Description
Book SynopsisAn incisive history of early American archaeologyfrom reckless looting to professional scienceand the field's unfinished efforts to make amends today, told with passion, indignation, and a dash of suspense (New York Times). American archaeology was forever scarred by an 1893 business proposition between cowboy-turned-excavator Richard Wetherill and socialites-turned-antiquarians Fred and Talbot Hyde. Wetherill had stumbled upon Mesa Verde's spectacular cliff dwellings and started selling artifacts, but with the Hydes' money behind him, wellthere's no telling what they might discover. Thus begins the Hyde Exploring Expedition, a nine-year venture into Utah's Grand Gulch and New Mexico's Chaco Canyon thatcoupled with other less-restrained lootersso devastates Indigenous cultural sites across the American Southwest that Congress passes first-of-their-kind regulations to stop the carnage. As the money dries up, tensions rise, and a once-profitable enterprise disintegrates, setting the s
