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The Main Ridge Community at Lost City: Shutler, Jr. drew them together in the early Virgin Anasazi Architecture, Ceramics, and 1960s that they became widely available. Since Burials. Margaret M. Lyneis. University of then, Shutler's Lost City publication (1961) has Anthropological Papers No. 117, been widely cited because of the limited avail­ 1992, ix -I- 96 pp., 22 figs., 71 tables (on ability of data on this most western manifestation 3'/2" diskette, Microsoft Word 4.0 for of the Anasazi. A number of questions about Macintosh), $25.00 (paper). the sites remain, however, and Margaret Lyneis and her colleagues at the University of , Reviewed by: Las Vegas have, for a variety of reasons, re­ DAVID B. MADSEN turned to Moapa Valley in the last decade to Antiquities Section, Utah Division of State History, address these questions. In the process, they 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, UT 84101. have combined renewed field investigations with We are no longer manufacturing prehistoric additional analyses of curated materials and a sites. We make new sites every day, but the thorough review of Harrington's original field finite library of old ones becomes increasingly notes and photographs. smaller as each new arrowhead portrait of an In this monograph, Lyneis reports on Main Indian Chief goes up on a wall and each new Ridge, the major site in the complex. Though pipeline goes into the ground. In this increas­ the report is primarily descriptive in nature, ingly depauperate archaeological landscape, ar­ focusing, as the subtitle suggests, on architec­ chaeologists are turning to extant museum col­ ture, ceramics, and burials, the work itself was lections and the field notes of earlier generations directed by several ideas Lyneis wanted to of archaeologists for data against which to test explore. Principal among these was the idea of their ideas. There is, however, a less obvious "community." Was Main Ridge simply a com­ reason, beyond this dramatic reduction in the posite of separate family occupations, or did it archaeological site inventory, to explain the function as a community of families organized trend toward re-working previously excavated in some fashion? If so, was this community sites. Quite simply, some sites have more to tell reflective of surrounding communities or did it us about the human condition than others, and, serve a special function? How did this commu­ after a centtiry of investigation, we are beginning nity relate to other Anasazi outside the Moapa to get some idea of which sites those are. We Valley? These are serious questions and serve return to the Danger and Hidden caves of the to give this descriptive report meaning. , not because they were poorly ex­ The bulk of the monograph consists of cavated the first or second time around, but descriptions of house forms and features, pottery because we think they have something more to types, and grave goods. The tedium one might tell us. expect from this mass of data is mediated by The complex of sites known as "Lost City" Lyneis' actual use of those data to address her in the Moapa Valley of southeastern Nevada is questions. Lyneis contends that Main Ridge was just such an important set of sites. The sites a contemporaneously occupied community of at were first excavated by Mark Harrington in the least a hundred people, organized into small 1920s, and later by a Civilian Conservation family units. Limited storage suggests it did not Corps crew brought in to ' 'mitigate'' the impacts serve as a focal point for surrounding communi­ caused by the constmction of Hoover and ties. Burial associations suggest that there was the filling of Lake Mead. These materials were some limited social stratification, but nothing poorly reported, and it was not until Richard beyond what might be expected from that asso- 272 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY ciated with respected individuals within an camps which surround the Moapa Valley Ana­ egalitarian society. As one might expect from sazi to the north and east as well as the west. a ceramic specialist such as Lyneis, the ceramic While it is not yet clear whether these camps analysis is by far the most detailed. She defines represent occupation by logistical Anasazi task a new pottery type, Shivwits Plain, and is able groups or a "mutualistic relationship" with to distinguish between locally made and im­ other peoples, they certainly should not be ported wares. One of the more surprising ignored. Either way they must have been a results of her analysis is that, unlike Shutler, she critical part of the socio-economic strategies of could find no evidence of Southern Paiute pot­ the Moapa Valley villagers. tery and suggests that "Main Ridge offers no The production of the monograph meets the support for the possibility that pottery-making usual high standards of the Utah series. There Southem Paiute people were in Moapa Valley or is, however, one aspect of the monograph that its unmediate surroundings in Pueblo II times" irritated me to a point of near-irrationality: the (p. 77). Perhaps equally surprising is her failure production of the tables on a disk formatted for to discuss the presence of brownware pottery in a Macintosh. While I applaud the effort (endless a substantial number of nearby stratified contexts reams of unsynthesized data push production during Pueblo I and Pueblo II times. costs way out of line), it was a fmstrating A fairly large proportion of the pottery, failure. Those responsible for this series seem including the Shivwits Plain, was manufactured not to have noticed that not everyone in the at points east of Main Ridge. There is evidence world has a computer, and of those who do, that it was part of a trade network reaching from only a small percentage have access to a Mac­ the central Southwest to the Pacific coast, but intosh. In the Antiquities Section we have IBM this site does not appear to have served a more compatibles, so when I read "On Table 4, it can important function than other sites in Moapa be seen that . . .,"1 became slightly fmstrated, Valley or the Virgin Anasazi area generally. because, of course, it could not be seen. I Another surprising result of Lyneis' work is the became increasingly irritated as I encountered evidence for substantial amounts of wild foods, more and more references to critical material on including mesquite, screwbean, yucca, agave, tables I could not reference. By the time I and piny on nuts. It is unclear whether these reached "table 44 shows the distribution," a were procured by special task groups or through distribution I could not see, I was in a state of complete outrage. I threw the monograph down trade, although Lyneis leans to the latter ex­ in disgust and it was a month before I could planation. To her, the lack of local pinyon bring myself to look at it again. Fortunately, the resources near their river valleys and the pres­ second time around I managed to read it with a ence of "more mobile people to the west" led Mac handy and my impression of Lyneis' work the Moapa Valley Anasazi to a "mutualistic re­ was not colored in quite such a negative way. lationship" with their mobile neighbors (p. 79). Even so, 1 was cranky about having to get up This is more than just a site report and is constantly to check the disk. This was a good an important contribution to the western Anasazi idea, badly executed. If information on tables literature. Lyneis' concluding chapter provides is important enough to be discussed in the text, a succinct summary of the Virgin Anasazi and it should be displayed in the text. Other, integrates it with the larger Anasazi world. It ancillary, data can be included on a disk, but alone is worth the price of the monograph. If 1 only when everyone has a computer, every have a single major criticism of the text, it is the computer can read every format, and magnetic failure to discuss the large number of temporary REVIEWS 273 impulses last as long as the printed page. For REFERENCE now, if you do not have access to a computer that can read Word 4.0, the data in this Shuder, Richard, Jr. monograph will not be of much use to you. ^^^^ If^^ ^'X' ^^^^° '^^^^^ ^^ Nevada. •' Nevada State Museum Andiropological Papers No. 5.