Customer Reviews

People of Chaco: A Canyon and Its Culture

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For anyone interested in Chaco and the whole Chaco Phenomenon, this is a very readable place to start -- lots of good, basic information, and the addition of the last chapter updating what came before is particularly worthwhile. The only negative is easily overlooked because of the subject, but the editorial staff should be drawn and quartered for letting a reissue hit the presses with ANY grammatical and/or typo errors -- shame on them, but good for Frazier for updating his book (and his readers) on what's new re Chaco.

The "People of Chaco" is about the people (white man) who found the ruins, and the subsequent history of people who excavated, catalogued, and estalished the archeology. It is more about the history of the establishment of protection policies than of the people who lived here, built here, died here, socialized here...and their migration into other clans and tribes of the southwest, when the Chaco culture started to fail. This book was published in the mid-late '80's, and it is interesting to note that there have been a lot of turnarounds in thoughts, attitudes, and deductions in later published books. Later books, however, are almost too stiff, in their efforts to be more "politically correct" in their verbage and descriptions. Also, lots has happened since 1989.

For anyone interested in Chaco--or in 'Anasazi' culture in general--this is a great read. It is highly accessible to the lay reader, compiling the current theories, arguments and evidence in a way that is quite enjoyable. The overview of the historical development of research in the region is excellent. A 'must' for anyone interested in southwestern archaeology.