Collecting New Mexico archaeology books — from Bandelier and Kidder to the SAR Press tradition

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

Why a New Mexico archaeology book reference

New Mexico Archaeology Books, including An Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology (1924), are sought-after collectibles commanding premium prices among Southwest and Western Americana collectors. New Mexico is not merely one of many places where Americanist archaeology happened to occur. It is the place where the discipline was professionalized. The institutional apparatus that turned American archaeology from gentlemen antiquarianism into systematic science was built in New Mexico between 1880 and 1930: Bandelier’s surveys, the founding of the School of American Archaeology in Santa Fe, the passage of the Antiquities Act of 1906 (drafted in direct response to New Mexico looting), Kidder’s stratigraphic excavations at Pecos, and the 1927 Pecos Conference that established the classification system still in use today. The books that document this institutional history are simultaneously primary sources in the history of American science and collectible artifacts in the antiquarian book market.

The reason a separate New Mexico archaeology book reference is warranted — distinct from the broader southwestern or American archaeology literature — is that the New Mexico record has a peculiar institutional density. Three publishing operations in Santa Fe and Albuquerque have between them produced the majority of the significant printed record: the School of American Research / School for Advanced Research (SAR Press) in Santa Fe, operating continuously since 1907; the Museum of New Mexico Press, the state-supported publisher; and the University of New Mexico Press in Albuquerque. To these add the National Park Service publications from Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, Pecos, Salinas, and Aztec Ruins, and the Smithsonian Institution publications that documented the great federal excavations of the 1920s–1950s. The result is a print record of unusual coherence — concentrated in identifiable series, published by identifiable institutions, and circulating through identifiable channels into identifiable estate-dispersal patterns in central New Mexico.

This pillar walks the six major periods and institutional streams of New Mexico archaeology publishing, identifies the central titles in each, establishes the three-tier collector market structure, documents points of issue for major first editions, identifies the closed signature pools, and explains where New Mexico archaeology books belong in 2026. The page is part of the reference infrastructure NMLP is building around regional book donation in central New Mexico — the operation that ensures these books are recognized for what they are when they surface in donation piles and estate dispersals rather than being routed to landfill as “old textbooks.”

The foundational period — Bandelier, the Hemenway Expedition, and the Antiquities Act (1880s–1906)

Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier (August 6, 1840 — March 18, 1914) is the founding figure of New Mexico archaeology and the starting point of any New Mexico archaeology collection. Born in Bern, Switzerland, raised in Highland, Illinois, Bandelier came to New Mexico in 1880 under the sponsorship of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), founded that same year in Boston by Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard. Bandelier spent the next decade conducting the first systematic archaeological surveys of the Rio Grande Valley, the Pajarito Plateau, the Jemez Mountains, and the upper Pecos drainage — territory that no trained archaeologist had previously documented in published form.

His published output falls into three categories relevant to collectors. First, the formal archaeological reports: the Final Report of Investigations Among the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from 1880 to 1885, published as Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, American Series III (Part I, 1890) and American Series IV (Part II, 1892). These two quarto volumes, published by the AIA through John Wilson and Son in Cambridge, Massachusetts, constitute the first professional archaeological documentation of the Rio Grande Pueblo region. They are institutional publications with small print runs — issued to AIA subscribers and institutional libraries — and are genuinely rare on the open market. When copies surface (typically from dispersals of archaeological-society or university-department libraries), they trade four-figure collectible territory per volume depending on condition and binding state.

Second, the novel: The Delight Makers (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1890). This is Bandelier’s fictional reconstruction of pre-contact Pueblo life set in Frijoles Canyon (the Rito de los Frijoles, today the core of Bandelier National Monument). Written after years of archaeological fieldwork and ethnographic observation among the Rio Grande Pueblos, the novel attempts to render Ancestral Puebloan daily life, ceremony, clan structure, and conflict in narrative form. It was the first serious American novel to take pre-contact Indigenous southwestern society as its subject rather than treating it as backdrop for Anglo frontier narrative. The 1890 Dodd, Mead first edition in original decorated cloth is the principal Bandelier collector target — it trades the high three-figure to low four-figure range in good to fine condition. Multiple subsequent editions exist: a 1918 Dodd, Mead reissue, a 1946 edition, and various twentieth-century reprints including a widely circulated Harcourt Brace paperback. The 1890 first is identified by the Dodd, Mead and Company imprint, the original cloth binding with gilt and black decorative stamping, and the copyright-page date of 1890 with no subsequent printing notation.

