Ancient Americas: Anasazi History

ANCIENT DWELLINGS OF THE SOUTHWEST (Pop-up Book)
by Derek Gallagher. Historically accurate color illustrations by Sally Blakemore. Paper engineering: Eileen Banashek, Sally Blakemore, & Anthony Esparsen. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 2004 Western National Parks Assn. hardcover (pictorial boards), no edition nor printing given. Lightly perused on shelf. Problem: Pale name top inside cover with 2 Parks Assn. proof-of-purchase stamp. Content: Archeologists say that 1,000 years ago more people lived in the Four Corners region of the Southwest than live there now. Today visitors to the region see the empty dwellings and pueblos from that time, but not the lively cultures that once built them. Ancient Dwellings of the Southwest puts the people back in these places in three dimensions. Hohokam ball players leap and dive in the ballcourt at Casa Grande Ruins in Arizona; the reader moves women at Mesa Verde in Colorado to watch them grind corn or pulls back the bow of a hunter at Bandelier in New Mexico. The buildings at all of these sites vibrate with life thanks to the artist’s conceptualizing of how they looked at the height of their use. The five-story Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon unfolds out of the page while the dwellings at Bandelier and Mesa Verde nestle in the shadow of the cliffs. See how these places looked when people lived, worked, and played in them. Ages 6+. The neat thing about these pop-ups is that each has another pop-up on the reverse side. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 6.49 + $ 2.99 media shipping.

The AZTEC TREASURE HOUSE: New and Selected Essays
by Evan S. Connell. Condition: NEW 2001 Counterpoint large hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Tiny edge wear to DJ edges. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: A collection of new and selected essays by master craftsman Connell. He has long been attracted to the visionary and eccentric, to those people and events slightly outside the mainstream of human experience. His subjects are people of passion and purpose, events of legend and desire. He offers stories of the Anazasi, the "old ones" of the southwestern desert, of the grand explorers Marco Polo, Columbus, Magellan, and Ibn Batuta, of heretics, fanatics, scientists, cranks, and geniuses. There are tales of fabulous advances made in anthropology, archeology, astronomy, and linguistics. This is a book of great "celebrations of man's insatiable drive to probe unknown frontiers [that] read like superb novels," says Grover Sales. "[They] establish Connell as an important writer-poet-thinker with a truly original mind." The book comprises two previous collections, The White Lantern and A Long Desire, and two new essays never published in trade book form. The whole amounts to a dazzling monument to the career of one of America's finest writers. A few pieces consider historic clashes between "those traditional opponents Science and Religion." Fascinated by people who probe the outer limits of knowledge and geography, Connell provides a blow-by-blow account of the famous debate between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce over evolution and describes the searing conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church over heliocentrism. "White Lantern" the best essay of the bunch passionately (even enviously) details the amazing race to the South Pole between pragmatic Norwegian Roald Amundsen and romantic Englishman Captain Robert Scott, in a narrative even Jon Krakauer would admire. Connell sagely points out that "Amundsen, the victor, is not as renowned as the loser," because a dead hero (Scott died on the return trip) is more likely to captivate the public's imagination. Confessing a hopeless attraction to "buried treasure, monsters, ghosts, derelict ships, inexplicable footprints, and luminous objects streaking through the sky," Connell chronicles journeys of absolute, disastrous futility the searches for Atlantis, the Seven Cities of Gold and the Northwest Passage. These skillfully crafted essays will please any history, science or adventure buff. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 6.29 + $ 2.99 media shipping.

HOHOKAM: Prehistoric Cultures of the Southwest series
by Rose Houk. Beautiful color photos with map on back cover. Condition: NEW 1992 Southwest Parks and Monuments Assn. soft cover (stapled wraps), no printing given. Content: Although the Hohokam are grouped with the Anasazi, they are technicall not considered Anasazi. They inhabited the Sonoran Desert, produced beautiful pottery, and gave us Casa Grande. Fascinating civilization. [1 copy available]
$ 3.59 + $ 2.99 shipping.

IF ROCKS COULD TALK (Children's Book)
illustrations by B. Jane Bush. Text by Diane Goldsmith. Brown & white illustrations. Condition: NEW 1994 Dale Seymour soft cover, no printing given. Book only. Content: Explore prehistoric drawings made by Native Americans. This book has history, descriptions and illustrations of rock art, dwellings, and artifacts. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.00 + $ 2.99 media shipping International shipping available by arrangement - email us.

