Fb2 Puebloan Ruins of the Southwest ePub

Arrived early in excellent condition. Thanks!

On the surface, this book appears to be quite amazing. It gives a very detailed overview of the Ancestral Puebloan people, both in general and in regards to each of their geographic regions. It is filled with interesting information and has over 325 photographs.

I do not have the knowledge to assess the accuracy of most of the book, however, I have read a lot about Chaco Canyon, including quite a few books by archaeologists who have worked at, and/or studied, Chaco. In this regard, I would say that a number of the authors' statements about Chaco are not accurate or up to date. These statements are contradicted by research that was available some years before Puebloan Ruins of the SW was published in 2006. This fact leads me to wonder how thorough the authors really were and to question the accuracy of other areas of the book.

On page 72: "We have no evidence that the Puebloans actually followed the movements of celestial bodies other than the sun." On page 229: "Anna Sofaer, who first recognized [Fajada Butte as a solar observatory in Chaco Cyn] also suspects it contains a device for recognizing the phases of the moon." In 1982, over 20 years before Rohn's & Ferguson's book, Anna Sofaer helped produce the documentary "The Sun Dagger," which indicated that the Fajada Butte observatory not only recorded the solstice and equinox but also an 18.6 year lunar cycle (not the "phases of the moon"!). In her article, "The Primary Architecture of the Chacoan Culture: A Cosmological Expression," first published in 1997, she demonstrates that 5 Chocoan buildings have alignments related to the lunar minor standstill and 2 to the lunar major standstill. (This article is reproduced in her 2008 edited work Chaco Astronomy: An Ancient American Cosmology.) To overlook the true meaning of her research by relating it to "phases of the moon," is surprising.

(Two years before the Rohn and Ferguson book, in the scholarly book In Search of Chaco [edited by David Grant Noble], J. McKim Malville, former chair of the Dept. of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado wrote, "I know of no other place in the ancient world that combines so concisely the annual cycle of the sun and the 18.6 -year standstill cycle of the moon....Chacoan astronomers were certainly among the world's most skillful in identifying the cycles of the sun and moon." However, to confuse matters, in his book A Guide to Prehistoric Astronomy of the Southwest, Malville reverses himself and expresses his doubt that Chaco astronomers were aware of the lunar cycle. He does note that the lunar major standstill appears to have been marked at Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde. And his 1988 observations at Chimney Rock Pueblo indicate that the lunar major standstill was observed there. Contradicting Rohn's & Ferguson's statement that there is "no evidence that the Puebloans actually followed the movements of celestial bodies other than the sun," Malville notes that "The Ancestral Puebloans...[had] the knowledge of the short and long cycles of sun and moon....")

On p.71: "Many students of Puebloan culture have made rather exhaustive observations of the sun's reflection through windows, doorways, and portholes in various structures throughout Pueblo-land, hoping to find a deliberate design to mark solstices or equinoxes. They have poured over [various Puebloan structures].... But they could not demonstrate that any of these buildings had actually been built for that primary purpose." Dr. Malville, in In Search of Chaco, noted that Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace is a major maker for the winter solstice in that the sun sets over the center of the Sun Temple. In his book Prehistoric Astronomy of the Southwest, he points out that Hovenweep Castle marks the equinoxes and both solstices. Maybe this was not the "primary purpose" of the building but it certainly appears to be a significant feature. Furthermore, Rohn and Ferguson do not acknowledge that walls and entire buildings at Chaco are lined up according to solar and possibly lunar events. This was a major focus of Anna Sofaer's Solstice Project between 1984 and 1989. The results of this research are described in Anna Sofaer's 1999 documentary "The Mystery of Chaco Canyon" as well in a number of scientific reports she published. How on earth could Rohn and Ferguson over look this?

