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Book Reviews

Alfred Vincent Kidder and the Development of Americanist Archaeology, by Douglas R. Givens, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1992

Authors
  • Jonathan E. Reyman

Abstract

The photography on the book dustjacket portrays the shadows of three men against the back of a rockshelter. Kidder's figure (center) casts the longest shadow, just as Kidder, himself, was a central, dominant figure in Southwestern archaeology from 1915-1940. Indeed, three decades after his death, Kidder still casts a long shadow in the American Southwest: the Pecos Classification (1927), developed under his guidance with the help of Tom Waterman and Alfred Kroeber, remains, with modifications, the basic cultural classificatory system for the Anasazi/historic Pueblo; the Pecos Conference, organised by Kidder and first held in 1927 at Pecos Pueblo, is now more than 65 years old and is probably the longest running regional archaeology conference in the Americas; Pecos Pueblo, itself; now a national monument, is one of the best known and better preserved Pueblo sites; and Kidder's work at Pecos, especially his stratigraphic and ceramic studies (the latter in conduction with Anna Shepard), were models for later archaeological fieldwork and reporting, though a final report on the Pecos excavations was never published.
Year: 1993
Volume: 3 Issue: 1
Page/Article: 24-27
DOI: 10.5334/bha.03112
Published on May 1, 1993