IN SEARCH OF THE OLD ONES: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest
by David Roberts. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 1998 Touchstone Trade Paperback, second printing. Light tanning to page edges. Short remainder mark bottom edges. Content: Six hundred years ago, the Anasazi, said to be the ancestors of the Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo peoples, left their homes in the region known as the Four Corners, where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona converge, and disappeared. They had inhabited the area for perhaps 5000 or more years. They left behind pots, weavings, tools, monuments, human remains and, above all, their astounding cliff "palaces," containing apartments of as many as 20 rooms each. Many of these are still viable but so fragile that, in the national park lands where most are located, they are closed to the public. Roberts has spent 20 years exploring the region, and he recounts the history of the discoveries, the appalling thefts of artifacts, the cave paintings and his own transcendent experiences in stumbling upon some vestige of this lost civilization. His awe at the region's beauty, with its sheer cliffs, canyons and mesas, and at the testaments to an unknown culture will be contagious for readers. Questions welcome. [2 copies available]
$ 5.29 + $ 2.99 media shipping.

INDIANS OF THE MESA VERDE
by Don Watson. Great B&W photos of Mesa Verde and its artifacts. Condition: UNREAD c. 1990s Mesa Verde Museum Assn. Trade Paperback, no edition or printing given. Content: Reviewer: "gives the reader an excellent view into the world of these Ancient Americans and their way of life in their cliff dwellings. Little is sugar-coated to be politically-correct. The world of these Indians is accounted for by showing different chores through the seasons- from farming in the warmer months to the old and arthritis-ridden soaking up the feeble heat of the sun in the winters of southwestern Colorado. Don Watson's book is worth having if you want to keep in mind that a whole culture once existed at that almost-mystical place before it had to endure the scourge of being a National Treasure subject to the ravages of public use and wear." There are later printings of this book, but not any new editions. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.50 + $ 2.99 media shipping.

MESSAGES ON STONE; Selections of Native Western Rock Art
by William Michael Stokes & William Lee Stokes. B&W drawings illustrate. Condition: NEW 1997 Sandstone Publishing (Utah) soft cover, 14th printing. Content: From the thousands of objects and symbols the authors and others have observed, they have assembled a number of groups with meanings that are relatively clear. These groups are presented alphabetically (Apparal, Fun & Games, Hunting, etc.) with brief comments in the following pages. An excellent primer for petroglyphs, rock art, and/or pictographs. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.29 + $ 2.99 media shipping. International shipping available on arrangement - email us.

MONTEZUMA CASTLE
by Albert Schroeder and Homer Hastings. B&W maps and photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read, If at all, 1961 National Park Service Handbook Series # 27 soft cover (stapled wraps), 40 pages. Content: The history and geology of Montezuma Castle in Arizona built by the amazing Sinagua peoples who were contemporaries of the Anasazi. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.19 meida shipping.

THE OLD ONES: A Children's Book About the Cliff Dwellers (Anasazi)
text & B&W photos by Brian Freeman and Jodi Freeman. Excellent B&W drawings by Terry Flanagan. Condition: UNREAD 1997 Think Shop trade paperback, 3rd edition. Light shelf wear - cover color is weak. Content: This is a book about the Anssazi (also known as The Cliff Dwellers) who inhabited the Southwestern states in prehistory. While this book states that Anasazi is a Navajo word for "Old Ones," I have always heard that the word means "the Old Ones who are our enemies." This is an excellent intro for youngsters to these tribes. Ages 7 +. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 8.00 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

PEOPLE OF THE MESA VERDE COUNTRY: An Archaeological Remembrance
by Ian M. Thompson. Color maps of the area form the end pages. B&W photos of artifacts with B&W drawings and decorations by Richard Cornelius. Condition: NEW 2002 Crow Canyon-EarthTales Press soft cover, no printing given. Content: Author Ian Thompson lived virtually all his life in a single place- the Four Corners region. For five decades he explored, studied and wrote about its past and present inhabitants and their relationship to the landscape. When he died in 1998 he left behind this unfinished project. Ian had wanted to synthesize for general readers what the 20th century told us about this very special place. This book cannot be what he hoped to complete before his death, but it is a facsimile of what he had imagined and began the previous year. Edited and published posthumously, People of the Mesa Verde Country is a grateful memorial to Ian Thompson and an opportunity to enjoy the reflections of a man who understood, better than most, why the past matters as profoundly as it does. Thompson was the executive director of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center from 1987 to 1990 and the director of research from 1995 to 1997. BTW, Crow Canyon (in beautiful downtown Cortez, Co.) has one-day digs you can experience. Great fun and educational. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.29 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

ROCK ART OF THE WESTERN CANYONS
edited by Jane Day, et al. B&W drawings, photos, and art. Condition: UNREAD 1989 Denver Museum of Natural History - Colorado Archaeological Society Trade Paperback, no printing given. Light edge wear with a very short shelf wear "scratch" top front cover. Interior clean & very tight. Content: In recent years anthropologists, art historians and informed laymen have become increasingly interested in the rock art of the western US. In response to this interest a symposium was held at the Denver Museum ofo Natural History in April of 1987 to addres some of the recent research in this fascinating field. The enthusiastic response of both the participants and audience led to the publication of the papers presented in this volume. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.95 + $ 2.99 media shipping.

