Jewelry of the Prehistoric Southwest [SOLD]

In the second volume in the Southwest Indian Arts Series, E. Wesley Jernigan graphically delineates formal, cultural, and chronological relationships of the jewelry of the three great cultural traditions of the prehistoric Southwest: Hohokam, Mogollon, and Anasazi.

In his survey, Jernigan takes the reader, for example, a little to the south of Phoenix, to the dry channel through which the Gila River used to flow. Along the banks of the channel, creosote bushes throw lacy shadows on otherwise bare earth that is crusted with sunbaked alkali. If you walked along the old floodplains, you might encounter a piece of whitened shell reminiscent of a clam and carved to represent a frog. And since there are few more unlikely places than this hot, dry part of Arizona to encounter either a seashell or a frog, you would no doubt decide that the shell frog has an interesting history. It does, and that frog is among the many artifacts from those days long before the Spanish and Anglo-American occupations of the Southwest that Jernigan describes. These artifacts clearly demonstrate the Indian artists' sensitivity to the requirements of small-scale designing as well as their unfailing craftsmanship and imaginative use of the available durable precious materials.

In addition to color and black-and-white photographs and maps, this book is illustrated with more than 100 detailed drawings prepared by the author.

Jewelry of the Prehistoric Southwest will appeal to a large and varied audience of readers interested in Southwest Indian art and society, primitive art, technical aspects of craft production, and jewelry.