Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — Anthropology — Native American Studies

As someone who teaches the prehistory of North America (and who is not an expert on the Southwest), this reviewer unequivocally wishes that this volume had been written 20 years ago because it would have provided both instructors and students with an incredible overview of one of the continents unique and important archaeological zones.  Chaco Canyon (really a wash), located in northwestern New Mexico, was the site of numerous Puebloan villages of the 11th- and 12th-century people who were ancestors of the Puebloan groups that later migrated east to the Rio Grande River.  The 12 chapters, written by what the editors correctly refer to as an A-team of Chaco scholars, present concise summaries of where Chacoan studies currently reside.  They are based not on recent fieldwork but, more important, on findings that in some instances date back well over a century.  The book is written so that almost anyonearchaeologist or notcan read and understand it.  Printed pages are always at a premium, but a few more illustrations and maps could have been included.  The index is excellent.  If budgets allow for only one book on the archaeology of Chaco Canyon, this is the one to choose.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

In this extraordinary, original book, the author draws on his deep knowledge of California archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography and masterfully balances quantitative observation with concrete illustrative examples from the treasury of ethnographic and linguistic sources on aboriginal California.  Bettinger (Univ. of California, Davis) credits E. E. Evans-Pritchard for first articulating the idea of "ordered anarchy" in his work with the Nuer.  Bettinger sees orderly anarchy as a persistent state of order and productive social interaction in the absence of formal authority or means of enforcement."  A California example: large numbers of volunteers routinely participated in collective projects, such as a rabbit drive or constructing a fish weir, without coercion or hierarchical control.  Small communities in aboriginal California functioned this way, cooperating and defending their boundaries without hierarchical compulsion.  The author demonstrates how this order, social as well as mental, underpinned the adaptive strategies of aboriginal Californians through time and was evident at the time of colonial disruption.  The sections on "Motivation Crowding" and "Mind-Set in Aboriginal California" provide new insight into the evolving California aboriginal world.  Perhaps many will discover (as did this reader) that "orderly anarchy is an analytical tool with many applications for interpreting cultural configurations and development beyond aboriginal California, including dimensions of contemporary society.  A terrific book!Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.