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.

Lekson is the Curator and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.