Western Digs: Dispatches from the Ancient American West

January 30, 2014 7:06 AM

Western Digs is a source for "dispatches from the American ancient West." Posts are sorted into three main categories: Dinosaurs & Ancient Life (Paleontology, split into Dinosars, The Ice Age, Birds and All Fossils), Prehistoric Americans (Archaeology, split into Ancient Southwest and The Mississippians [Cahokia]), and Modern Artifacts (Historic Archaeology, including the subset The 20th Century). If you're not sure where to start reading, here are Western Digs’ Top 5 Paleontology Stories of 2013 and Western Digs’ Top 5 Archaeology Stories of 2013.
posted by filthy light thief (5 comments total)

Hat tip to spiderskull, who shared a link elsewhere to the 11,000-Year-Old Seafaring Indian Sites Discovered on California Island article.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:06 AM on January 30, 2014

Awesome. I am diving right into the Ancient Southwest link, because when we visited Chaco and Mesa Verde in 2012 I was blown away by the sites, and by how many times the rangers said "We don't know..." when leading tours.
posted by rtha at 8:29 AM on January 30, 2014

After spending a month as a resident artist at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument this post is especially interesting - thanks!
posted by leslies at 8:53 AM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Awesome! Thanks!
posted by brundlefly at 9:58 AM on January 30, 2014

I have been to a lot of cool archaeological sites in the Mediterranean for work, and Cahokia ranks up there with the best of them in my opinion. It is really a mind trip to visit-- just an hour from downtown St. Louis, this crazy huge man-made mound. Climbing up to the top is an awesome experience, and because the site was so empty of tourists when we went (I don't know if that's normal) it made me feel like I was a 19th century Frenchman climbing up the Egyptian pyramids or something.
posted by oinopaponton at 11:52 AM on January 30, 2014