Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-311) and index.
Contents:
Prologue : Daniel's question -- The rhythms of civilization -- The roots of Anasazi society -- The role of agriculture. Featured research. Experimental comparison : stone boiling versus pot boiling / Mike Smith, Stella Kemper, Roy Huddleston, and T. Bradley-Varner ; Estimating early Four Corners population growth : a preliminary model / Christine Du Bois -- The rise of the Chaco Anasazi -- The Chaco phenomenon / David E. Stuart and Jenny (Lund) Sherman. Featured research. Four Corners farming : strategy, risks, and crop-calorie yields / Jenny (Lund) Sherman -- The fall of Chacoan society. Featured research. Burial goods at small and large Chacoan sites . Holland Sutton and Louis Wilcox ; Babies are expensive : farming and population growth / David E. Stuart ; Long story short : Stuart on Chaco / David E. Stuart -- The upland period -- Creation of Pueblo society. Featured research. Bone morphology, labor intensity, and economic behavior at Pecos Pueblo / James Medina and Elliott Hubbard -- Sustainable and enduring communities -- Epilogue : The spirit of community.
Summary:
"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. Developed over the course of centuries and thriving for over two hundred years, the Chacoans' society collapsed dramatically in the twelfth century in a mere forty years. David E. Stuart incorporates extensive new research findings through groundbreaking archaeology to explore the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi and how it parallels patterns throughout modern societies in this new edition. Adding new research findings on caloric flows in prehistoric times and investigating the evolutionary dynamics induced by these forces as well as exploring the consequences of an increasingly detached central Chacoan decision-making structure, Stuart argues that Chaco's failure was a failure to adapt to the consequences of rapid growth--including problems with the misuse of farmland, malnutrition, loss of community, and inability to deal with climatic catastrophe. Have modern societies learned from the experience and fate of the Chaco Anasazi, or are we risking a similar cultural collapse?"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.