Third, the field journals. Bandelier kept meticulous daily journals throughout his southwestern fieldwork — these survive in the archives of the Museum of New Mexico History Library in Santa Fe and have been partially published. Charles H. Lange and Carroll L. Riley edited The Southwestern Journals of Adolph F. Bandelier in multiple volumes for the University of New Mexico Press and the School of American Research (Volume 1: 1966; Volume 2: 1966; Volume 3: 1970; Volume 4: 1984). These scholarly editions of the original journals are themselves collectible — the complete four-volume set in hardcover trades respectable collectible value.

The legislative context matters for understanding the institutional setting in which these books were produced. The Antiquities Act of 1906 (16 U.S.C. 431–433), signed by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, was the first federal law to protect archaeological sites on public land. Its passage was driven directly by reports of looting and vandalism at southwestern archaeological sites — particularly in New Mexico and Arizona — that Bandelier, Hewett, and others had documented. Edgar Lee Hewett was personally instrumental in drafting the legislation; the specific looting incidents at Chaco Canyon and on the Pajarito Plateau that he reported to Congress were among the principal motivations for the law. The Antiquities Act created the legal framework within which all subsequent federal archaeological work in New Mexico would be conducted and published. Understanding this is necessary background for understanding why so much of the New Mexico archaeology print record is federal publication — Smithsonian, National Park Service, Bureau of American Ethnology — rather than commercial trade publication.

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Edgar Lee Hewett and the institutional infrastructure of Santa Fe archaeology (1907–1946)

Edgar Lee Hewett (November 23, 1865 — December 31, 1946) is the builder of New Mexico’s archaeological institutional infrastructure. A former schoolteacher and college president from Colorado, Hewett arrived in New Mexico in the early 1900s and proceeded, over the next four decades, to create the interlocking institutional apparatus that would dominate southwestern archaeology through the mid-twentieth century: the School of American Archaeology (founded 1907, renamed School of American Research in 1917, today the School for Advanced Research); the Museum of New Mexico (established 1909, with Hewett as first director); the Palace of the Governors as museum and research center; the program of summer field schools on the Pajarito Plateau; and the publication series that documented all of this work.

Hewett’s personal publications are substantial if uneven. His major titles:

More consequential for collectors than Hewett’s personal monographs, however, is the institutional publication series he created. The Papers of the School of American Archaeology (later Papers of the School of American Research) began publication in 1907 and continued through multiple series designations across the following decades. These early institutional papers — slim pamphlets, bulletins, and occasional monographs — documented the excavations, surveys, and research programs that Hewett’s operation conducted across New Mexico. The early numbers (pre-1920) are genuinely scarce; they were issued in small runs to institutional subscribers and members of the Archaeological Institute of America, which sponsored the School. Complete or near-complete runs of the early Papers series survive only in a handful of institutional libraries (the School for Advanced Research library in Santa Fe, the Museum of New Mexico History Library, the University of New Mexico Zimmerman Library). Individual numbers surface in estate dispersals of archaeologists who were active in the Santa Fe circle during the 1910s–1930s — these trades are unpredictable in both availability and price, typically the mid-range collectible zone per number depending on content and rarity.

Hewett is a complicated figure in the historiography of southwestern archaeology. His contemporaries and subsequent historians have criticized his excavation methods as inadequate even by the standards of his era, his publication record as insufficient relative to the amount of material he excavated, and his institutional management as autocratic. The Hewett-Kidder relationship is particularly charged: Kidder represented the new generation of stratigraphically rigorous, publication-focused professional archaeology that would ultimately supersede Hewett’s more entrepreneurial and institution-building approach. For a collector, the critical point is that Hewett’s books and institutional publications remain primary-source artifacts of the period regardless of subsequent professional reassessment of his methods — they document what was excavated, where, and when, and they are the published record of institutions that still exist and still produce scholarship.

The Kidder era — Pecos Pueblo and the professionalization of southwestern archaeology (1915–1950s)

Alfred Vincent Kidder (October 29, 1885 — June 11, 1963) is the central figure of twentieth-century southwestern archaeology and the author of the field’s single most important book. Educated at Harvard under the Egyptologist George Reisner (who taught him stratigraphic method), Kidder first came to the Southwest in 1907 as a student on a Harvard-sponsored survey of northeastern Arizona. He began excavations at Pecos Pueblo, east of Santa Fe on the upper Pecos River, in 1915 — work that would continue through 1929 and produce the stratigraphic ceramic sequence that became the foundation of all subsequent Puebloan chronology.

Kidder’s Pecos work produced two other major publications. The Pottery of Pecos, Volume I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931) and The Pottery of Pecos, Volume II (with Anna O. Shepard; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936) are the detailed ceramic analyses that backed the stratigraphic chronology. These are technical publications with limited print runs — they trade respectable collectible value per volume when clean institutional copies surface. The complete two-volume set is a serious collector item.

