful, and directly applicable to contemporary debates about policy, governance, and justice. Archaeology isn’t just about collecting objects; instead, most archaeologists I know are deeply invested in how archaeology can help inform the decisions we make in the present. MacArthur “genius” award winner Jason de Leon shows the full potential of this in this book, where he combines archaeological, ethnographic, and forensic methods to reveal the impact of immigration policy on real human bodies and families.

Maybe it’s cheating to include this book on this list; it isn’t just how archaeology works—it has set a new standard for archaeologists to make contributions that are relevant and resonant enough to make a change in the world.

Real-life mysteries intrigue me, and one of the strangest unsolved cases involved a group of nine Soviet hikers in the area known as Dyatlov Pass. Preston and Child took this story, set it in the mountains of New Mexico, and weaved an enticing tale that kept me turning the pages and guessing right up to the end.

This is the fourth book of their Nora Kelly series, but it can easily be read as a stand-alone. 

This is a bit more of a technical archaeology book dealing with the ethnographic and archaeological Pueblo communities of the American Southwest. For those interested in secret societies, it deals extensively with the nature of Pueblo ritual organizations (sodalities) and deftly provides critiques of views that these were egalitarian communities and ritual organizations. In fact, he argues that some were among the most non-egalitarian societies in North America, beginning with the Chacoan culture about 1,000 years ago. Puebloan ritual organizations are prime examples of secret societies.

I really enjoyed reading this fun book for young kids about Detective Trigger, a Chihuahua hired to find a missing collar. Written in the style of a classic gumshoe mystery, but with animal characters, this story is certain to entertain young kids; even adults who can appreciate the playfulness of animals characters going about their business instead of human characters, would like this book. Struggling to make a living and do his part to restore order in a city run by corrupt cats, Detective Trigger sets out to uncover the mystery, and I found myself as invested in finding out the answers as I imagined Trigger was, himself.

Tyson’s Gift: How an 8-Pound K9 Became a Man’s Greatest Spiritual Guide by police officer Brandon Wainwright is the story this country needs to hear, especially now. From beginning to end, the author brings the reader into his personal life and the ups and downs of his relationships with an openness that appeals to mother, father, sister, or brother. Anyone who has ever loved or been loved by an animal will find healing and hope for the future, that we never really have to say goodbye when our hearts are open.