Chaco Canyon (Digging for the Past) - Hardcover

R. Gwinn Vivian is at Arizona State Museum, Arizona State University.

Grade 5 Up-This is not so much about the canyon as it is about the archaeological finds in the Four Corners area of northeastern New Mexico between 1823 and 1971. Its emphasis is on the scientists, their discoveries, their lives, and their techniques, with information about the Chacoan civilization for those researchers who are willing and able to ferret it out. Complete with maps, history charts, and information on related sites, the book has a clean, spacious format. Its four chapters highlight mysteries of Chaco Canyon: a house with 800 rooms; clues in floors, walls, and rafter; and 30-foot-wide highways. The small, full-color pictures focus on the archaeologists working rather than on the canyon itself. Most of them are museum collection or National Park Service photographs, and they do little to aid an understanding of the subject. Eleanor H. Ayer's The Anasazi (Walker, 1993) offers more detailed information for reports on the ancient people and good diagrams that make for better understanding of the architecture, while Susan E. Goodman's Stones, Bones, and Petroglyphs (Atheneum, 1998) has great photos. Sprinkled with personal anecdotes and experiences, Vivian and Anderson's book is interesting, but it's an additional purchase.
Susannah Price, Boise Public Library, ID
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