Frank Hamilton Cushing

Presents the previously unpublished account, by the great anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing, of the origins and early months of the Hemenway Expedition to the American Southwest in the late 19th century, which sought to trace the ancestors of the Zuni Indians.

"First published more than a hundred years ago, this illustrated monograph on the Key Marco site on Florida's Gulf Coast chronicles archaeological discoveries that have never been duplicated. In its time, work at the site was considered the most important excavation on earth and, until 1970, it was considered the most advanced work in archaeology anywhere in the United States."--BOOK JACKET.

Social theory, personal experiences on becoming an Indian, the origins of pueblo pottery, shamanism, and the zuni cultural and sociological structure are among the topics examined by the late-nineteenth-century anthropologist and pioneer in the study of Southwest American ethnology.

"These previously unpublished journals by Frank Hamilton Cushing, one of the most complex and enigmatic American anthropologists, offer a dramatically new perspective on his Florida explorations. Recorded during 1895-96 as he traveled the Gulf Coast, these daily personal observations add credibility to his contributions to science and anthropology and demonstrate his independent and intuitive intellect." "Cushing's monumental findings at the Key Marco site have been vitally important to a global understanding of the technological, social, and cosmological complexity of indigenous maritime societies. This collection of personal journals opens the door to new research and information for archaeologists and archaeological theory. Written by a visionary on the eve of Florida's entry into the modern world, the journals provide a rare glimpse of the nascent field of cultural anthropology."--Jacket.

"Frank Hamilton Cushing's "forgotten" manuscript, considered by some to be the legendary anthropologist's masterwork, conveys the untamed and undeveloped nature of south Florida in the 1890s and offers new insights into Cushing's significant contributions to Florida archaeology. It describes his initial reconnaissance in 1895 to southwest Florida and his comparative evaluations of artifacts excavated in the Tarpon Springs area the following year." "The original manuscript - some 708 typed half-pages - was housed in the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives in Washington, D.C., and only recently was recognized as the "lost" Florida volume that Cushing was preparing at the time of his death in 1900"--Jacket.