ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the level of debate and intellectual innovation present in southwestern archaeology and focuses on hunters and gatherers. The use of ethnographic models, the archaeological measurement of social phenomena, and the very nature of complexity are all considered from a diversity of perspectives. Protohistoric southwestern communities have obvious cultural connections with prehistoric traditions. The wealth of ethnohistoric and ethnographic data has proved an abundant and all too tempting source for archaeological interpretation. The history of southwestern archaeology is more than tales of roguish characters and high adventure. Archaeology occurs within intellectual, social, economic, and political contexts that relate, in varying degrees, to research questions, method-ological protocols, and interpretations. From the broadest focus of southwestern prehistory, there was a clear change from largely mobile populations at some point in the past to those who were more sedentary.
