Trending upward as an archaeological field of study, protohistoric mobile groups provide fascinating new directions for cutting-edge research in the American Southwest and beyond. These mobile residents represent the ancient and ancestral roots of many modern indigenous peoples, including the Apaches, Jumano, Yavapai, and Ute. These important protohistoric and historic mobile people have tended to be ignored because their archaeological sites were deemed too difficult to identify, too scant to be worthy of study, and too different to incorporate. This book brings together information from a diverse collection of authors working throughout the American Southwest and its fringes to make the bold statement that these groups can be identified in the archaeological record and their sites have much to contribute to the study of cultural process, method and theory, and past lifeways. Mobile groups are integral for assessing the grand reorganisational events of the Late Prehistoric period and are key to understanding colonial contact and transformations.
Deni J. Seymour is a full-time research archaeologist and ethnohistorian.
"An excellent array of regional case studies spanning the Southwest, from the edge of the Great Plains to California. A consistent, scholarly sound, and very well-rounded volume." -John Carpenter, profesor de Investigacio?n Cienti?fica, Instituto Nacional de Antropologi?a e Historia, Centro Insituto Nacional de Antropologi?a e Historia Sonora "These essays provide insights into the activities of those often invisible groups whose presence bridged a cultural and temporal span between 'prehistory' and the leading edges of 'history.' Insofar as the Southwestern archaeological literature is concerned, this book stands alone." -David H. Snow, former director and founder of Cross-Cultural Research Systems "This excellent book provides an array of information on late mobile societies in the American Southwest. Its most significant contribution, however, is bringing attention to a poorly documented and misunderstood part of the archaeological record-one that we should not continue to ignore."-Journal of Anthropological Research "This collection of papers masterfully addresses the goals of the volume to define the archaeological correlates of mobile peoples and their social and economic roles in the protohistoric Southwest. In overthrowing the orthodoxy of Southwestern archaeology, Seymour and the many contributors to the volume demonstrate that the diversity of mobile peoples in the Southwest were not peripheral or of secondary importance to Puebloan groups."-California Archaeology