In 1927, Kidder organized the first Pecos Conference at Pecos Pueblo — an informal gathering of all active southwestern archaeologists to compare notes, standardize terminology, and establish the chronological framework that became the Pecos Classification. The Pecos Classification (Basketmaker II through Pueblo V) was the product of this conference and has remained the standard periodization of Ancestral Puebloan cultural development for nearly a century. The Pecos Conference itself has continued as an annual gathering — the principal professional meeting of southwestern archaeologists — and the proceedings, abstracts, and ephemera of early Pecos Conferences (1927–1950s) are collectible items that occasionally surface in estate dispersals.

After completing his Pecos work, Kidder moved to the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1929, where he directed the Institution’s Division of Historical Research (later Department of Archaeology) through 1950, focusing primarily on Maya archaeology in Guatemala and Honduras. His later publications are principally Mesoamerican and fall outside the New Mexico collecting scope, but the Carnegie transition matters for understanding the publication history: Kidder’s post-1929 southwestern publications are occasional retrospective pieces rather than new fieldwork reports.

Madeleine Appleton Kidder (1891–1972), Alfred’s wife, was herself a trained archaeologist who participated in the Pecos excavations and published independently on southwestern ceramics. Her work is less well known than her husband’s but represents the broader pattern of women’s contributions to early southwestern archaeology that were often subsumed under their husbands’ institutional identities.

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The Chaco Canyon literature — from Judd through the Chaco Project (1920s–2000s)

Chaco Canyon — the complex of great houses and related sites in northwestern New Mexico that represents the apogee of Ancestral Puebloan monumental architecture — has generated the single densest body of archaeological publication in the Southwest. The Chaco literature spans a century and falls into four distinct phases, each with its own institutional context and publication format.

Phase One: The National Geographic Society Expeditions (1921–1927). Neil Merton Judd (1887–1976) directed the National Geographic Society’s excavations at Pueblo Bonito, the largest great house in Chaco Canyon, from 1921 to 1927. His published reports constitute the foundational documentation of Pueblo Bonito:

Phase Two: The Vivian Generation (1940s–1960s). R. Gordon Vivian (1907–1966) was the National Park Service archaeologist stationed at Chaco Canyon from the 1930s through the 1960s — the resident scientist who knew the canyon landscape in a way that visiting expedition archaeologists could not. His publications documented the smaller sites that the National Geographic expedition had bypassed in favor of Pueblo Bonito:

Gordon Vivian’s son, R. Gwinn Vivian (born 1935), continued the family’s Chaco research into the next generation. His The Chacoan Prehistory of the San Juan Basin (San Diego: Academic Press, 1990) is the synthetic overview that brought Chaco scholarship into the modern period — a 500-page synthesis of everything known about the Chacoan system as of 1990, covering site architecture, road systems, outlier communities, water-control features, and regional interaction. The Academic Press hardcover is an important reference that trades solid mid-range collectible value and is increasingly hard to find as Academic Press titles go out of print and are absorbed into Elsevier’s catalog.

Phase Three: The Chaco Project (1971–1985). The National Park Service’s Chaco Center (later Chaco Culture National Historical Park) conducted the Chaco Project, a comprehensive multi-year research program that produced the modern scientific understanding of the Chacoan system. Under the direction of W. James Judge and others, the Chaco Project published its results in a series of technical reports and monographs through the 1980s and early 1990s. Key publications include the Reports of the Chaco Center series (numbered), various NPS technical reports, and the synthetic volumes that drew on Chaco Project data:

Phase Four: The Lekson Interpretive Era (1990s–present). Stephen H. Lekson of the University of Colorado Museum brought Chaco scholarship into the domain of synthetic interpretation and controversy with his provocative works on Chacoan regional organization:

The popular Chaco literature adds an accessible layer to the technical publications. David Roberts, the adventure journalist, produced In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest (Simon & Schuster, 1996), which brought Chaco and other Ancestral Puebloan sites to a mass readership. Roberts’s subsequent The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest (Simon & Schuster, 2004) covers the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. These are trade hardcovers with large print runs — modest value in the secondary market — but signed first editions with Chaco-relevant inscriptions can command the common reading copy to mid-range zone.

Bandelier National Monument and the Pajarito Plateau literature

The Pajarito Plateau — the volcanic mesa country west of the Rio Grande between Santa Fe and Los Alamos — is one of the densest archaeological landscapes in the Southwest. The plateau contains thousands of archaeological sites including the cliff dwellings, cave rooms, and pueblo ruins of Frijoles Canyon (Bandelier National Monument), Tsankawi, Puye, Otowi, and dozens of smaller sites. The published record of Pajarito archaeology falls into three institutional streams.

