Prehistoric Southwesterners from Basketmaker to Pueblo

Description

Author: Amsden, Charles Avery  (1899-1941)

Publisher: Southwest Museum (Los Angeles, CA)

Pub Date: 1976 (Second reprint)

Binding: Paperback

Condition:  2 copies.  Copy 1 (K):  Fair.  Binding tight.  No folds.  Previous owner’s name on inside front cover.  Lower front cover corner has an approx. 3″ bend, extends to first (title) page.  Upper front cover corner has an approx. 1/2″ bend, extends to first page.  Smudging, dirt to front cover.  Includes one fold-out.  Illustrated with photographs, drawings.  Smudging to bottom text block and side text block near upper corner.  Edge and corner wear.  Copy 2 (D): Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears, folds.  Lower front cover corner has an approx. 1″ bend, extends through front matter.  Smudging to lower front cover.  Verso edge rear cover has an approx. 2″ crease (something dropped there?).   Some slight edge wear.

Notes:  Amsden died before this was published.  Very folksy Introduction about Amsden by Alfred Kidder, Amsden’s mentor.  “We found Basketmaker life at about the time of Christ, a fugitive, nomadic existence, just coming under the full spell of that great stabilizing agency, agriculture.  The pressure of that force alone would have molded it into a new pattern in the course of the six centuries we have passed in review.  But other forces were at work too, and their stamp is bold on the final product.  Something more than a new and better way of living was leading our Basketmakers toward civilization….The bean and the bow and arrow certainly were handed to them all ready for use.  As much may be said for the essential idea of the pithouse, and probably of pottery.”  (Page 137)  And that’s the story of southwestern archaeology in a nutshell.