Customer Reviews

The Chaco Anasazi: Sociopolitical Evolution in the Prehistoric Southwest (New Studies in Archaeology)

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Sometimes my own biases can get in the way of actually understanding what is being presented in a book. I have for many years been an Anti-Chaco Luddite and because of this I simply brush off most of what I read about Chaco. This was the case with my FIRST reading of Lynne Sebastian's book. After talking with Lynne, I was persuaded to have a second, slower and more careful read of the book. I recommend this to anyone who has scanned the book or skipped chapters. Don't do this, the book is too important!

On closer inspection, Sebastian's take on the political structure of the Chaco Anasazi and the entire San Juan Basin of New Mexico is extremely close to my own take on how events took place. It is certainly a possibility at any rate, no matter what your view of Chaco is. Architecture as physical evidence of power is known worldwide and there is no reason why it should not be so in Chaco Canyon and the surrounding region. Competition for followers that led to the rise of the monumental architecture also makes sense.

There can be little doubt that the people of Chaco had some type of political organization and the result of this organization is reflected in the architecture and material culture we see in the ruins of Chaco Canyon. I turely believe that Sebastian has her fingure on the pulse of these developments.

Although I would like to have seen some emphasis on how competition could have caused conflict and what the role of captives/slaves (or similar sub-class) may have been in the system, Lynne has taken on a difficult subject and brought to light some fantastic insight. Her ties between major construction events and downturns in effective moisture, if correct, are stunning. It may seem a bit environmentally deterministic at first glance, but the rainfall records she presents do indeed correlate fairly well with construction events in the canyon.

I would recommend this book to any scholar interested in the Cacoan Anasazi, ancient political systems, or the rise and fall of socio-religious systems. I also recommend this book to the non-archaeologist as an interesting and thought provoking study of this ancient culture.

When writing a book review it is sometimes helpful to provide the reader with a little background of the reviewer to put it into perspective. Having lived most of my life in Arizona and experienced three week-long houseboat trips on Lake Powell in Northern Arizona I am familiar with the mystery of the Anasazi who lived in this area and in Northwestern New Mexico, but am not an archeologist or scholar. Like many who visit the Anasazi areas and view the remains of their civilization I have been captivated by the mystery, where did they come from, what precipitated their rapid development around 900 AD and their rather sudden decline and disappearance within a few hundred years?

Lynne Sebastian's "The Chaco Anasazi: Sociopolitical evolution in the prehistoric Southwest" is a scholarly study of this phenomenon and while providing lots of very interesting detail on the Anasazi it is a tough read for the non-scholar. She provides information on the rainfall in the area and relates it to the production, storage and consumption of corn and develops a theory of the Anasazi sociopolitical evolution.

There are many photographs, drawings and charts that are very helpful, however the quality of the photographs is dismal and the publisher, Cambridge University Press, should be faulted for producing a book with such poor quality photographs. Today's technology, properly used, could have produced a superior product.

The reader must take into consideration the extreme difficulty in researching this subject due to the almost non-existence of good archeological data. Areas that I had hoped would be explored, their religion(s), an explanation for their apparent intellectual superiority to other groups and the subsequent loss of this intellectual capacity to the region after the fall, are not developed.

Despite these shortcomings I would recommend this book to the motivated reader who wants to expand their knowledge of this fascinating subject. Just remember to have your dictionary by your side when you start reading!