The Hewett Excavations (1907–1930s). Hewett used the Pajarito Plateau as the training ground for his School of American Archaeology summer field schools. His students excavated at Tyuonyi (the large circular pueblo in Frijoles Canyon), at the cave dwellings above Frijoles Creek, at Otowi, and at other sites across the plateau. The published record of this work appears primarily in the Papers of the School of American Archaeology and in Hewett’s own synthetic volume The Pajarito Plateau and Its Ancient People (1938/1953). The early Papers numbers that document specific Pajarito excavations are among the most sought-after items in the early SAR publication series.

The Museum of New Mexico Bulletins. The Museum of New Mexico issued a series of numbered bulletins from the 1910s forward that documented archaeological sites across the state, with heavy representation of the Pajarito Plateau and the Rio Grande Valley. These bulletins — typically saddle-stitched pamphlets of 20–80 pages with plates and maps — are the working documentation of early-twentieth-century New Mexico archaeology. They surface in estate dispersals of Santa Fe and Albuquerque archaeologists and anthropologists with some regularity but are not systematically cataloged in the secondary book market. Individual bulletins trade the common reading copy to mid-range zone depending on content and condition; runs of consecutive numbers command premium.

The NPS and Los Alamos Connection. The establishment of Los Alamos Laboratory in 1943 on the Pajarito Plateau (the Manhattan Project and Los Alamos collecting pillar documents this history) added a layer of archaeological salvage work as laboratory construction impacted archaeological sites. The resulting publications — archaeological clearance reports, salvage excavation documentation, and environmental impact assessments — form a distinct sub-literature that bridges the archaeology and Los Alamos collecting categories. Rolf Sinclair and others conducted salvage archaeology on Los Alamos National Laboratory lands from the 1960s forward; the resulting technical reports are held at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library and occasionally surface in LANL personnel estate dispersals.

Adjacent to the Pajarito Plateau literature proper are two titles that document the broader northern Rio Grande Pueblo world:

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The SAR Press tradition — School of American Research / School for Advanced Research

The School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe — originally the School of American Archaeology (1907), renamed School of American Research (1917), renamed School for Advanced Research (2007) — has operated continuously for over a century as the premier advanced-research institution for southwestern anthropology and archaeology. Its press, SAR Press, is the most consequential institutional publisher of synthetic archaeology and anthropology in the Southwest.

The SAR Press publication program falls into distinct series:

The Early Papers (1907–1940s). The Papers of the School of American Archaeology / School of American Research represent the institution’s earliest publication series. Issued as numbered papers in various formats (pamphlets, bulletins, occasional monographs), these documented the institution’s fieldwork and research programs during the Hewett era. The early numbers are genuinely scarce in the secondary market. They are recognizable by the institutional imprint and series numbering but do not share the consistent physical format of the later Advanced Seminar volumes.

The Advanced Seminar Series (1960s–present). This is the crown jewel of SAR Press publishing. The Advanced Seminar program, established under the directorship of Douglas W. Schwartz (SAR director 1967–2001), brings together 8–10 leading scholars for an intensive week-long residential seminar at the SAR campus in Santa Fe. Each seminar produces an edited volume of contributed chapters, peer-reviewed and published by SAR Press. The format was field-changing in academic publishing — it produced genuinely collaborative, synthetic scholarship rather than the usual conference proceedings of individually presented papers.

The Advanced Seminar volumes relevant to New Mexico archaeology include:

• New Perspectives on the Pueblos (Alfonso Ortiz, ed., 1972) — the foundational seminar volume on Pueblo anthropology
• The Organization and Evolution of Prehistoric Southwestern Society (Steadman Upham, Kent G. Lightfoot, and Roberta A. Jewett, eds., 1994)
• Great Towns and Regional Polities in the Prehistoric Southwest (Jill E. Neitzel, ed., 1999)
• Chaco and Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest (Patricia L. Crown and W. James Judge, eds., 1991)
• Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory (Linda S. Cordell and George J. Gumerman, eds., 1989)
• The Ancient Southwestern Community: Models and Methods for the Study of Prehistoric Social Organization (W. H. Wills and Robert D. Leonard, eds., 1994)
• Migration and Reorganization: The Pueblo IV Period in the American Southwest (Katherine A. Spielmann, ed., 1998)

The physical format of the Advanced Seminar volumes evolved over time. The earliest (1960s–1970s) were issued in the distinctive green cloth hardcover with the SAR colophon on the spine — a format immediately recognizable to anyone who has spent time in a southwestern anthropology library. Later volumes shifted to trade-format hardcovers and eventually to simultaneous hardcover/paperback publication. For collectors, the green-cloth-era hardcovers (approximately 1968–1985) are the most desirable format — they are physically distinctive, increasingly scarce, and represent the golden age of the seminar program. First-edition green-cloth SAR seminar volumes in archaeology trade the mid-range collectible zone depending on title and condition.

