Synopses & Reviews
When Emil Haury defined the ancient Mogollon in the 1930s as a culture distinct from their Ancestral Pueblo and Hohokam neighbors, he triggered a major intellectual controversy in the history of southwestern archaeology, centering on whether the Mogollon were truly a different culture or merely a "backwoods variant" of a better-known people. In this book, archaeologists Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey tell the story of the remarkable individuals who discovered the Mogollon culture, fought to validate it, and eventually resolved the controversy.
Reid and Whittlesey present the arguments and actions surrounding the Mogollon discovery, definition, and debate. Drawing on extensive interviews conducted with Haury before his death in 1992, they explore facets of the debate that scholars pursued at various times and places and how ultimately the New Archaeology shifted attention from the research questions of cultural affiliation and antiquity that had been at the heart of the controversy. In gathering the facts and anecdotes surrounding the debate, Reid and Whittlesey offer a compelling picture of an academician who was committed to understanding the unwritten past, who believed wholeheartedly in the techniques of scientific archaeology, and who used his influence to assist scholarship rather than to advance his own career.
Prehistory, Personality, and Place depicts a real archaeologist practicing real archaeology, one that fashioned from potsherds and pit houses a true understanding of prehistoric peoples. But more than the chronicle of a controversy, it is a book about places and personalities: the role of place in shaping archaeologists' intellect and personalities, as well as the unusual intersections of people and places that produced resolutions of some intractable problems in Southwest history.
Review
"The importance of place is the deep secret of southwest archaeology, and Reid and Whittlesey are to be congratulated for bringing it to the surface with such eloquence. They are uniquely able to discuss Haury and the Mogollon controversy with personal experience that would be difficult for others to match." —James E. Snead, author of Ruins and Rivals: The Making of Southwest Archaeology
Synopsis
When Emil Haury defined the Mogollon as a culture unique from the Anasazi and Hohokam, it triggered a major intellectual controversy in the history of Southwestern archaeology. Reid and Whittlesey now tell the story of the individuals who discovered the Mogollon culture, fought to validate it, and eventually resolved the controversy.
About the Author
Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey are the authors of Thirty Years Into Yesterday: A History of Archaeology at Grasshopper Pueblo, The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona, and Grasshopper Pueblo: A Story of Archaeology and Ancient Life, all published by the University of Arizona Press. Reid is a University Distinguished Professor at the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Stephanie Whittlesey and Jefferson Reid are the authors of Thirty Years Into Yesterday: A History of Archaeology at Grasshopper Pueblo, The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona, and Grasshopper Pueblo: A Story of Archaeology and Ancient Life, all published by the University of Arizona Press. Whittlesey is a specialist in cultural resource management and heritage preservation.