Archaeology without Borders: Contact, Commerce, and Change in the U.S. Southwest and Northwestern Mexico

Offers a synthesis of early agricultural adaptations in the region, groundbreaking archaeological research on social identity, and data previously not readily available to English-speaking readers. The twenty-four essays discuss early agriculture, social identity, and cultural landscapes, as well as economic and social interactions within the area now encompassed by northern Mexico and the US Southwest. Contributors examining early agricultural adaptations offer models for understanding the transition to agriculture, explore relationships between the spread of agriculture and Uto-Aztecan migrations, and present data from Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua. Contributors focusing on social identity discuss migration, enculturation, social boundaries, and ethnic identities. They draw on case studies that include diverse artefact classes -- rock art, lithics, architecture, murals, ceramics, cordage, sandals, baskets, faunal remains, and oral histories. Mexican scholars present data from Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Michoacan, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon. They address topics including Spanish-indigenous conflicts, archaeological history, cultural landscapes, and interactions among Mesoamerica, northern Mexico, and the US Southwest.

Table of Contents:
Contents List of Figures 1. Creating an Archaeology without Borders; Maxine E. McBrinn and Laurie D. Webster Part I: Early Agricultural Adaptations in the U.S. Southwest and Northwestern Mexico 2. The Transition to Agriculture in the Desert Borderlands: An Introduction; Gayle J. Fritz 3. The Setting of Early Agriculture in Southern Chihuahua; A. C. MacWilliams, Robert J. Hard, John R. Roney, Karen R, Adams, and William L. Merrill 4. Modeling the Early Agricultural Frontier in the Desert Borderlands; Jonathan B. Mabry and William E. Doolittle 5. Early Agriculture on the Southeastern Periphery of the Colorado Plateau: Diversity in Tactics; Bradley J. Vierra 6. A Method for Anticipating Patterns in Archaeological Sequences: Projecting the Duration of the Transition to Agriculture in Mexico; Amber L. Johnson 7. The Case for an Early Farmer Migration into the Greater American Southwest; Steven A. LeBlanc Part II: Converging Identities: Exploring Social Identity through Multiple Data Classes 8. Exploring Social Identities through Archaeological Data from the Southwest: An Introduction; Linda S. Cordell 9. Archaeological Models of Early Uto-Aztecan Prehistory in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands; Jonathan B. Mabry, John P. Carpenter, and Guadalupe Sanchez 10. Interaction, Enculturation, Social Distance, and Ancient Ethnic Identities; Patrick D. Lyons and Jeffery J. Clark 11. Networking the Old-Fashioned Way: Social and Economic Networks among Archaic Hunters and Gatherers in Southern New Mexico; Maxine McBrinn 12. Architectural Metaphor and Chacoan Influence in the Northern San Juan; Scott G. Ortman 13. Life's Pathways: Geographic Metaphors in Ancestral Puebloan Material Culture; Kelley Hays-Gilpin 14. The Dynamic Nature of Cultural Identity during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in Central New Mexico; Suzanne L. Eckert Part III: New Research from Northern Mexico: Borders, Contacts, Landscapes, and History 15. New Research from Northern Mexico: An Introduction; Eduardo Gamboa Carrera 16. Imaginary Border, Profound Border: Terminological and Conceptual Construction of the Archaeology of Northern Mexico; Francisco Mendiola Galv n 17. Epic of the Toltec Chichimec and the Purepecha in the Ancient Southwest; Patricia Carot and Marie-Areti Hers 18. Mesoamerican Influences in the Imagery of Northern Mexico; Arturo Guevara S nchez 19. Turquoise: Formal Economic Interrelationships between Mesoamerica and the North American Southwest; Phil C. Weigand 20. The Cultural Landscape of Cliff Houses in the Sierra Madre Occidental, Chihuahua; Eduardo Gamboa Carrera and Federico J. Mancera-Valencia 21. All Routes, All Directions: The Prehistoric Landscape of Nuevo Leon; Moises Valadez Moreno 22. Contributions of Walter W. Taylor to the Archaeology of Coahuila, 1937'1947; Leticia Gonz lez Arratia 23. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology: A Reflection on Warfare in the Archaeological Vision; M. Nicol s Caretta 24. Pacification of the Chichimeca Region; Martha Monzon Flores List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Laurie D. Webster is a visiting scholar in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Maxine E. McBrinn is a postdoctoral research scientist at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Review :
"A solid, useful volume and an excellent survey of current archaeology in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico." - --Stephen H. Lekson, Cambridge Archaeological Journal