Pueblo Bonito is the largest and most famous ruin in New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Built by the ancestral Puebloan people some 1,000 years ago, the ruin testifies to one of the oldest and most complex societies ever discovered in North America. Study of the large corpus of data continues to generate new ideas about the people who lived their and their way of life. This extensively illustrated volume commemorates the recent centennial of the first large-scale excavations at Pueblo Bonito, with leading experts writing on various aspects of the site, including its setting, construction sequence and labor requirements, possible astronomical orientations and related rituals, and burials. The book probes deeply for answers to these and other perplexing questions about Pueblo Bonito and its people.

The House of the Cylinder Jars documents the re-excavation of Room 28, and places it within the context of other rooms at Pueblo Bonito, and describes the ritual termination by fire of the materials stored in the room.

The first complete account of Chacoan archaeology, from the discovery of the ruins by Spanish soldiers in the seventeenth century, through the scientific analyses of the 1970s.

Ancient American palaces still captivate those who stand before them. Even in their fallen and ruined condition, the palaces project such power that, according to the editors of this new collection, it must have been deliberately drawn into their formal designs, spatial layouts, and choice of locations. Such messages separated palaces from other elite architecture and reinforced the power and privilege of those residing in them. Indeed, as Christie and Sarro write, "the relation between political power and architecture is a pervasive and intriguing theme in the Americas." Given the variety of cultures, time periods, and geographical locations examined within, the editors of this book have grouped the articles into four sections. The first looks at palaces in cultures where they have not previously been identified, including the Huaca of Moche Site, the Wari of Peru, and Chaco Canyon in the U.S. Southwest. The second section discusses palaces as "stage sets" that express power, such as those found among the Maya, among the Coast Salish of the Pacific Northwest, and at El Tajín on the Mexican Gulf Coast. The third part of the volume presents cases in which differences in elite residences imply differences in social status, with examples from Pasado de la Amada, the Valley of Oaxaca, Teotihuacan, and the Aztecs. The final section compares architectural strategies between cultures; the models here are Farfán, Peru, under both the Chimú and the Inka, and the separate states of the Maya and the Inka. Such scope, and the quality of the scholarship, make Palaces and Power in the Americas a must-have work on the subject.

Updated with the latest archaeological and anthropological evidence, "People of Chaco" is an essential book on the Chaco culture and ruins of northwestern New Mexico. Maps & photos.

A fresh volume on the ancient structures of Chaco Canyon, built by native peoples between AD 850 and 1130, that unifies older information on the area with new advanced research techniques focusing on studies of technology and building types, analyses of architectural change, and readings of the built environment, aided by over 150 maps, floor plans, elevations and photos.

This texbook shows how archaeology interprets past religions including case studies from around the world, describing religious practices of both foragers and ancient complex socities