The appreciation of the Chimney Rock region goes back more than 1,000 years. Here in southwestern Colorado, the Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the northern San Juan River Basin as an outlier community of Chaco Canyon. Its function and use has created much conjecture. The site was abandoned by the early 1100s for reasons that some speculate were related to drought, resource depletion, warfare, migration, or a combination of these factors. Over the course of its recorded history, archaeologists, astronomers, regional historians, and visitors have celebrated the rocks, ruins, and landscape that make up this important feature in the Four Corners region. It has been called La Piedra Parada by Spanish explorers, Fire Mountain by Tewa-speaking pueblos, and Tupiwiniri by the Utes. Today, we know it as Chimney Rock National Monument due to a proclamation made in 2012 by Pres. Barack Obama.

The appreciation of the Chimney Rock region goes back more than 1,000 years. Here in southwestern Colorado, the Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the northern San Juan River Basin as an outlier community of Chaco Canyon. Its function and use has created much conjecture. The site was abandoned by the early 1100s for reasons that some speculate were related to drought, resource depletion, warfare, migration, or a combination of these factors. Over the course of its recorded history, archaeologists, astronomers, regional historians, and visitors have celebrated the rocks, ruins, and landscape that make up this important feature in the Four Corners region. It has been called La Piedra Parada by Spanish explorers, Fire Mountain by Tewa-speaking pueblos, and Tupiwiniri by the Utes. Today, we know it as Chimney Rock National Monument due to a proclamation made in 2012 by Pres. Barack Obama.

This volume sheds new light on the geography and the history of the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area in southwestern Colorado. Home until the mid-twelfth century to the ancestral Pueblo peoples, the Chaco Canyon and Chimney Rock area holds a wealth of information for present-day archaeologists to uncover. This collection investigates the architecture, location, and alignment of Pueblo great houses and the significant features of designed clay feather holders. The contributors suggest varied pre-historical uses for the towering double spires of Chimney Rock: as a logging camp, military garrison, home of Chacoan priests, astronomical observatory, and/or ceremonial-pilgrimage center. Chimney Rock: The Ultimate Outlier is a model of multi-faceted inquiry into a physically intriguing and certainly symbol-laden ancient North American residential site.

For 105 years, four generations of the Morse family operated, promoted and served as stewards for the natural scenic attraction known as Chimney Rock. Researched, compiled and written by 4th generation manager, Todd Morse, this book provides a detailed, in-depth history of the family's multi-faceted relationship with the mountain until its sale to the State of North Carolina in 2007. Part history book, part business case study, part unique personal perspective and first-person narrative, this work offers a comprehensive exploration into the inner workings and challenges of a family business and the love each generation had for this incredible place. Though originally intended for family members and friends, this paperback will appeal to anyone who has enjoyed visiting Chimney Rock over the years and has curiosity about its human and business history. The book also shares a significant number of wonderful photos taken during these many years. As a fitting end, all the complexities related to the sale and its aftermath are revealed in significant detail, sharing insight into the difficult and emotional decision the family made to protect this North Carolina landmark and jewel for generations to come.

At the height of their power in the late eleventh century, the Chaco Anasazi dominated a territory in the American Southwest larger than any European principality of the time. A vast and powerful alliance of thousands of farming hamlets and nearly 100 spectacular towns integrated the region through economic and religious ties, and the whole system was interconnected with hundreds of miles of roads. It took these Anasazi farmers more than seven centuries to lay the agricultural, organizational, and technological groundwork for the creation of classic Chacoan civilization, which lasted about 200 years--only to collapse spectacularly in a mere 40. Why did such a great society collapse? Who survived? Why? In this lively book anthropologist/archaeologist David Stuart presents answers to these questions that offer useful lessons to modern societies. His account of the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi brings to life the people known to us today as the architects of Chaco Canyon, the spectacular national park in New Mexico that thousands of tourists visit every year.

Describes the early exploration of Scotts Bluff by fur traders and the events that led to the establishment of the Scotts Bluff National Monument in Nebraska. Also includes a guide to the area and suggested readings.

The national parks and monuments in Colorado harbor some of the most diverse and awe-inspiring scenery on the planet. They contain immense mountain peaks rising over 14,000 feet high, spectacular Anasazi ruins constructed 1,000 years ago, and deep canyons plunging 2,000 feet down to raging rivers. They also possess the largest sand dunes in North America, immense sandstone rock formations rising over 500 feet high, and some of the largest petrified Sequoia trees in the world. Renowned photographer Grant Collier has spent several years exploring and photographing Colorado's national parks and monuments. He has hiked in predawn light across Rocky Mountain National Park, driven over remote jeep trails in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and rafted nearly every mile of river within Dinosaur National Monument. In the process, he has produced the first comprehensive portrait of Colorado's current system of national parks and monuments.

According to archaeologist Stephen H. Lekson, much of what we think we know about the Southwest has been compressed into conventions and classifications and orthodoxies. This book challenges and reconfigures these accepted notions by telling two parallel stories, one about the development, personalities, and institutions of Southwestern archaeology and the other about interpretations of what actually happened in the ancient past. While many works would have us believe that nothing much ever happened in the ancient Southwest, this book argues that the region experienced rises and falls, kings and commoners, war and peace, triumphs and failures. In this view, Chaco Canyon was a geopolitical reaction to the "Colonial Period" Hohokam expansion and the Hohokam "Classic Period" was the product of refugee Chacoan nobles, chased off the Colorado Plateau by angry farmers. Far to the south, Casas Grandes was a failed attempt to create a Mesoamerican state, and modern Pueblo people--with societies so different from those at Chaco and Casas Grandes--deliberately rejected these monumental, hierarchical episodes of their past. From the publisher: The second printing of A History of the Ancient Southwest has corrected the errors noted below. SAR Press regrets an error on Page 72, paragraph 4 (also Page 275, note 2) regarding "absolute dates." "50,000 dates" was incorrectly published as "half a million dates." Also P. 125, lines 13-14: "Between 21,000 and 27,000 people lived there" should read "Between 2,100 and 2,700 people lived there."

It's here! Now you can stamp your way through the entire National Park System with the newest addition to the Passport To Your National Parks line of products: the Collector's Edition Passport. Beauty and practicality meet artfully in this deluxe version of the popular Passport, taking you above and beyond the original by providing space for Passport stickers and cancellation stamps for every single park, as well as space for extra cancellations. The park sites are color-coded by region, each area featuring a color map that pinpoints park locations. With a spiral binding that makes it easy to lie open flat, a hard cover that ensures durability and longer life, and pages graced with beautiful color photographs, it's the ultimate stamping ground.

No region of this continent and few areas in the world can boast a collection of archaeological ruins equal to that of the American Southwest. An indispensable guide to over 50 sites throughout the region, this title includes 90 photos and 18 maps and diagrams.