Key SAR Directors and Editors. The intellectual character of SAR Press publications was shaped by the institution’s directors: Hewett (1907–1946), Kenneth Chapman (interim), Boaz Long, Sylvanus Griswold Morley (briefly), and most consequentially Douglas W. Schwartz (director 1967–2001), who established the Advanced Seminar format and built SAR Press into the premier imprint in synthetic southwestern scholarship. Under Schwartz’s directorship, the press published over 100 Advanced Seminar volumes across archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and related fields. The current SAR Press continues to publish under the directorship of subsequent leaders, though the publication pace has shifted from the Schwartz era.

University of New Mexico Press archaeology titles

The University of New Mexico Press (founded 1929) is the other major institutional publisher of New Mexico archaeology. Where SAR Press publishes synthetic seminar volumes aimed at professional audiences, UNM Press has historically published a broader range — technical site reports, synthetic overviews, popular treatments, and the work of UNM Department of Anthropology faculty — aimed at both professional and educated-general audiences.

Key UNM Press archaeology titles and authors:

Linda S. Cordell (1943–2013) was one of the most important synthetic thinkers in late-twentieth-century southwestern archaeology. Her Prehistory of the Southwest (Orlando: Academic Press, 1984; revised as Archaeology of the Southwest, second edition, Academic Press, 1997) is the standard graduate-level textbook and synthetic overview of southwestern archaeology — the successor to Kidder’s 1924 Introduction as the single-volume synthesis of the field. Cordell held appointments at UNM and later at the University of Colorado Museum. Her work on Puebloan agricultural adaptations and on the collapse and reorganization of Chacoan society was published through multiple channels including SAR Press and UNM Press. Signed Cordell (closed pool, d. 2013) is valued by specialists; the Prehistory of the Southwest first edition in hardcover trades solid mid-range collectible value.

Patricia L. Crown (living, Distinguished Professor at UNM) is the current leading figure in New Mexico Puebloan archaeology. Her work on Chaco Canyon cacao consumption, on Pueblo ceramic production and exchange, and her co-editorship of key SAR seminar volumes (including Chaco and Hohokam, 1991) represents the contemporary state of the field. Crown’s publications are the modern equivalent of the Kidder-Judd-Vivian tradition — primary-source fieldwork publications from ongoing excavations. Signed Crown is available at Pecos Conference and UNM events; her publications are current collecting targets for those building contemporary southwestern archaeology libraries.

The UNM Press also published a substantial technical reports series documenting contract archaeology and salvage excavations conducted by the UNM Office of Contract Archaeology (OCA) and by the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. These reports — typically gray-cover paperbacks with limited distribution — document specific sites excavated under cultural-resource-management contracts and are the equivalent of the NPS technical reports in documenting sites that would otherwise have no published record. They surface in institutional library deaccessions and in the estate dispersals of contract archaeologists who worked in New Mexico during the 1970s–2000s. Individual reports trade common reading copy range but finding specific titles is difficult because they were never distributed through trade channels.

The Albuquerque Archaeological Society (AAS), a volunteer avocational organization affiliated with the Maxwell Museum, has published a newsletter and occasional papers since 1966. The AAS newsletter documents site visits, volunteer excavation projects, and lectures by professional archaeologists. Back issues are periodical ephemera that surface in member estate dispersals and are a valuable if underrecognized documentary record of Albuquerque-area archaeology across six decades.

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The three-tier collector market

The New Mexico archaeology book market organizes into three tiers by price, scarcity, and collector purpose. Understanding the tier structure is necessary both for building a collection intentionally and for recognizing what is in a donation pile.

Points of issue — identifying first editions of major titles

Accurate identification of first editions is essential for both collector valuation and donation sorting. The following points of issue cover the major titles in the New Mexico archaeology canon.

Kidder, An Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology (1924). The genuine 1924 first: Yale University Press imprint, New Haven; copyright page reading “Copyright 1924 by Yale University Press” and “Published, October 1924” with no subsequent printing line; dark blue cloth binding; gilt spine lettering; 151 pages plus plates. Subsequent Yale printings add printing-line notations (“Second Printing,” etc.) to the copyright page. The 1962 “revised edition” is clearly marked on the title page with a new introduction by Irving Rouse and updated bibliography. Paperback editions (various publishers, 1960s–present) are clearly marked as such. The Phillips Academy Papers of the Southwestern Expedition are separate publications — not editions of the 1924 book.

Bandelier, The Delight Makers (1890). The genuine 1890 first: Dodd, Mead and Company, New York; copyright page reading “Copyright, 1890, by Dodd, Mead and Company”; original decorated cloth binding (olive or brown cloth with gilt and black decorative stamping); frontispiece; xi + 490 pages. The 1918 Dodd, Mead reissue has a different binding and adds later printing notation. The 1946 and subsequent editions carry different publisher imprints or clearly note “New Edition.” The widely circulated Harcourt Brace Jovanovich paperback (1971) has the HBJ imprint and ISBN.

