The University of Arizona Press

The recognition of Flower Worlds is one of the most significant breakthroughs in the study of Indigenous spirituality in the Americas. Flower Worlds is the first volume to bring together a diverse range of scholars to create an interdisciplinary understanding of floral realms that extend at least 2,500 years in the past.

Read an excerpt from the book here, and learn more by watching the book trailer here!

Becoming Hopi is a comprehensive look at the history of the people of the Hopi Mesas as it has never been told before. The product of more than fifteen years of collaboration between tribal and academic scholars, this volume presents groundbreaking research demonstrating that the Hopi Mesas are among the great centers of the Pueblo world.

We are thrilled that Becoming Hopi won the 2022 SAA Best Scholarly Book Award, a Southwest Book of the Year award, and a Southwest Book Award!

Learn more by watching the book trailer here.

The multiple vivid colors of scarlet macaws and their ability to mimic human speech are key reasons they were and are significant to the Native peoples of the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Although the birds’ natural habitat is the tropical forests of Mexico and Central and South America, they were present at multiple archaeological sites in the region yet absent at the vast majority. In Birds of the Sun, leading experts in southwestern archaeology explore the reasons why.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

How people eat today is a record of food use through the ages, and Famine Foods offers the first ever overview of the use of alternative foods during food shortages. Paul E. Minnis explores the unusual plants that have helped humanity survive throughout history.

Watch Paul Minnis and Nancy Turner discuss Famine Foods here, then listen to Minnis on the Foodie Pharmacology podcast here.

The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors is a major ethnobotanical study for the ancient U.S. Southwest and northwestern Mexico. The results reorient our perspective in the rise of one of the most impressive communities in the international region.

Read field notes from the book’s editors, Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen, here.

A Marriage Out West is an intimate biographical account of two fascinating figures of twentieth-century archaeology. Frances Theresa Peet Russell, an educator, married Harvard anthropologist Frank Russell in June 1900. They left immediately on a busman’s honeymoon to the Southwest. Their goal was twofold: to travel to an arid environment to quiet Frank’s tuberculosis and to find archaeological sites to support his research.

Read an excerpt from the book here, then watch a book trailer here!

Oysters in the Land of Cacao delivers a long-overdue presentation of the archaeology, material culture, and regional synthesis on the Formative to Late Classic period societies of the western Chontalpa region (Tabasco, Mexico) through contemporary theory. It offers a significant new understanding of the Mesoamerican Gulf Coast.

Watch a book trailer here!

Marjorie Lambert’s life story is intricately entwined in the development of archaeology in the American Southwest. In Shelby Tisdale’s compelling biography, No Place for a Lady, Lambert’s work as an archaeologist, museologist, and museum curator in Santa Fe comes to life and serves as inspiration for today.

Households on the Mimbres Horizon explores variability in Mimbres Mogollon pithouse sites using a case study from La Gila Encantada to further our understanding of the full range of pithouse occupations in the area. Because the site is away from the major river valleys, the data from excavations at the site provides valuable information on the differences in cultural practices that occurred away from the riverine villages, as well as environmental differences, economic practices, and social constructs.