Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest
H. M. Worthington
9781465658463
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
During the past 25,000 years the Southwest has been invaded many times. Now each year comes a fresh invasion—an invasion of those who have succumbed to its beauty and strange, inexplicable charm. There is something infectious about the magic of the Southwest. Some are immune to it, but there are others who have no resistance to the subtle virus and who must spend the rest of their lives dreaming of the incredible sweep of the desert, of great golden mesas with purple shadows, and tremendous stars appearing at dusk from a turquoise sky. Once infected there is nothing one can do but strive to return again and again. For many, a good portion of this charm lies in the intangible presence of the “Ancient Ones”, the people who lived in these enchanted deserts and plateaus through many centuries. One can see the places where they lived and often one finds bits of pottery which show the immemorial striving for beauty of some long dead craftsman. It is natural to want to know more of these prehistoric people and how they lived and it is the aim of this book to try to tell that story; not in technical terms intelligible only to the professional scientist but in a way that will make it of interest to the layman and the undergraduate student. It is also an attempt to give at least a partial answer to the two questions which inevitably arise when one considers the cultures of antiquity—“How do you know these things?” and, “How old are they?” There is always the hope, too, that publications such as this may serve a further purpose. If more people understand some of the complexities of excavation and realize how much information may be obtained by a trained investigator, perhaps there will be less of the unscientific “pot-hunting” which leads to the looting of ancient sites and which every year is destroying an untold amount of irreplaceable data. Constant references to source material, which are characteristic of technical publications, are impractical in a book of this nature, for they spoil the continuity of the narrative. It would be unfair, however, not to give credit to the many fine archaeologists whose work has provided this knowledge, and it is desirable for the reader to know which publications to consult if he seeks more detailed information. Numbers in fine print which appear throughout the text refer to publications, listed under corresponding numbers in the bibliography, from which the information under consideration was derived.