SAR Press Advanced Seminar volumes. SAR Press edition statements are straightforward: first editions carry the publication year on the copyright page with no “First published” or “Reprinted” notation. The green-cloth institutional hardcovers of the 1968–1985 era have the SAR colophon on the spine and no ISBN (ISBNs were added in later production). Later SAR Press books carry standard ISBN and edition statements. The shift from “School of American Research Press” to “School for Advanced Research Press” on the imprint page marks the 2007 institutional name change — pre-2007 imprints read “School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.”

Museum of New Mexico Bulletins. The Museum of New Mexico bulletin series is numbered sequentially. Early bulletins (pre-1940) are saddle-stitched or stapled pamphlets with the Museum of New Mexico imprint and series number on the cover. They do not carry ISBNs and typically do not have formal edition statements. Identification relies on the series number, publication date (usually printed on cover or inside front cover), and the Museum of New Mexico institutional imprint. Reprints (when they exist) typically add a “Reprinted” notation on the cover or title page.

NPS Chaco Publications. The National Park Service Chaco publications carry NPS institutional numbering systems that varied over time. The Reports of the Chaco Center have sequential numbering; earlier Southwestern Monuments Association Technical Series volumes have their own numbering (volume and number). The NPS imprint (U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service) and Government Printing Office or contractor printing notation on the copyright or verso page identifies federal publications. These do not have edition statements in the trade-publishing sense — they are single-printing government documents that are not reprinted when exhausted.

Closed signature pools

A closed signature pool is an author who is deceased and therefore cannot produce additional signed copies. The existing supply of signed copies is fixed; market value can only increase as copies are absorbed into permanent institutional holdings or damaged beyond collectible condition. The following closed pools are relevant to New Mexico archaeology collecting:

• Adolph Bandelier (d. March 18, 1914, Seville, Spain). The earliest and most extreme closed pool. Bandelier signed copies are functionally nonexistent in the open market — any signed Bandelier is an institutional-grade artifact. Bandelier’s personal library and correspondence are held at the Museum of New Mexico History Library and the Newberry Library in Chicago.
• Edgar Lee Hewett (d. December 31, 1946, Albuquerque). Hewett signed books and institutional publications surface occasionally from Santa Fe estate dispersals of families connected to the early SAR/Museum of New Mexico circle. Signed Hewett trades respectable collectible value depending on title and condition; inscribed association copies (to other archaeologists or SAR colleagues) command substantial premium.
• Alfred Vincent Kidder (d. June 11, 1963, Cambridge, Massachusetts). The most consequential closed pool. Kidder signed copies of the 1924 Introduction are genuine rarities that command four-figure prices when they surface. Kidder inscribed copies to colleagues (other archaeologists of the 1920s–1950s generation) are institutional-grade artifacts. Signed copies of the later Pecos reports and of the 1962 revised Introduction surface with more frequency from the estates of archaeologists who knew Kidder personally.
• Neil M. Judd (d. December 26, 1976, Washington, D.C.). Judd signed copies of the Pueblo Bonito Smithsonian publications surface from Smithsonian-circle estate dispersals. Given the institutional-publication format of his major works, signed Judd is uncommon in the trade market. Trades respectable collectible value depending on title.
• Florence Hawley Ellis (d. April 5, 1991, Albuquerque). Ellis signed publications surface from UNM Department of Anthropology estate dispersals with some regularity — she was active in Albuquerque for over five decades and signed for colleagues, students, and the public. The challenge is that much of her published output is in journal-article format rather than monograph form, limiting the signed-book category. Signed monographs and technical reports: the mid-range collectible zone.
• Frank C. Hibben (d. June 6, 2002, Albuquerque). Hibben signed extensively during his long career at UNM. Signed copies of his popular books surface regularly in Albuquerque-area estate dispersals. The controversy adds provenance interest rather than diminishing collectibility. Signed Hibben: the mid-range collectible zone depending on title.
• Alfonso Ortiz (d. January 30, 1997, Albuquerque). Ortiz signed copies of The Tewa World and of the Smithsonian Handbook volumes are valued both as collectible signatures and as artifacts of Indigenous scholarship in southwestern anthropology. Signed Ortiz: the mid-range to upper collectible zone.
• Linda S. Cordell (d. April 28, 2013). Cordell signed copies of Prehistory of the Southwest and her other publications surface from University of Colorado and UNM-circle estate dispersals. Signed Cordell: the mid-range collectible zone.

