Customer Reviews

In Search of the Old Ones

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the first book I've read specifically about the Anasazi, and I really enjoyed it. Roberts takes us along on his personal search for answers to the mysteries of the Anasazi through his interviews of leading experts, his camping and hiking expeditions throughout the region, conversations with living Native American Hopi and Navajos, and his research of the modern day archeological history which started with an amateur rancher in the 1880's.

I found this a fabulous read. It's told in an entertaining way, as though we're along for the ride with Roberts as he follows his own curiosity into the world of the Anasazi.

I was impressed with how he presented the mysteries surrounding the Anasazi. He raises many questions which baffle current archeologists, and leaves the final conclusions up to the reader.

Roberts also does a good job of bring up different sides of issues such as how much to allow the public into delicate significant sites - what is the proper role of government agencies to balance preservation with access to the public? Also through his informal interviews he exposes the balance between the archeological practice of digging up bones and pots from ancient sites versus leaving them in their natural state as more of a natural museum.

Roberts is a contributing writer for Outside Magazine, has an inherent interest in the Anasazi, and spent years hiking and camping throughout the Four Corners region where the Anasazi lived until about 700 years ago.

I had a good time taking this trip with the author through the past and am now encouraged to learn more about the Ancient Ones who inhabited our West for so long before we arrived.

David Roberts has done the almost impossible for the reader: actually taking you with him on an adventure into the past. Blending archaeology, scholarship and canyoneering, Roberts makes this anything but dry reading. In fact, I could literally feel the canyons under my feet and smell the air, while investigating nooks and crannies holding fascinating remnants of the various Anasazi cultures. These remaining treasures are fragile and in need of protection. This book explores in depth the philosophies and issues surrounding this often "hot topic". Highly recommended to anyone interested in the ancient past of the Americas. Nancy McDowell, Editor, "Canyon Spirits E-Journal",

Not being from the Southwest this book acted like a walking guide to the mysterious disappearance and the researched history of the ancient civilization inhabiting the canyons. It was a good, easy read, with lots of references for more research. I would read more of his work without hesitation. I just wish he'd put in some maps to give an overview of the canyons he was hiking.

In Search of the Old Ones is one of the best books I have ever read about the Anasazi in the Southwest. David Roberts does a wonderful job and made me want to go to the deserts of Utah and Arizona and track them down myself. I have read many books about this area and I have backpacked several of the canyons he describes. This book can be used as a guide if you decide to search for the 'Old Ones' yourself. I'm waiting for the sequel.

Can't add much more to the above reviews other than to say Roberts does a great job presenting varying theories on the Anasazi mystery and also credits many exceptional resources throughout his book.

I picked this book up in preparation for a recent trip to the Four corners region, and found it to be a highly readable account of one man's search for answers as to what did happen to the Anasazi. While Roberts raises more questions than he answers, this is still an entertaining way to learn more about the area and I would recommend it for anyone who has an interest in the cliff dwellings and general aura of the area.

David Roberts has the wonderful ability to capture and transmit the spiritual quality of his wanderings thru the land of the Anasazi. He further provides updated archaeological facts about these ancestral and prehistoric desert dwellers, their artifacts and homes, and how they established their culture by working within the parameters of what resources were available eons ago. This book is for all who love the great Southwest, prehistory, nature, and/or those who want to escape the daily pressures of life and drift into the beautiful canyons, mesas, washes, and mystical aspect of the desert. Reading this journey just made me feel better. I wanted to jump up and go out into the desert and enjoy Mother Nature and her flor and fauna. My only disappointment is, at least for the present, there won't be a Part II.

One good chapter and the rest amounts to: "I was hiking through the canyon one day, and I saw ..." I wanted less information about the author and what he had to eat that day, and more about the Anasazi.

Roberts takes us on an adventure into the canyons and cliff ruins and into the lives of the archaeologists and pot hunters who explore them. He brings key people like rancher Richard Wetherill to life and he presents a well researched account of the controversy surrounding the disappearance of the Anasazi from most of their dwellings in about 1300 AD. This book is fun to read.

This book reads like a lengthy article in a men's outdoorsy magazine. The author goes on an endless series of camping trips(often with companions who range from greenhorns to backwoods experts) to find Anasazi ruins in the southwest that most of us will never see, nor according to the author should we ever see them, because too many people would destroy them, but this author gets his thrills going to see them anyway. Along the way he discusses this and other controversies surrounding the famed old ones of the Four Corners region, stories of other explorers who came before, and the occasional eerie thrill of discovery. A helpful appendix explains the different periods archaeologists use to discuss Anasazi history ("Basketmaker I", "Pueblo II," etc.) but there is precious little Anasazi history or achaeology per se in this book, which is a more personal take on the region. We are left with the same appreciation and fascination for the Anasazi which led us to pick up the book in the first place, and some understanding of the problems of this field of inquiry, but not much more understanding of the Anasazi themselves; who they were, where they came from, how they lived, what they believed, etc. Admittedly much of this information is murky and unknown, but, well, it still is after reading this.