Before Borders: Revealing the Greater Southwest's Ancestral Cultural Landscape

This autographed book examines the connections between the Earth and sky and how Native Americans and other indigenous peoples of the Greater Southwest likely used these connections to establish a calendar and inform other aspects of their lives. This collection of papers from our 2016 conference at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, CO explores how the land and sky are viewed by present-day Native Americans. Topics include how apparent motions of the sun and moon were used to mark culturally important dates by constructing architectural alignments or light/shadow interactions on landscape features. These connections between Earth and the celestial sphere helped provide order in the lives of the peoples living in the Greater Southwest a millennia ago. In this volume we examine Ancestral Pueblo sites in Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, Wupatki National Monument, Yucca House National Monument, the Ute Mountain Tribal Park and the lands of southeast Utah and southwest Colorado. Cultural essays in the book also delve into the cosmovisions of the indigenous peoples of the Greater Southwest and how they differ from the approach of peoples of European descent. With this volume we strive to close the gap between mainstream anthropological studies and research in cultural astronomy.