Anasazi
America: 17 Centuries on the Road from Center Place
by David E. Stuart
Book Description:
At the height of their power in the late eleventh century, the Chaco
Anasazi dominated a territory in the American Southwest larger than any
European principality of the time. A vast and powerful alliance of thousands
of farming hamlets and nearly 100 spectacular towns integrated the region
through economic and religious ties, and the whole system was interconnected
with hundreds of miles of roads. It took these Anasazi farmers more than
seven centuries to lay the agricultural, organizational, and technological
groundwork for the creation of classic Chacoan civilization, which lasted
about 200 years - only to collapse spectacularly in a mere 40.
Why did such a great society collapse? Who survived? Why? In this lively
book anthropologist/archaeologist David Stuart presents answers to these
questions that offer useful lessons to modern societies. His account of
the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi brings to life the people known
to us today as the architects of Chaco Canyon, the spectacular national
park in New Mexico that thousands of tourists visit every year.
Chacos failure, Stuart argues, was a failure to adapt to the consequences
of rapid growth. Foremost among Chacoans problems were misuse of farmland,
malnutrition, loss of community, and inability to deal with climatic catastrophe.
The descendants of the Anasazi, the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest, adapted
strategically to minimize the impact of these problems. Stuart sees the
contrasting fates of the Anasazi and their Pueblo descendants as a parable
for modern societies.
from University of New Mexico Press
(Paperback - July 2000)
ISBN: 0826321798 |
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