Living authors who sign actively and whose signed copies are current collecting targets: Stephen H. Lekson (University of Colorado Museum; signs at Pecos Conference, CU events, SAR events); Patricia L. Crown (UNM; signs at Pecos Conference and department events); R. Gwinn Vivian (Arizona State Museum emeritus; signs at Pecos Conference and Chaco-related events); David Roberts (signs at bookstore events and outdoor-industry appearances).

The survivorship problem in New Mexico archaeology books

The same survivorship-bias pattern I have documented in the New Mexico ethnobotany pillar and elsewhere operates in the archaeology literature, with format-specific mechanics.

Institutional publications: the most historically significant New Mexico archaeology books are institutional publications — SAR papers, Museum of New Mexico bulletins, NPS technical reports, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Phillips Academy papers. These were issued in small quantities to subscribers and institutional libraries, were never distributed through trade bookstores, carry no ISBN (or an institutional ISBN that does not register in barcode-scan databases), and are unrecognizable to chain-thrift sorting algorithms. A Goodwill or Savers employee encountering a 1954 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections volume will see “old government pamphlet” and route it to recycling.

Technical reports: NPS and university contract-archaeology technical reports are gray-literature publications with no commercial distribution. They exist only in the copies distributed to project participants and institutional libraries. When a contract archaeologist retires or dies, their office library of 200–500 technical reports typically goes to estate-dispersal channels that do not recognize the material. These reports document specific excavated sites that have no other published record — when the last copies are discarded, the accessible documentation of those sites effectively disappears from the publicly available record.

SAR seminar volumes: the green-cloth-era SAR hardcovers (1968–1985) had print runs in the low thousands, were sold primarily through institutional subscription, and are now out of print with no prospect of reissue. They are recognizable on sight to anyone trained in southwestern anthropology but invisible to the general book-sorting public. As SAR seminar volumes are deaccessioned from university libraries in the ongoing wave of academic library downsizing, they enter disposal channels where they are routinely rejected as “old academic books” and recycled.

The estate-dispersal pattern: New Mexico has an unusually high concentration of retired archaeologists, anthropologists, and NPS personnel — the retiree populations of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Tucson include hundreds of professionals whose personal libraries contain exactly the institutional publications, technical reports, and signed first editions described above. As this generation ages out, their libraries enter the estate-dispersal pipeline. The same dynamics that I described in the Native American literature pillar apply: family members categorize archaeological publications as “old work stuff” and route them to the nearest disposal channel, which in most cases means chain thrift or curbside.

This is precisely why NMLP’s free pickup service exists — I am the operation in central New Mexico that recognizes an SAR seminar volume, a Museum of New Mexico bulletin, or a NPS technical report for what it is and routes it appropriately rather than to landfill.

Adjacent collecting categories

New Mexico archaeology book collecting intersects with several adjacent regional collecting categories documented elsewhere on this site:

• Pueblo Pottery Books — the ceramic arts literature overlaps substantially with the archaeological ceramics literature. Publications on Pueblo pottery typology, on prehistoric ceramic traditions, and on the continuity between archaeological and modern Pueblo pottery traditions (the Mimbres tradition, Sikyatki Revival, Maria Martinez and San Ildefonso blackware) bridge both categories.
• New Mexico Native American Literature — the ethnographic and ethnohistorical literature on Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache communities overlaps with the archaeological literature. Alfonso Ortiz’s work exemplifies the bridge; the Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians covers both archaeological and ethnographic material.
• Manhattan Project and Los Alamos Books — the Los Alamos connection to Pajarito Plateau archaeology creates a bridge between the two collecting categories. Archaeological salvage reports from LANL lands and the environmental-impact documentation of the laboratory’s impact on archaeological resources bridge both categories.
• New Mexico Spanish Colonial Historians — the contact-period and colonial-period archaeology of New Mexico (missions, presidios, the Pueblo Revolt archaeological record, colonial Santa Fe) bridges the prehistoric-archaeology and colonial-history collecting categories.
• New Mexico Ethnobotany — paleoethnobotany (the archaeological study of ancient plant use) is a subspecialty within southwestern archaeology whose publications bridge the archaeology and ethnobotany categories.

Building a New Mexico archaeology collection in 2026

For a collector entering the field today, three strategies apply depending on budget and purpose.

The reference-library approach (budget serious collector to four-figure territory): Acquire the standard syntheses in any edition — Kidder 1962 revised (the mid-range collectible zone), Cordell Prehistory of the Southwest or Archaeology of the Southwest (solid mid-range collectible value), Vivian Chacoan Prehistory (solid mid-range collectible value), Lekson Chaco Meridian (solid mid-range collectible value), Lekson History of the Ancient Southwest (the common reading copy to mid-range zone), Crown and Judge Chaco and Hohokam (solid mid-range collectible value). Add the Bandelier journals (Lange and Riley four-volume set, respectable collectible value). Add NPS popular handbooks for Chaco, Bandelier, Pecos, and Aztec Ruins (modest value each). This gives you the basic working library of New Mexico archaeology for under serious collector territory.

