Guide to Prehistoric Astronomy in the Southwest

Good book, but the technical parts of how they track the astronomical alignments was over my head. It was a shorter book than i expected and hoped for more sites, but other that that it was a good intro into for prehistoric astronomy in the southwest.

Good basic stuff. Covers the Four Corners area--Chaco Canyon, cliff dwellings, etc. Explains terminology well, lots of good b/w photos. Thank you!

Remarkable look into the prehistory of the Pueblo people of the southwest. Casts a huge shadow on the historic presumptions of the colonists.

One of the many attractions of this part of the country is the profusion of ruins of ancient peoples, for most of whom the applicable term of the moment is "Ancestral Puebloans". Visiting the ruins, whether the well-known sites or the occasional ruins one encounters hiking in the wild, inevitably sparks one's curiosity about how those ancients lived in such an arid and austere environment. Lately I have come to realize that much of their life was oriented around what occurred in the skies above - that is, oriented around astronomy. This is the province of archaeoastronomy, the study of how ancient peoples understood astronomy and incorporated it into their lives.A GUIDE TO PREHISTORIC ASTRONOMY IN THE SOUTHWEST is an ideal book for a curious neophyte like me. The book includes a general discussion of the ways in which the Ancestral Puebloans practiced astronomy and (probably) used astronomical information in their lives, most importantly as the foundation for an agricultural calendar. Then there are separate chapters devoted to five of the principal sites of Puebloan ruins: Chaco Canyon, Chimney Rock, Yellow Jacket, Mesa Verde, and Hovenweep. These chapters are structured to help visitors to these sites understand the features of archaeoastronomical significance, including the times and places to best witness such things as a solstice sunrise, an equinox sunrise, or a major standstill moonrise. (Author Malville does a good job of explaining the science behind the solstice, the equinox, and lunar standstills for those, like myself, who never took a course in astronomy.)The best feature of the book is the copious photographs and schematic diagrams, which greatly enhance comprehension. The prose itself is serviceable, though not always optimally clear. There is some needless repetition, occasionally transitions are inadequate, and at times the reader is left to draw her own conclusion about the significance of a particular paragraph. All of this leads to a mild choppiness in the text. Still, Malville deserves much credit in synthesizing and summarizing a vast amount of specialized information and presenting it in a readily comprehensible 150 pages. (Needless to say, perhaps, the book is for the interested generalist and not the specialist.)And by the way, Dr. Malville knows his stuff. He is professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado. He has conducted field work in the American Southwest as well as abroad, including Incan ruins in Peru and in the Nubian Desert, where he helped discover the oldest known set of stones oriented to the heavens (a millennium older than Stonehenge).

This book is a gem. I found nothing else quite like it while researching our novel,  Ophelia's Ghost , about the mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi from the Four Corners of the American Southwest.McKim states his case: "The evidence for observational astronomy that we present in this book provides a fascinating glimpse into the manner in which the early Americans of the Southwest integrated their lives into the larger cosmos and adapted to difficult and uncertain environments."McKim's evidence consists of clearly detailed examinations of key Anasazi sites: Chaco, Hovenweep, Chimney Rock, Mesa Verde, and Yellow Jacket. His chapter on Yellow Jacket is especially useful for most of us because this large and important set of ruins lies on private land and is not readily accessible to the general public. Through drawings, diagrams, black and white photographs, descriptions of the landscape, we can easily imagine ourselves walking through these ruins. Although not quite like being there, it seems the next best option.While providing useful and convincing information about how the Anasazi might have used their dwellings as 'windows' for viewing the sky for practical matters (for determining seasons, for planting, etc.), he also emphasizes a more spiritual or 'cosmic' interpretation:"The Anasazi may have adopted another strategy to deal with the conflict between heaven and earth, building circular kivas as copies of the heavens."Finding this book changed some of my views about what happened to the Anasazi. It makes an excellent addition to 'essential field guides' when visiting the Anasazi ruins of the Four Corners.Also recommended: A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest The Chaco Experience: Landscape and Ideology at the Center Place (Resident Scholar)

Dr. J. McKim Malville has outdone himself in this guide to prehistoric astronomy. Even a reader with little or no background in archaeoastronomy will like this book. One reason is the tons of good photos and diagrams that can help anyone better appreciate the miraculous order of our solar system and the stars.The reader is taken back 1,000 years to the time of the ancient ones; Malville tells us what they saw and how they reacted through building design and special markers. The sky watchers of the Southwest were remarkable observers of the heavens, leaving evidence behind to prove it!The book is designed for use by visitors to the pre-historic ruins of the southwestern U.S. It would make a great gift for children between 10 and 16, potentially stimulating them to enter the field of science.