New Mexico Books

America's ancient treasures (1993 edition) is a reprint of a classic first printed back in 1971. It contains a thorough recounting of every major and most minor Native American archaeological sites and museums in North America, and is an excellent resource tool for those interested in a serious exploration into North America's ancient past.

as i told pat those many years ago: more grandmother. less teeth.

The devastating nature of the clash between the native peoples of North America and those from European culture is well known. For nearly four centuries a technologically superior European civilization constantly pressed the native population either to conform to a new hegemony or to withdraw from it, conquering the various first peoples and destroying their population in the process. By the close of the nineteenth century the native population had dwindled, ravaged by war and disease and starvation, to the extent that some began to characterize it as a "vanishing race." In 1900 the Native American population in the United States reached a nadir at 237,196, a seven-fold decline from what it had been estimated in 1492.

In "American Indian Population Recovery in the Twentieth Century" Nancy Shoemaker of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, analyzes what can only be viewed as a remarkable population recovery for Native Americans in the past century. With a population now approaching two million, Native Americans have political, economic, and social power as never before. This demographic study provides an important portrait of native peoples rising in number, wealth, and influence. The author finds that this population rebound has been quite emotionally empowering for Native Americans, as they take pride in having emerged from centuries of oppression.

This is a well down work that provides important insights into the demography of the first peoples of the United States.

There are books that specialize and others that are extensive about the southwestern Indian cultures. This book is for the rest of us. It is a well laid out introduction of history and contemporary tribal affairs. We get coverage of arts and crafts. And it makes a perfect companion to Tony Hillerman books.
The book its self is separated into logical chapters on different subjects such as
1. Who an Where (physical Aspects of the American Indians)
2. The Pueblo Peoples (separate chapters on each)
3. The Athabascans
4. The Ute Indians
5. The Southern Paiute
6. The Rancheria Peoples
7. Arts and crafts

There are illustrations and monochrome pictures to support the text.
Also an extensive bibliography for those brave souls that really want to go into depth.

For some 20 years since I discovered that the book I had is a 1st draft with a cover page addressed to Augustus H.Harvemeyer(?) and Peter F. Lorillard, have endevored to get much past the first 5 chapters.The woodcut or tin prints are incredibly detailed, each with a world of information to those willing to take the time to study them. Although Mr.Charnay occasionally wonders from his original train of thought, the book is an incredible piece of work, for its time and the effort that went into researching the subject covered. The significance of the signed cover page is the two names mentioned funded his expiditions to Central America.

Bill Myers is a great writer. This book is a great ending to his Ancient Forces trilogy.

Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Wuptaki are three of the best known of the Indian ruins that dot the landscape in the high desert country of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. To this day it is difficult to comprehend how these Indians thrived in a region of short hot summers, little rain, and poor soil -- and not only fed themselves but left behind spectacular monumental buildings. Adding to the mystery is their sudden abandonment of their major sites in the 1100s and 1200s.

The author surveys the knowledge and theories about the ancient peoples who became the modern day Pueblo Indians. He follows the development of the Anasazi and Mogollon traditions from their beginnings thousands of years ago until the 1700s, after the arrival of the Spaniards. The book is illustrated with more than 100 photos, maps, and charts and 25 sidebars that take up interesting topics such as cannibalism, construction methods, domestic animals, ballcourts, burials, and leadership. The emphasis is on thoroughness as the author briefly describes the findings and gives a hearing to the theories of hundreds of archaeologists and other scholars. The bibliography runs to more than 30 pages.

There is much of environmental determinism here for in the climate of the Southwest small changes in the weather made all the difference in the lives of the inhabitants. Scholars have meticulously reconstructed temperature and precipitation records for the last 2,000 years and the author attempts to correlate the rise and fall of Indian cultures with precipitation and temperature averages.

"Ancient Puebloan Southwest" is probably a bit too dense for the casual reader, but offers those interested in archaeology and the Southwest a thorough and up-to-date account of the Anasazi the Mogollon and the proto-historic Zuni, Hopi, and Rio Grande Pueblos.

Smallchief

From back cover:

"How many times have you seen tracks ahead of you on a beach, muddy forest trail or across a blanket of snow, and wondered what creature made them? This handy, pocket-sized guide helps you name the track maker, with life-size drawings of the animal's or bird's characteristic footprints. Just check for size with the ruler (left), then hold the book beside the mystery imprint and fine the drawing that looks most like it, for a quick identification. Includes 40 to 50 different animals and many birds most common the Rocky Mountains, with information on size, sounds, habitat, diet and patterns of movement."

[Includes Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Rocky Mountain National Parks]

This book is a collection of over 40 columns that began appearing in the NMASM Newsletter in 1988. They are stories about different surveys the author has been involved in as well as stories of historical figures who were surveyors. Most of these stories take place in New Mexico and the Southwest

When missionaries came to colonize California, it was to Baja California "Antigua California" that they came. This is the story of the Jesuits who persevered in a barren, waterless, resource poor place. But the really great thing about the book is that it is the whole story of the pioneer mission period: it is also the story of the aboriginal peoples who were the targets of the Jesuits, and of the people (mostly Mexican) whom the Jesuits hired and brought along to handle and create daily life-soldiers, sailors, artisans, laborers. For once, a comprehensive history truly is. Using original eighteenth century materials (church records, diaries, letters, reports) the author has tracked down the movement of individuals, their genealogies, their careers, their contributions. More than most, it is a book of portraits of real people, pieced together sympathetically from scattered and scanty records. For a scholar, the book is eminently useful: full of maps, chronological tables of people and places, explanations of systems and bureaucracies. For the history buff, it is a dream of readability and detail. Highly recommended.