I received this ebook through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
This book is divided into 2 sections. The first and largest section is a travel guide to the sites. This is divided into a 14 day itinerary. Main directions are given in a clockwise direction with the other direction mentioned after. Very specific directions are given to sites. Information about services and times when the site are given. Trails are rated by difficulty though as a hiker I tend to think the ratings are overdone. I realize heat is a factor and recommend carrying water. But, a 1 mile trail is not usually strenuous. Descriptions of sites and petroglyphs and pictographs are very thorough. There are diagrams and some pictures. The second section of the book was a history of the Mogollon, Hohokam, Salado and Sinagua people. I kind of agree with another reviewer that it may have been better at the beginning of the book. It would have given a good frame of reference for the information on the sites. I will be bringing this book with me when I travel in the area. The information included in the book is invaluable. However, sometimes the amount of information is overwhelming. ( )

NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in MOBI format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (April 2021).

This guidebook provides a play-by-play driving and walking tour of significant points of interest in New Mexico and Arizona. Royea has meticulously researched each site, down to the number of steps in a given trail; no stone (or adobe wall or landmark) is left unturned or ignored. For this reason, I found the majority of the reading experience somewhat tedious. This book demands to accompany the reader on their own Southwestern Adventure instead of simulating the experience. However, I did enjoy the author's depictions of the attractions in New Mexico, especially the Three Rivers Petroglyphs and the White Sands Monument, both of which I had visited as an adolescent. Those sections made me wish I could revisit some of those places. It was also fascinating to learn about the history of these areas and how the Native Americans of these regions lived. ( )

I think this would be a great book to read and take with you if you were doing a roadtrip in the area but as a casual reader with a gentle interest in history and archaeology, its a bit dry. Some travel guides can be read casually, some only work with the travel, and this is one of them. The author is very knowledgeable and this is a book that has been carefully and considerately written. In the end though I had to put it down because it doesn't work as a casual reading book, which is a me issue rather than a book issue I guess. ( )

"Southwestern Adventure" is truly an "adventure", and it changed my thinking about both archeology and adventuring in our world. The author's seasoned information and views of archeological sites gave me a new view and new experience even of places which are very familiar to me. And the descriptions are very accessible -- even endearing -- to anyone.

The introduction suggests that Royea is offering to be a Guide on a 14-day venture of discovery of Apache and ancient cultural sites and nature trails in the American Southwest. For anyone with an interest in the way humans have developed along riverbeds, and in the case of the Sinaqua, even without water, this is a true and well-guided "adventure" in archeology.

The first part of the book is entirely unique. Royea provides a detailed enabling guide for a tour of our ancestral Heritage sites in Arizona and New Mexico. Royea provides a guided tour, with a proposed plan for each day of the visit, with a map, photographs, and drawings of many of the sites. He does not miss our museums, National Monuments and the important "visitor centers"--he takes us into 56 of them. The focus is on archeological sites, but one does not need to be an archeologist or survivalist, although depending on conditions, both would help. A Glossary of some of the terms used is of great help. For example, I discovered that the term, "Anasazi" is seldom used, and "Ancestral Puebloans" is preferred; the listing of "dendrochronological dating" spells out how it is used. Ancient people flourished intermittently along riparian banks, cliffs and caves by paying attention to their environment. Our guide provides us with this same visionary attention, unfolding the past in the actual places of experience.

This work is a kind of sequel to the author's 2014 book on the largest and best-known pre-European civilization in the Southwest, the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) who occupied the Colorado Plateau. In this book, Royea guides us to sites of four other cultures which dominated southwestern New Mexico and both south and central Arizona: the
Mogollon, Hohokam, Salado and Sinagua. Royea serves as a travel and reference guide to these four ancient peoples and the
territories they occupied.

The Mogollon were in the mountains of western New Mexico and central Arizona, with one branch in the deserts of southern New Mexico. They relied on a combination of hunting, gathering and
agriculture. The Hohokam were "the great engineers who literally made the deserts of the Phoenix and Tucson basins bloom for a thousand years". The Salado of the Tonto Basin, northeast of Phoenix, are still a largely unknown culture, which appears "out of nowhere", but perhaps consisting of elements from the three surrounding peoples. The Sinagua ("the
people without water") lived in two regions, north around Flagstaff, Arizona and south in the Verde Valley. They were named for the desert lands in the north where the nearest water was 10 miles (16 km) away. The Sinagua built large stone pueblos and dwellings that cling to the sides of cliffs.

The first part of this work proposed as "a standard travel guide to forty-one archaeological sites." In addition to descriptions of the sites, Royea includes directions, the rated difficulty of trails, weather ranges, explanations of what to see at each site, and recommendations of best use of time on a two-week tour. He urges visitors not to deface any site, and "it is our duty to protect them".

Royea is not shy about pointing out controversies, but he largely remains neutral about them. For example he notes that the understanding of who the Salado people were remains, perhaps even freshly, disputed. And my favorite of his insights is this one that expresses such wonderful skepticism about the contrast between "hunter-gatherers" and cultivators:

"However, research has shown that not only are hunter-gatherers healthier overall, but there is less work involved, and thus more free time. The reasons for adopting an agricultural way of life are either resource degradation, of which there was some, and/or population increase. That is to say, farming can sustain a larger number of people on a smaller territory."

The second part of this book is a reference guide which includes the timelines, history, culture, and archaeology of each culture. However, Royea does not present the story with the irrelevancy of the colonial European interlude. "The “history” of North America is divided into two periods; pre-historical and historical. The arrival of the Europeans signifies the change to historical." Clearly he is justified in making the personal observation that this division is "irrelevant, arrogant, and disrespectful. It is as if there were no people or events prior to the Europeans when in fact people had been living in the Americas for over 10,000 years." He notes that there is no reason to privilege "the writings of the invader as the source of our knowledge" when we have archaeology and Native American accounts, which have a determinative role in our understanding of the past. Bones and stones do not generally lie to us. Thus, "The history of the Southwest is the history of Native Americans from the earliest evidence to the present. I present their history from the beginning, divided not between historical and pre-historical, but pre- and post-invasion."

The archeological evidence of these Peoples -- Mogollon, Hohokam, Salado and Sinagua -- refined with corroboration from more recent historical accounts of the Apache, is used to draw fascinating portraits of cultures which developed in a changing land. ( )

This is a great guidebook for these southwestern sites. I liked how an itinerary was included for each day and there was detailed information about what to see at each site. The pictures and maps included were very helpful since I was not familiar with any of these sites. I think Part 2 of the book which had more about the history and background of the different Indigenous Groups would have been better at the beginning of the book to put things into context, but overall this was a great read. ( )