TIME DETECTIVES: How Scientists Use Modern Technology to Unravel The Secrets of The Past
by Brian Fagan. Illustrated with B&W drawings, maps, and photographs. Condition: NEW 1996 Touchstone Trade Paperback, third printing. Tiny edgewear. Content: This exhilarating mix of high adventure and serious scholarship explores how modern archeologists are using techniques like computer imaging, infrared photography and pollen analysis to reconstruct ancient cultures. Fagan, an archaeologist, describes Tiwanaku, a vanished city on Lake Titicaca's Bolivian shore (A.D. 5th-11th centuries), where Andean farmers used crop cultivation methods that are now being copied by modern villagers to increase yields. He visits enigmatic Flag Fen in eastern England, where an enormous Bronze Age timber platform rose amid uninhabited wetlands, the site of sacrificial offerings. He combs Wadi Kubbaniya, an obscure Egyptian valley, home to hunter-gatherers 10,000 years before the pharaohs-possible ancestors of ancient Egyptian civilization. He explains how excavations of the mansions and gardens of 18th-century colonial Annapolis, Md., are revealing class divisions between a white elite and African Americans who comprised as much as one-third of the population. Fagan also explores multistory New Mexican pueblos of the Anasazi, a Sumerian temple complex, Blackfoot bison hunt sites on Canadian cliffs and remnants of the Natufian culture-some of the world's earliest farmers - discovered in the 1930s in what is now Israel. [Whether you agree or disagree with Fagan, he always makes you think.] [1 copy available]
$ 4.69 + $ 2.99 media shipping.

TREADING IN THE PAST: SANDALS OF THE ANASAZI
by Kathy Kankainen (also Editor) and Laurel Casjens (Photographer). Color photos illustrate. Cover illustration by Laurel Casjens. Condition: NEW (shrink-wrapped) 1995 University of Utah Press soft cover, assumed first printing. Content: From approximately AD 1 to 1300, the people we now refer to as Anasazi inhabited parts of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Their impressive and enigmatic rock art and architectural ruins are well known, but the arid Four Corners climate has also preserved such artifacts as loomed clothes, intricate baskets, and sandals. This book is the most comprehensive volume on Anasazi sandals and weaving technique. Three hundred twelve examples from the extensive holdings at the Utah Museum of Natural History demonstrate the Anasazi genius as skilled textile artists. These examples incorporate colorful geometric patterns and reveal elaborate manipulations of warp and weft. Within the relatively rigid requirements of size, shape, and function, the ancient sandal weavers created almost as many decorative expressions as there are recorded specimens. The impact of the sandals as a group is emotionally and aesthetically powerful - a tribute to the Anasazi sandal weavers. [1 copy available]
$ 12.69 + $ 3.40 media shipping.

ANASAZI MIMBRES PLATE BOOKPLATES
art by Aroas. Condition: NEW package of 12 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get any where else. 4.0" H x 3.0" W. We can personalize your bookplate (the font is Cancun) - just email us the name. Any questions, click here to email us. Content: This is a combination of Anasazi pottery artwork with and inset of, at least, Mimbres-inspired design.
$ 4.00 + $ 2.85 first class shipping.

ANASAZI PETROGLYPHS BOOKPLATES
art by Dmstudio. Condition: NEW package of 12 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get anywhere else. 3.5" H x 3.5" W. We can personalize your bookplate (the font is Libra BT) - just email us the name. Any questions, click here to email us. Content: Petroglyphs can be found all over the Southwest from West Texas to California. Some petroglyps represent actual animals (deer, armadillos, etc.) while others are mysterious and seem to depict creatures from outer space (ok, some people think that). All are beautiful and worthy of being preserved wherever they are found.
$ 4.00 + $ 2.85 first class shipping. International shipping available.

KOKOPELLI DANCING BOOKPLATES
art by V. Protsak. Condition: NEW package of 12 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get anywhere else. 3.1" W x 4.0" H. We can personalize your bookplate (the font is BinnerD) - just email us the name. Any questions, click here to email us. Content: Kokopelli is most likely the most famous of all the ancient American petroglyphs. "Kokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player (often with a huge phallus and feathers or antenna-like protrusions on his head), who has been venerated by some Native American cultures in the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also a trickster god and represents the spirit of music." (Wikipedia)
$ 4.00 + $ 2.85 first class shipping.

NATIVE AMERICAN SOUTHWESTERN POTTERY BOOKPLATES
art by unknown artist. Condition: NEW package of 12 bookplates made by pacaritambo books. The peel-off label stock is heavier than most bookplate materials and is matte and not glossy. They are as perfect as possible, and we feel the subject matter is much different than you can get at a big store. 3.2 wide x 4.00 high. Content: Assorted Southwestern tribal pottery samples and designs - Anasazi, Zuni, Hopi, etc. We can personalize your bookplate (the font is Binner D) - just email us the name. Any questions, click here to email us.
$ 4.00 + $ 2.85 first class shipping. International shipping available.