The institutional-series approach (budget five-figure territory): Focus on building a run of SAR Advanced Seminar archaeology volumes in first-edition hardcover. Target the green-cloth era and the key 1989–1999 volumes. Simultaneously build a run of Museum of New Mexico bulletins and early SAR papers as they surface in estate dispersals. Add the Judd Smithsonian volumes and the Chaco Project NPS reports. This approach builds an institutional archive rather than a trophy shelf — the result is a research library of genuine scholarly utility that simultaneously appreciates as the individual items become scarcer.

The trophy approach (budget four-figure territory and above): Target the Kidder 1924 first in jacket, the Bandelier 1890 first, and signed copies by the major closed-pool figures. Work with specialist dealers (Ken Sanders, Dumont Maps and Books, William Reese Company for the earliest institutional publications). Monitor Heritage Auctions Books and Manuscripts and Swann Galleries for major pieces. This is patient, long-term collecting — major pieces surface unpredictably and the serious collector must be prepared to act when they do.

Regardless of approach, the most productive sourcing channel for a New Mexico-based collector is estate dispersals of archaeologists and anthropologists in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Las Cruces corridor. These estates routinely contain material that the general secondary market has never seen and cannot identify. NMLP’s free pickup service is one channel through which this material surfaces; the other channels are estate sales, the Maxwell Museum and SAR institutional book sales, and the personal networks of the Albuquerque Archaeological Society and the New Mexico Archaeological Council.

Frequently asked questions

External research references

• Adolph Bandelier — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Bandelier — biographical entry on the foundational New Mexico archaeologist.
• Alfred V. Kidder — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_V._Kidder — biographical entry on the author of the field’s foundational text.
• Edgar Lee Hewett — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Lee_Hewett — biographical entry on the founder of the School of American Archaeology.
• School for Advanced Research — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_for_Advanced_Research — institutional history from 1907 to present.
• School for Advanced Research: sarweb.org — the institution’s current website with SAR Press catalog and Advanced Seminar listings.
• Pecos Classification — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecos_classification — the chronological framework established 1927.
• Chaco Culture National Historical Park — NPS: nps.gov/chcu — the National Park Service site for Chaco Canyon with research and publication links.
• Bandelier National Monument — NPS: nps.gov/band — the National Park Service site for Bandelier with history and archaeology resources.
• Pecos National Historical Park — NPS: nps.gov/peco — the site of Kidder’s foundational excavations.
• University of New Mexico Press: unmpress.com — the UNM Press catalog including archaeology titles.
• Museum of New Mexico Press: mnmpress.org — the state museum press with archaeological and anthropological titles.
• Antiquities Act of 1906 — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquities_Act — the federal legislation that Hewett helped draft in response to New Mexico site looting.
• Pecos Pueblo — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecos_Pueblo — the site of Kidder’s excavations and the 1927 Pecos Conference.
• Pueblo Bonito — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Bonito — the largest great house in Chaco Canyon, excavated by Judd 1921–1927.
• Albuquerque Archaeological Society: abqarchaeology.org — the volunteer avocational society with newsletter and publication history since 1966.

Related on this site

• All Pillar Pages — New Mexico Regional Reference Hub — the full index of NMLP pillar pages covering New Mexico book collecting by subject.
• Collecting New Mexico Ethnobotany — From the Fényes-Curtin Lineage to Modern Native-Plant Scholarship — the parallel natural-sciences pillar; same institutional infrastructure (Museum of NM Press, Laboratory of Anthropology), different subject.
• Manhattan Project and Los Alamos Books — A Collector’s Reference — the Los Alamos/Pajarito Plateau connection to archaeological salvage work on LANL lands.
• New Mexico Native American Literature — A Collector’s Reference — the ethnographic and ethnohistorical companion literature to the archaeological record.
• Pueblo Pottery Books — A Collector’s Reference — the ceramic arts literature that bridges archaeological and modern Pueblo traditions.
• New Mexico Spanish Colonial Historians — A Collector’s Reference — the contact-period and colonial-period historical companion to the prehistoric-archaeology record.
• The NMLP Donation Archive — the full open archive of regionally significant donated books.
• Free Book Pickup — Albuquerque — schedule the pickup.

Cite as: Eldred, Josh. “Collecting New Mexico Archaeology Books: From Bandelier and Kidder to the SAR Press Tradition.” New Mexico Literacy Project, May 13, 2026. https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/new-mexico-archaeology-books-collecting