This volume of the Animas-La Plata series (SWCA Anthropological Research Paper No. 10) contains three sections: geomorphological studies, archaeobotanical studies, and vertebrate faunal studies. The first section comprises studies of landscape change and stability, soil fertility, and paleoclimate in Ridges Basin. The second section comprises six chapters describing and interpreting modern environmental, macrobotanical, and pollen analyses conducted as part of the project. The final section describes and interprets the vertebrate faunal data recovered during project excavations.

This volume of the Animas-La Plata series (SWCA Anthropological Research Paper No. 10) contains three sections: geomorphological studies, archaeobotanical studies, and vertebrate faunal studies. The first section comprises studies of landscape change and stability, soil fertility, and paleoclimate in Ridges Basin. The second section comprises six chapters describing and interpreting modern environmental, macrobotanical, and pollen analyses conducted as part of the project. The final section describes and interprets the vertebrate faunal data recovered during project excavations.

Archaeologists are increasingly recognizing the early Pueblo period as a major social and demographic transition in Southwest history. In Crucible of Pueblos: The Early Pueblo Period in the Northern Southwest, Richard Wilshusen, Gregson Schachner and James Allison present the first comprehensive summary of population growth and migration, the materialization of early villages, cultural diversity, relations of social power, and the emergence of early great houses during the early Pueblo period. Six chapters address these developments in the major regions of the northern Southwest and four synthetic chapters then examine early Pueblo material culture to explore social identity, power, and gender from a variety of perspectives. Taken as a whole, this thoughtfully edited volume compares the rise of villages during the early Pueblo period to similar processes in other parts of the Southwest and examines how the study of the early Pueblo period contributes to an anthropological understanding of Southwest history and early farming societies throughout the world.