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Show REVIEWS 105 Grouped Style Categories; general style categories into which non-diagnostic sherds can be easily placed without artificially inflating specific categories. Grouped Style Categories can be useful for rough chronological interpretations and the identification of different cultural components reflected by the sherds within a single assemblage. In closing I would note that A Field Guide for Identification is a field tool, in convenient 5.5 by 8.5 inch format, that, if used properly, can greatly aid the various survey archaeologists working in the northern Anasazi area of the Colorado Plateau. The identification system it describes can, and will, reduce the potential for faulty data finding its way into the various archaeological data banks. This book is a step towards correcting a problem. The initial step was to recognize and accept that there was a problem. The next step will be to educate the keepers of the various data banks and to modify the various forms, such as the Intermountain Archaeological Computer System (IMACS) form, to accept ceramic styles as a legitimate form of data. The final step will be for those of us who are out there doing the archaeological footwork to get with the program. It will be a long trek but this book represents a start. I hope to find many dog-eared and worn out copies among the field gear of my fellow southwestern archaeological field workers in the years to come. The Main Ridge Community at Lost City. Virgin Anasazi Architecture, Ceramics, and Burials, by Margaret M. Lyneis. Anthropological Papers No. 117. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. 1992. xi, 96 pages, 22 figures, 71 tables on included computer diskette. $25.00 paper. Reviewed by: Douglas A. McFadden Bureau of Land Management 318 North First East Kanab, UT 84714 This volume considers the Anasazi settlement along the Muddy River in southern Nevada popularly known as "Lost City." It is the westernmost pueblo an occupation and is part of the Virgin Anasazi culture area that spans the adjacent uplands of northern Arizona and southern Utah. Located in the Mohave Desert at less than 2,000 feet above sea level, it is one of the most extreme adaptations of the Anasazi culture. While not a marginal manifestation, it is unquestionably a peripheral one. Initially excavated during the 1920s and never adequately published, accounts of Southwestern culture history have virtually ignored the area. Lyneis, conducting both archival research and her own field investigations has created order of this "old" data and provided us with a modern perspective of it. In so doing, this corner of the Anasazi world can now find its place in Southwestern prehistory. Mark R. Harrington, fresh from Lovelock Cave, began excavating sites in Moapa Valley in 1924. This was his first experience with the Anasazi; his perspective was essentially synchronic for he called the entire area "Pueblo Grande de Nevada." Eventually, 121 sites (over 600 rooms) were investigated (or as he termed them, "houses"). Forty-four of these were concentrated on "the main ridge." The area was largely ignored until Shutler's 1961 dissertation considered the entire occupation and imposed some temporal order by describing chronological phases. Recently Main Ridge has been recorded as 26CK2148, a single site that covers an area 750 m by 900 m. The forty-four "houses," which consist of nearly 200 rooms, are the subject of this monograph's analysis. Unfortunately no unexcavated sites are left on Main Ridge with which to test hypotheses, provide dates or additional analyses. This situation makes a strong case for the modern preservation ethic of leaving something to dig in the future. Harrington's excavation methods, the resulting categories of data and its quality, while perhaps in accord with the standards of the day, perforce structure the modern study of Main Ridge as a community. For instance we learn that Harrington was not careful about differentiating artifacts in room fill and those on the floor (page 26) nor were any drawings made of the structures. Lyneis assumes the task of developing the available data on architecture, ceramics, mortuary practices, and trade goods and brings it to bear on her central concern which is social organization. These analyses are followed with a chapter that summarizes the Main Ridge findings and a final chapter that considers the Moapa Valley occupation in a regional context. Chapter One presents the central issue of this volume, Main Ridge social organization, as a dichotomy: do the "houses" (read sites) constitute a contemporaneous group of families with some form of 106 UTAH ARCHAEOLOGY 1993 integrating organization-that is, do they represent a community? Or, are they " . . . simply (emphasis mine) the composite result of sequential habitation by a small number of families over a period of years?" This question of contemporanity of architecture is particularly relevant to interpretations of site layouts and clusters elsewhere in the Virgin area where evidence for long-term site occupations is strong. Lyneis's interpretation is that the Main Ridge occupation indeed is an essentially contemporaneous community but that it represents a special situation. Chapter Two details description of individual "house" layouts, their architecture and distribution over the ridge. Lyneis salvaged scale plans of these structures from the rising waters of Lake Meade during the 1980s. Their random settlement pattern is considered to be a product of rugged topography with clusters of individually constructed but usually "conjoined" rooms located on each suitable flat spot. Considerations of room function, habitation/storage ratios and their capacities provide excellent comparative data. The assessment of the settlement pattern at this point, hinting at the special status of these sites, is that the high household densities and their distance upslope from the floodplain "indicate that something about the location encouraged an unusual community to develop." Following analysis of the artifactual material, Lyneis concludes that Main Ridge community occupied a gateway location that facilitated trade with the uplands. Chapter Three considers the case for contemporaneity of structures and burials during mid- PII (A.D. 1050-1100) by comparing ceramic collections from her fieldwork and vessels from burials curated at the Museum of the American Indian. An excellent discussion of ceramics, the ceramic chronology and considerations of external contact and its implications are covered. Dating of the Main Ridge occupation is indirect. It is based on three 14C dates that bracket the ceramic assemblage whose diagnostic types fall ca. A.D. 1050-1100. This is a vast improvement over using Shutler's Lost City Phase (A.D. 700-1100) but it should be considered suggestive-many more dates are necessary to confirm this period. Of