Chaco’s Northern Prodigies
Salmon, Aztec, and the Ascendancy of the Middle San Juan Region after AD 1100

Edited by Paul R. Reed

432 pp., 7 x 10 v 117 figures
Cloth: $55.00s
ISBN 978-0-87480-925-1

In the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the ancient pueblo sites of Aztec and Salmon in the Middle San Juan region rapidly emerged as population and political centers during the closing stages of Chaco’s ascendancy. Some archaeologists have attributed the development of these centers to migration and colonization by people from Chaco Canyon. Others have suggested that the so-called Chacoan “system” was largely the result of emulation of Chacoan characteristics by local groups in outlying areas. Research over the last five years in the Middle San Juan suggests that both of these processes were operating.

Work by two groups of contributors resulted in this synthetic volume, which interprets thirty-five years of research at Salmon Ruins. Chaco’s Northern Prodigies also puts recent work at Salmon Ruins in the context of Middle San Juan archaeological research. It is a timely synopsis of the archaeology of this region of the Southwest.

PAUL F. REED is a preservation archaeologist with the Tucsonbased Center for Desert Archaeology. He is the author of The Puebloan Society of Chaco Canyon and the editor of Foundations of Anasazi Culture (University of Utah Press, 2000).

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:
Karen R. Adams, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Nancy J. Akins, Museum of New Mexico
Eileen Bacha, National Park Service volunteer
Larry L. Baker, Salmon Ruins Museum
Gary Brown, Aztec Ruins National Monument
Catherine Cameron, University of Colorado, Boulder
Kathy Roler Durand, Eastern New Mexico University
Stephen R. Durand, Eastern New Mexico University
Cynthia Irwin-Williams, deceased
Kristin Kuckelman, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Peter McKenna, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Scott Ortman, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Lori Stephens Reed, Animas Ceramic Consulting
Karl J. Reinhard, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Susan Ryan, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
H. Wolcott Toll, Museum of New Mexico
Ruth Van Dyke, Colorado College
Mark Varien, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
R. Gwinn Vivian, Arizona State Museum
Dorothy Washburn, Independent researcher
Laurie D. Webster, Independent researcher
Linda Wheelbarger, San Juan College
Thomas Windes, National Park Service

Praises and Reviews
“This book is a timely synopsis of the archaeology of the Middle San Juan region. All of the contributors are experts in their particular subject matter and bring this expertise to bear in some unique and, at times, exceptional ways.”
—Charles Riggs, Fort Lewis College