Great Excavations: Tales of Early Southwestern Archaeology, 1888-1939, School of American Research Press, 1995

Great Excavations: Tales of Early Southwestern Archaeology, 1888-1939, is an "intentionally selective" account of eight major archaeologicalexpeditions to the Southwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It succeeds inachieving the goals set forth in the prologue. The reader is taken on an "armchair tour" of early Southwestern excavations in the hope that the resulting "basic understandingof what the early archae­ologists did" will stimulate a desire to "learn more about theintriguing prehistory of the Southwest" (pp. xiii). As a student of the history of NorthAmerican archaeology, I would be amiss to speak for Elion's "layperson" audience, but mysuspicion is that her presentation will indeed stimulate those readers. As anarchaeologist, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it may well be that Elliott'sjournalistic approach makes this book more enjoyable because she is able to remain abovethe level of detail that often burden archaeolo­gists' accounts of these expeditions. Imust temper this statement by noting that Elliott's journalistic hyper­ bole andtendency to oversimplify complex research and analysis are at times discomforting