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14 Personality and Place in Prehistory For most, it is remembered as one of the richest experiences of their lives. This can only mean that the environment in which we lived, the atmosphere of the camp, and the circumjacent archaeological advantages offered the ideal combination of elements favorable for a meaningful learning experience. If the reader catches a feeling of these qualities in this account, then its purpose will have been well served. —Emil Haury (1989:xv) The Mogollon controversy had ended in 1955, for all intents and purposes , with Wheat’s extraordinary tour de force, Mogollon Culture Prior to a.d. 1000. There would be a few minor resurgences as the Harvard contingent refused to concede defeat, but the controversy would never achieve the scale and importance that it assumed during the 1940s. It would be implausible to imagine that Wheat accomplished the happy ending to the Mogollon controversy alone, although his subsequent, successful career in southwestern archaeology would give credence to such a claim. Instead, we are convinced, it was Haury’s strategic intellect that fostered a rather complicated series of academic and logistical moves designed to end the controversy. To that, we add the intangible variables of personality as they operated within the unique structure of place. Resolving the Mogollon controversy involved a perfect concatenation of academic power, intellectual force, strategic thinking, and strong personalities , nurtured in the unique landscape of Point of Pines. In this chapter, we summarize the forces that molded an academic and intellectual controversy that cast long shadows in the annals of Southwest archaeology and discuss its equally significant closure. The Power of Place We believe strongly in the power of place to mold individuals, cultures, and entire nations.As we have discussed, people construct cultural landscapes by means of their interactions with the biological and physical environments and other humans. In turn, we are shaped by the forces of the natural and social environments, often profoundly. Place was a vital factor in the Mogollon controversy on many different levels. The first place to affect Haury was the landscape of his youth, where his personality and intellect were molded. The flat, stark plains of Kansas—a place where, as Willa Cather observed of New Mexico, the earth was the floor of the sky—grew stalwart men and women, and in the close community of Bethel College, intellectual pursuits, a simple lifestyle, faith, and hard labor merged to nurture the young man who ventured to Cuicuilco in 1925. Surely this background developed Haury’s abilities to cope with controversy and the vicissitudes of academic life. Just as surely, it shaped an epistemology that was rooted in the scientific method and positivist thought. Haury next encountered the Southwest, a mosaic of green pines, dissected mountains, red sandstone cliffs, and thorny desert so different from the Kansas plains of his boyhood. Its diversity of terrain and landscape features could scarcely be ignored, nor could its impacts on ancient peoples be dismissed. Here, we think, Haury’s innate romanticism—a personality characteristic that is well hidden in his professional writings , but which comes through clearly in the bits and pieces of the family archives—could flourish. Only a few easterners can encounter the Southwest’s vast skies and cloudscapes; its pungent smells of creosote, rain on hot stone,and wood smoke; its native peoples,and not be changed irrevocably. We think the Southwest landscape must have drawn Haury as it has done us, and its remarkable diversity offered a canvas on which to sketch notions of ancient cultures that could be explored in the field. We also think it must have tested Haury, as the Southwest tests all, and his personality and abilities not only enabled him to cope with the environmental and cultural challenges but allowed his scholarship to flourish. Of all the places in Haury’s life, we believe Point of Pines was the most remarkable and the most significant to Haury emotionally and personally. We have mentioned that the choice of Point of Pines as the field on which to play out the battle for the Mogollon was not accidental . The decision to move the University of Arizona Archaeological Field 136 Chapter 14 School to Point of Pines was made for a bundle of reasons we have discussed ,not the least of which was to continue to argue the Mogollon concept with the shovel.Haury knew that the many ruins in the Point of Pines...

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