The prehistory and early history of the Northwestern Plains as told by human bones is vivid and dramatic. The skeletal and burial record spans thousands of years, a wide geographic expanse, and contains important evidence of human existence in this vast region of North America. This volume helps clarify the emerging picture. Most of the ......
The history of Mexican Americans in Utah is complex, but it is a history that is neither well represented in the mainstream literature nor well recognised in the mainstream understanding of Utah's past. Convoluted interactions among Native Americans, Spaniards, French, Mexicans, Anglos, and others shaped the story of Utah. Awareness of the long ......
A prairie dog town is a busy place. As author and field researcher Theodore Manno explains, a prairie dog's life can be full of mischief, romantic trysts, antipredator behavior, fighting, kissing, and infanticide that can all be witnessed over the course of a few months. In this definitive book on Utah prairie dogs, he vividly recounts the daily ......
In 1961, Helen Andelin, a disillusioned housewife and mother of eight, languished in a lackluster, twenty-year-old marriage. A religious woman, she spent long periods in fasting and prayer asking for help to improve her marriage. While studying a set of women's advice booklets from the 1920s, Andelin had an epiphany that not only changed her life ......
Hal Crimmel has brought scientific research together with the experienced voices of environmental social scientists, humanists, and activists to provide a broad perspective on Utah water issues. The matters discussed are relevant beyond this one state, as similar conditions and concerns-especially over supply and demand in the face of demographic ......
After nine years of keeping his prostate cancer at bay, the drugs were no longer working. The doctors told him his time was nearly up. Jeff Metcalf used this diagnosis as motivation to dive deeper into writing, tasking himself to write one essay each week for a year. His collection of fifty-two essays was chosen by the Utah Division of Arts and ......
Hohokam Rock Art, Ritual Practice, and Social Transformation
The petroglyphs and pictographs of the American Southwest are intriguing, but we commonly ask what they "mean". Religion on the Rocks redirects our attention to the equally important matter of what compelled ancient peoples to craft rock art in the first place. To examine this question, Aaron Wright presents a case study from Arizona's South ......
Around 1700 AD the Lacandon Maya took refuge in the forest lowlands of Chiapas, Mexico, and in western Peten, Guatemala. They were never conquered by the Spanish and thus maintained many of their cultural practices well into the twentieth century. Their language belongs to the Yucatecan branch of the Maya language, a branch that is believed to ......