On p.226: "By 1100 the number of rooms available suggests that up to six thousand people could have been living...in the Chaco Canyon and its immediate surroundings." On p.231: "At its peak in the late 1000s, [Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon] housed roughly one thousand people in some eight hundred rooms and thirty-seven kivas...." Rohn and Ferguson seem to make the unfortunate assumption that more rooms at Pueblo Bonito means more residents, which overlooks the fact that as Chaco developed, the rooms that were added were not residential in nature for the most part. This subject has been discussed by a number of Choacoan scholars, none of whom share Rohn's and Ferguson's clearly outdated belief. In the excellent and authoritative book Pueblo Bonito: Center of the Chacoan World, Jill Neitzel (editor of the book and author of three chapters) points out that an analysis of the data collected at Pueblo Bonito indicates that it started out as a residential center but "by 1050, the site had been transformed into a major ceremonial center, a function that would retain its primacy until the site was abandoned." (Neitzel p.145). As Neitzel notes, it appears that Pueblo Bonito never had more than a few hundred residents. Neitzel's book was published in 2003, three years before Rohn's and Ferguson's.

On p.51: "A network of roadways that connect Chaco Canyon to numerous outlying settlements to the Chaco Basin has been cited as evidence to support the interpretation of incipient urbanization." (Dictionary definition of "incipient:" "just beginning to exist or appear"; dictionary definition of "urban:" "of, in, or constituting a city...characteristic of cities") What the heck are Rohn and Ferguson writing about? The roads often go for many miles before reaching an outlying pueblo. And the purpose of the roads is not exactly clear. The general opinion of many archaeologists is that their unnecessarily large size (often 30 feet wide) may have ceremonial significance and/or they may have been used by pilgrims going to and from Chaco. Yes, they connect to outlying pueblos but what does that have to do with "urbanization?" How can you have an urban environment that covers much of the greater Four Corners Area?

On p. 229, [referring to a pictograph panel at Chaco containing the images of a hand, a "star" and a crescent moon, below which is an image that looks like a "bullseye"] "Some archaeologists like to consider this group as a representative of a supernova [from 1054AD].... Since a crescent moon did not necessarily accompany the supernova, however, this scene seems more likely to have represented the concurrence of the very last crescent moon of the waning moon with Venus...just prior to sunrise. Or, the new moon often may be seen close to Venus as evening star as the sun sets in the west." Beneath a photo of the images, the authors have the following caption: "...The Puebloans painted a star, a crescent moon, a human hand, and below the crack to the left, the sun [the "bullseye" image]. These figures portray the eastern sky just before sunrise showing Venus as the morning star near the new moon. The handprint probably belonged to the artist." I have seen these images at Chaco and what I have studied about them suggests that the supernova interpretation has more potential validity than Rohn and Ferguson acknowledge. For example, the fingers of the handprint point toward the direction of the sky in which the supernova appeared. Furthermore, calculations indicate that when the supernova appeared the moon was just entering the first quarter, hence the crescent moon image. There are other arguments as well. Regarding the "bullseye," which the authors take to represent the sun, it might represent Halley's Comet, which appeared in 1066AD, twelve years after the supernova, as well as at other times during Chaco's history. From my own observation, this image is not necessarily connected to the other three. And one of the officials at Chaco told me there are very faint streaks leading out from the "bullseye" in one direction, suggesting a comet. It was inappropriate for the authors to word the caption to their photo as if their interpretation was factual information. And I question their dismissing the conventional view so easily. At the very least they could have presented their theory as simply an alternative to the prevailing theory.

On p.76, the authors discuss the acceptance of Christianity by the Hopi village of Awatovi, and the resulting massacre of that village's people by another group of Hopi who believed those at Awatovi had gone astray by forsaking their native religion. The author's state "...The Awatovi leaders themselves requested the destruction of their own pueblo." I have no way of knowing if this statement is true or not, but in other accounts I have read of the massacre, it has never been suggested that the massacre took place at the request of the leaders of the victims. Is the authors' version just one of several different version of the story? Or is it accepted fact by scholars? If it is only a possibility, it should be acknowledged as such. Again, I do not know the truth of this matter.

Given the authors' rather surprising inaccuracies regarding Chaco Canyon, I have to question the accuracy of the book in general. Furthermore, their inaccuracies concerning Chaco indicate a sloppiness or lack of thoroughness which disturbs me.

Would have to agree with the prior reviewer. Again not am expert on the subject, but there appear to serious factual errors about Pecos.
1-Says that the North Pueblo was no excavated, this is incorrect, Kidder during his time at Pecos (1915-1929), certainly excavated a large portion of the North Pueblo including hundreds of grave sites.
2-Refers to Pecos National Monument, It is a National Park and has been one since the 90's.