Grasshopper Pueblo. A Story of Archaeology and Ancient Life, by Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1999

• Main Author: Jonathan E. Reyman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ubiquity Press 2001-11-01
• Series: Bulletin of the History of Archaeology
• Online Access: http://www.archaeologybulletin.org/article/view/231

Grasshopper Pueblo field school closed after the 1992 summer season. Its closing marked the end of a 30-year period of survey, excavation and analysis of archaeological sites and materials as well as student education. From 1963-1992, hundreds of students were trained in the field methods and analytical models and techniques of the New Archaeology as practiced at the University of Arizona under the direction of Raymond Thompson (1963-1965), William Longacre (1966-1978), and J. Jefferson Reid (1979-1992). By the end of the 1992 summer season, Grasshopper Pueblo was, perhaps, the most thoroughly studied archaeological site in the American Southwest. As the authors note, "Although large pueblos of the American Southwest have attracted archaeologists for more than a century ... Ancient life at these special places will never be understood with as much detail as we have for Grasshopper Pueblo". Much of the detail is reported in the many published papers, nine doctoral dissertations, and two masters' theses cited by the authors, and more reports are likely to follow. As a training ground for archaeologists, Grasshopper is probably comparable in impor­tance to the Chaco Canyon field schools and excavations of the 1920s- 194Os.