Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:31:37.898Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pre-Columbian Towers in the Southwest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Albert Schulman
Albert Schulman*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Towers have long been an important and integral feature of architecture. The earliest record of towers is in Mesopotamia with the Statue of Gudea at a date of approximately 2700 B.C. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1948, p. 330). From there they may be found ranging over the entire world. They have met numerous demands, but from their very beginning towers have served two principal functions: military and religious.

A focal area of tower building was in the southwestern United States. Here towers have presented numerous problems which, despite comment and work, still remain largely unanswered. Their intriguing possibilities, however, early attracted the attention of writers. A brief history would include such men as Jackson (1876), Holmes (1879), and Morgan (1881), who first called public attention to these towers. Their accounts were descriptive and mention ruins of the Hovenweep, Mesa Verde, and McElmo areas. Moorehead, in a series of six articles entitled “In Search of a Lost Race” for Illustrated American of 1892, discussed ruins of the McElmo.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 15 , Issue 4Part1 , April 1950 , pp. 288 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1950

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amsden, Charles 1932. “Navajo Origins.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 193–210. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Bahti, Thomas N. 1949. “A Largo-Gallina Pit House.” El Palacio, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 52–60. Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Colorado State Planning Commission 1941. “Colorado.” American Guide Series. Denver.Google Scholar
Department or Interior 1933. Mesa Verde National Park. Washington.Google Scholar
Encyclopaedia Britannica 1948. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Vol. 22. Chicago.Google Scholar
Farmer, Malcolm F. MS. Archaeological Work Done in the Old Navajo Country Summer of 1938. San Diego.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1911. “Antiquities of Mesa Verde National Park.” BAE-B, No. 51.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1912. “Antiquities of the Upper Verde and Walnut Creek Valley, Arizona.” BAE-AR, No. 28, pp. 181-220.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1917 a. “A Prehistoric Mesa Verde Pueblo and Its People.” SAR, pp. 480-94.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1917 b. “Archaeological Investigations in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.” SMC, Vol. 68, No. 1.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1919 a. “Archaeological Field Work in Southwestern Colorado, and Utah.” SMC, Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 68–80.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1919 b. “Prehistoric Villages, Castles, and Towers of Southwestern Colorado.” BAE-B, No. 70.Google Scholar
Fewkes, Jesse Walter 1923. “The Hovenweep National Monument.” SAR, pp. 465-81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Edward Twitchell Jr. 1944. “Recent Clues to Athapaskan Prehistory in the Southwest.” AA, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 98–105.Google Scholar
Harrington, J. P. 1940. “Southern Peripheral Athapaskan Origins, Divisions, and Migrations.” SMC, Vol. 100, pp. 503-32.Google Scholar
Hawley, Florence M. 1936. “Field Manual of Prehistoric Southwestern Pottery Types.” University of New Mexico Bulletin, No. 291. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Hewett, Edgar L. 1936. The Chaco Canyon and its Monuments. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Hibben, Frank C. 1937. “Excavation of the Riana Ruin and Chama Valley Survey.” University of New Mexico Bulletin, No. 300. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Hibben, Frank C. 1938. “The Gallina Phase.” AAn, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 131-6.Google Scholar
Hibben, Frank C. 1948. “The Gallina Architectural Forms.” AAn, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 32-6.Google Scholar
Hibben, Frank C. 1949. “The Pottery of the Gallina Complex.” AAn, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 194–203.Google Scholar
Hibben, Frank C.MS. The Gallina Phase of Central New Mexico. Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hill, W. W. 1938. “The Agricultural and Hunting Methods of the Navajo Indians.” Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 18. New Haven.Google Scholar
Hill, W. W. 1940. “Some Navajo Culture Changes during Two Centuries (with a Translation of the Early Eighteenth Century Rabal Manuscript).” SMC, No. 100, pp. 395-417.Google Scholar
Holmes, W. W. 1878. “Report of the Ancient Ruins of Southwestern Colorado.” Tenth Annual Report of the Hayden Geological Survey for 1876, pp. 387-418. Washington.Google Scholar
Jackson, R. 1876. “Ancient Ruins in Southwest Colorado.” Report of the Hayden Geological Survey for 1874, pp. 369-420. Washington.Google Scholar
Jeancon, J. A. 1922. Archaeological Research in the Northeastern San Juan Basin of Colorado during the Summer of 1921. Denver: State Historical and Natural History Society of Colorado and the University of Colorado.Google Scholar
Keur, Dorothy Louise 1941. “Big Bead Mesa: An Archaeological Study of Navajo Acculturation, 1745-1812.” Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, No. 1. Menasha.Google Scholar
Kidder, A. V. 1920. “Ruins of the Historic Period in the Upper San Juan Valley. New Mexico.” AA, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp.322-29.Google Scholar
Lancaster, J. A., and Watson, D. W. 1942. “Excavation of Mesa Verde Pit Houses.” AAn, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 190-9.Google Scholar
Linton, Ralph 1944. “Nomad Raids and Fortified Pueblos.” AAn, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 28–33.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Roy L. 1939. “Archaeological Remains, Supposedly Navajo, from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.” AAn, Vol. 5, No 1, pp. 4–21.Google Scholar
Martin, Paul S. 1936. “Lowry Ruin in Southwestern Colorado.” Field Museum Anthropological Series, Vol. 23, No. 1. Chicago.Google Scholar
Martin, Paul S. 1938. “Archaeological Field Work in Ackmen-Lowry Area, Southwestern Colorado.” Field Museum Anthropological Series, Vol. 23, No. 2. Chicago.Google Scholar
Mera, H. P. 1935. “Ceramic Clues to the Prehistory of North Central New Mexico.” Laboratory of Anthropology Technical Series, No. 8. Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Mera, H. P. 1938. “Some Aspects of the Largo Cultural Phase, Northern New Mexico.” AAn, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 236-43.Google Scholar
Morley, S. G., and Kidder, A. V. 1917. “The Archaeology of McElmo Canyon, Colorado.” El Palacio, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 41–70. Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Morris, E. H. 1939. “Archaeological Studies in the La Plata District.” Carnegie Institution Publications, No. 519. Washington.Google Scholar
Prudden, T. M. 1903. “The Prehistoric Ruins of the San Juan Watershed in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.” AA, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 224-88.Google Scholar
Prudden, T. M. 1914. “The Circular Kivas of Small Ruins in the San Juan Watershed.” AA, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 33–58.Google Scholar
Prudden, T. M. 1918. “A Further Study of Prehistoric Small House Ruins in the San Juan Watershed.” Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 1–50. Menasha.Google Scholar
Reiter, PaulMS. “The Ancient Life of Chetro Ketl.” Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.Google Scholar
Reed, Erik K. 1944. “Archaeological Work in Mancos Canyon, Colorado.” AAn, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 48–59.Google Scholar
Riley, Carrol MS. “Archaeological Survey of the Hovenweep National Monument.” Los Angeles: University of California.Google Scholar
Roberts, Frank H. H. Jr. 1930. “Early Pueblo Ruins in the Piedra District, Southwestern Colorado.” BAE-B, No. 96.Google Scholar
Schulman, Albert 1949. “A Gallina Cliff House.” El Palacio, Vol. 56, No. 8, pp. 230-4. Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Smiley, Terah L. 1949. “Pithouse Number 1, Mesa Verde National Park.” AAn, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 164-71.Google Scholar
Wormington, H. M. 1947. “Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest.” The Colorado Museum of Natural History, Popular Series. Denver.Google Scholar