concern to those interested in developing chronologies via seriation is the finding that the frequencies of major wares are independent from the rest of the Virgin culture area. Chapter Four discusses ceramic variability. A significant contribution for those working with ceramics elsewhere in the culture area is the definition of the new ceramic type called Shivwits Brown. Made in the uplands, it demonstrates a strong link between the two areas. A disconcerting characteristic of this mid PII type is that its rim form appears more similar to styles common during the Pueblo I period-another indication that Virgin ceramics might require the development of local chronologies. Finding difficultly in fitting this new type into Colton's classification system Lyneis calls for an overhaul of Virgin Anasazi ceramics. Chapter Five describes the 45 burials found on Main Ridge (of the 289 excavated by Harrington). They were found in roughly equal numbers on or beneath the floors of structures, in the ruins of structures, and in the trash deposits. Significantly, the burials are not considered to reflect a ranked society but rather an egalitarian one. As Lyneis points out, we should probably not expect to find ranked societies or chiefdoms anywhere else in the culture area either. Chapter Six "Local Products and Nonlocal Goods" discusses the evidence for inter regional connections-shell from as far as the coast, salt and turquoise from local sources, and ceramics from the uplands as far away as the Kayenta area. Considerable weight is afforded to these items. Lyneis's conclusion is "that red ware, shell beads, and other identifiable long distance trade items moved on the back of linked local exchange of perishable materials." This well-reasoned, essentially functional interpretation also accounts for the large percentage of Shivwits Brown (14 percent) on Main Ridge. Taking into account the difficulty of transporting bulky perishables (and also congruent with the data) is the alternative hypothesis that a relatively few perishable items of economic consequence might have accompanied an essentially ritualistic relationship that served to integrate people of the Moapa Valley in a wider social sphere. Lyneis suggests that this relationship would be better understood if only upland workers would screen-possibly, but at great cost. Perhaps some protocol is in order to satisfy this important research inquiry. Settlement pattern and artifactual analysis combine to support the conclusion that " . . . (Main Ridge community's) reason for existence was its position at the gateway from the Moapa Valley to the lower reaches of the Virgin Valley and beyond." A well developed model, but surely the valley floor at this point was arable and of economic importance as well. REVIEWS 107 As Lyneis pointed out early in the volume, the proximity of Main Ridge to both the Moapa Valley and the Virgin River could have provided insurance in the event of crop failure-as well as access to the north. With local sources of data exhausted, testing the conclusion that regional trade took precedence over local produce will need to take place in the uplands. In a sense "Main Ridge" is salvage archeology. It provides us with a modern analysis and interpretation of material collected over half a century ago. The Virgin culture area consists of several diverse environmental localities. This volume develops and summarizes the data from one of them-a welcome contribution that allows comparison between the areas. The Virgin Tradition, that umbrella of cultural attributes that integrates the entire area, is also addressed via the mechanisms of local and regional exchange that surely supported and defined that tradition. I hope we can look forward to similar volumes that describe, as well as offer explanation, from each of the Virgin culture area localities. The volume comes supplied with a 3 Vi-inch diskette using Microsoft 4.0 for Macintosh requiring the reader to print some 76 pages of tables that accompany the monograph. I suppose this represents the "cutting edge" in publishing. If it reduces costs it may be worthwhile, but it is awkward to use. In the future, I suggest that the more critical tables be incorporated into the text while those that might ordinarily be in an appendix be placed on the diskette. A choice of software programs might also be offered. Quest for the Origins of the First Americans, by E. James Dixon. University of New Mexico, 1992, Albuquerque. 1993. 154 pages, 44 illustrations. $22.96 (including shipping). Reviewed by: Roy Macpherson Salt Lake-Davis Chapter Utah Statewide Archaeological Society 5669 Laurelwood Street Salt Lake City, UT 84121 The most striking new theory is that the Clovis or Llano culture came to Alaska from the south or the middle part of North America and not from Asia over the Bering Straits, and that the culture was developed in North America. Dixon describes three cultures that were present in Alaska during the 12,000-9,000 B.P. period. The Nenana and Paleoartic traditions came to Alaska from Asia and the Clovis tradition came from central North America. He bases these traditions on the differences in the lithic assembles of these traditions that have been excavated in Alaska and in the associated 14C dates. He gives particular credence to recent findings (last 10 to 15 years). Dixon states that man could have come to the Americas 30,000 to 40,000 years ago by water craft from Asia, adapting and establishing cultures first in a coastal environment and then working inland. He bases the boat theory on the fact that Australia was peopled by watercraft over 40,000 B.P. Dixon accept T. D. Dillenay's chronology data from Mount Verde in Chile and Jim Adovasio chronology data from Meadowcroft Rock shelter in Pennsylvania. By doing this he places man in the new world Prior to 12,000 B.P. Of particularly interest is Dixon's explanation and use of hemoglobin crystallization on the residuals from paleo points for identifying extinct animals. He also writes about accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) in 14C dating paleo artifacts and how it has improved our chronologic capability. The book is written more like a novel than a scientific text. Dixon includes many personal experiences he had while he was developing the data for Quest for the Origins of the First Americans. His experiences while writing and having the book published are also included. The new theories in the book are controversial and probably will not be generally accepted without a great deal of discussion and additional substantiating information. Again, if you are interested in paleoindians you will want to read Quest for the Origins of the First Americans. If you are interested in paleoindians you will want to read Quest for the Origins of the First Americans. Technically the new ideas are not fully substantiated with hard facts, but the concepts are very interesting. |
