Often seen as geographically marginal and of limited research interest to archaeologists, the Jornada Mogollon region of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico deserves broader attention. Late Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers and Farmers of the Jornada Mogollon presents the major issues being addressed in Jornada research and reveals the complex, dynamic nature of Jornada prehistory. The Jornada branch of the Mogollon culture and its inhabitants played a significant economic, political, and social role at multiple scales. This volume draws together results from recent large-scale CRM work that has amassed among the largest data sets in the Southwest with up-to-date chronological, architectural, faunal, ceramic, obsidian sourcing, and other specialized studies. Chapters by some of the most active researchers in the area address topics that reach beyond the American Southwest, such as mobility, forager adaptations, the transition to farming, responses to environmental challenges, and patterns of social interaction. Late Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers and Farmers of the Jornada Mogollon is an up-to-date summary of the major developments in the region and their implications for Southwest archaeology in particular and anthropological archaeological research more generally. The publication of this book is supported in part by the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society and the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware. Contributors: Rafael Cruz Antillón, Douglas H. M. Boggess, Peter C. Condon, Linda Scott Cummings, Moira Ernst, Tim Graves, David V. Hill, Nancy A. Kenmotsu, Shaun M. Lynch, Arthur C. MacWilliams, Mary Malainey, Timothy D. Maxwell, Myles R. Miller, John Montgomery, Jim A. Railey, Thomas R. Rocek, Matt Swanson, Christopher A. Turnbow, Javier Vasquez, Regge N. Wiseman, Chad L. Yost

This account of the archaeology of a cave in southern New Mexico makes a dramatic contribution to the ongoing debate over how long human beings have lived in the Americas. The findings presented here show that human settlement may go back as far as 75,000 years before the present, whereas the long-accepted Clovis dates showed humans only about 12,000 years ago. MacNeish and his colleagues subjected the cave, its environs, and its contents to rigorous interdisciplinary investigation. The first section of this volume comprises their reports on the changing environment of the area. The second section concentrates on the excavation of the cave's layers, presenting the results of radiocarbon dating and describing the evidence of human occupation, including friction skin prints and human hair. The third section discusses the cultural implications of the materials recovered and suggests how the ancient peoples may have exploited the changing environment and developed different ways of life throughout the Americas before the time of Clovis man. No serious discussion of early inhabitants in the New World can disregard the findings presented in this monumental work of scholarship.