Archaeology of the Southwest United States
Section 500
Fall 2004

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This class is an overview of the archaeology of the southwestern United States from the earliest evidence of human occupation to the historic period.

This course presents an anthropological perspective on the native peoples of the Southwest United States from the earliest evidence of human occupation to the historic period. Archaeological investigations provide a long-term view of peoples' changing adaptations to the desert environment, their technology, and the development of political complexity. Studies by ethnologists provide us with in-depth but short-term views of living native cultures and their responses to historical invasions and the modern situation.

The archaeological record of the Southwest United States is extraordinarily rich and varied. This section of the course will begin with the Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers that occupied the region 12,000 years ago. Subsequent cultural development culminates in the spectacular regional systems centered at Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and in the Phoenix area. This section concludes with a study of the unexplained collapse of the late prehistoric Pueblo and Hohokam cultural systems.

As Historic and Modern Native American groups have adapted to the various natural environments in the Southwest United States, they have also had to deal with decimation by plagues, greatly restricted territorial ranges, and more recently, population explosions, a cash economy, and "Anglo" efforts at cultural domination. Various modern issues that affect tribes, along with a consideration of the ethics of anthropology and archaeology, will be considered at the end of the course.