Living the Sky: The Cosmos of the American Indian

Analyzes the astronomical systems and key observation sites of Native Americans to show the impact of astronomy on Native American cosmology, art, agriculture, religion, folklore, and mythology

History

Williamson, Ray A.

Americas

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

For countless generations, Native American storytellers have watched the night sky and told tales of the stars and the constellations. The stars themselves tell many tales—of children who have danced away from home, of six brothers who rescue a maiden from the fearful Rolling Skull, of the great wounded sky bear, whose blood turns the autumn leaves red, and many more.

They Dance in the Sky: Native American Star Myths

Teen & Young Adult

Education & Reference

Clarion Books

Imagine the North American Indians as astronomers carefully watching the heavens, charting the sun through the seasons, or counting the sunrises between successive lumar phases. Then imagine them establishing observational sites and codified systems to pass their knowledge down through the centuries and continually refine it. A few years ago such images would have been abruptly dismissed. Today we are wiser.
Living the Sky describes the exciting archaeoastronomical discoveries in the United States in recent decades. Using history, science, and direct observation, Ray A. Williamson transports the reader into the sky world of the Indians. We visit the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, sit with a Zuni sun priest on the winter solstice, join explorers at the rites of the Hopis and the Navajos, and trek to Chaco Canyon to make direct on-site observations of celestial events.

University of Oklahoma Press

Earth & Sky: Visions of the Cosmos in Native American Folklore

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Univ of New Mexico Pr

Commercial Observation Satellites: At the Leading Edge of Global Transparency

Featuring numerous satellite images and case studies, this book brings together an impressive group of experts to assess the implications of this emerging information technology.

Baker, John

O'Connell, Kevin M.

Politics & Government

RAND Corporation

The tortuous canyon country of southeastern Utah conceals thousands of archaeological sites, ancient homes of the ancestors of today's Southwest Indian peoples. Late in the nineteenth century, adventurous cowboy-archaeologists made the first forays into the canyons in search of the material remains of these prehistoric cultures. Rancher Richard Wetherill (best known as the "discoverer" of Mesa Verde's Cliff Palace) and his brothers; entrepreneurs Charles McLoyd and Charles Cary Graham; and numerous other adventurers, scholars, preachers, and businessmen mounted expeditions into the area now known as Grand Gulch.
With varying degrees of scientific rigor, they mapped and dug the canyon's rich archaeological sites, removing large numbers of artifacts and burial goods to exhibit or sell back home-whether "home" was Durango, Chicago, New York, or Helsinki. During a trip in the winter of 1893-94, Richard Wetherill unearthed convincing proof that a previously unrecognized group of people had lived in Grand Gulch before the so-called Anasazi, or Cliff Dwellers. Wetherill named these people the "Basket Makers" and inaugurated a new era of understanding of the region's prehistoric past.
Almost one hundred years later, the modern-day adventure that became known as the Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project began. Intrigued by the poorly documented history of the Gulch, a group of avocational archaeologists launched a grassroots effort to recover that history and locate the many artifacts that had been extracted from southeastern Utah's arid soil. The Gulch, they found, contained its own invaluable clues in the form of dated signatures left on canyon walls by the Wetherills and others as they made their way from site to site. An effort to track the original explorers in the Gulch ultimately led the team to Chicago's Field Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
In this book, Fred M. Blackburn and Ray A. Williamson tell the two intertwined stories of the early archaeological expeditions into Grand Gulch and the Wetherill-Grand Gulch Research Project. In the process, they describe what we now know about Basketmaker culture and present a stirring plea for the preservation of our nation's priceless archaeological heritage. Lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs.

Cowboys and Cave Dwellers: Basketmaker Archaeology of Utah's Grand Gulch

Blackburn, Fred M.

School for Advanced Research Press

The tortuous canyon country of southeastern Utah conceals thousands of archaeological sites, ancient homes of the ancestors of today's Southwest Indian peoples. Late in the 19th century, adventurous cowboy-archaeologists made the first forays into the canyons in search of the material remains of these prehistoric cultures, called basketmaker. Rancher Richard Wetherill and numerous other adventurers, scholars, preachers, and businessmen mounted expeditions into the area now known as Grand Gulch. With varying degrees of scientific rigor, they mapped and dug the canyon's rich archaeological sites, removing large numbers of artifacts and burial goods to exhibit or sell back home.Almost 100 years after these explorers matte their way through the Gulch, a group of avocational archaeologists began to track the original explorers by tracing the signatures they had left on the canyon walls as they moved from site to site. This adventure grew into the Whetherill-Grand Gulch Project, an effort to recover the history and discover the current whereabouts of the many artifacts extracted from southeastern Utah's arid soil.In Cowboys and Cave Dwellers, Fred M. Blackburn and Ray A. Williamson tell the two intertwined stories of the early archaeological expeditions into Grand Gulch and the Wetherill-Grand Gulch Project. In the process, they describe what we now know about Basketmaker culture and present a stirring plea for the preservation of our nation's priceless archaeological heritage. Cowboys and Cave DwelLers is lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, many of them by Bruce Hucko, author and photographer of Where There Is No Name for Art.

Cowboys & Cave Dwellers: Basketmaker Archaeology in Utah's Grand Gulch

Archaeology

School for Advanced Research/Sar pr

A selection of key documents in the history of the U.S. civil space program is presented. This volume deals with organizational developments of the space program. More than 200 documents are printed. Each is introduced by a headnote providing context, bibliographical information, and background information necessary to understanding the document. These are organized into four major sections, each beginning with an introductory essay that keys the documents to major events in the history of the space program. The NASA History Series. NASA SP 4407.

Exploring the Unknown - Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program Volume I: Organizing for Exploration

Logsdon, John M.

Lear, Linda J.

Day, Dwayne A.

Warren-Findley, Jannelle

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

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Books by Williamson, Ray A.