In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

3 Arizona The Southwest has been from the beginning of archaeological work there the greatest of all natural laboratories for studying people in relationship to their physical setting. In the space of a few hundred miles a traveler experiences sharp changes from desertic, to mountainous, to high plateau environments— three markedly different worlds inhabited by three sets of people who played out a fascinating complexity of relationships. —Emil Haury (1985b:393) Haury was twenty-one in 1925, when he joined Cummings’s expedition at Cuicuilco on the outskirts of Mexico City. During the twelve-year period from 1925 to 1937, he rocketed from inexperienced undergraduate student to seasoned professional archaeologist and head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Arizona. That this passage was so rapid was due in part to the unusual circumstances of his apprenticeship under three remarkably different, intellectually energetic men he encountered in Arizona—Cummings,A.E.Douglass,and Harold S.Gladwin . Their sequence of association with Haury was as significant to his professional development as was the particular contribution of each man. The wandering path that led Haury to Arizona began with a dawn departure and a great deal of anticipation. “June 11, 1925—4:55 a.m. this morning should mark the beginning of a new and novel experience.” So he wrote (E. Haury 2004:59) of his leaving Newton on the no. 17 train for the long trip by rail to Mexico City. Its extended misery (Haury’s own term) no doubt meant that Cummings’s appearance at the train station to greet Haury was a most welcome sight. As published, Haury’s abbreviated Cuicuilco diary (E.Haury 2004) catalogs more than a young man’s naive astonishment at being immersed in a foreign culture. It also reveals glimpses of the personality of the man who would become Haury’s mentor. Haury wrote of Cummings’s kindness in trying to teach him Spanish and of his futile attempt to trick Cummings with green glass in place of obsidian. Haury also recorded Cummings’s fury at the antics of their hostess’s pet raven, Aquervo.“Dean C. is on his trail, and there will be a sick raven if he gets him” (E. Haury 2004:67). More importantly, we learn of Cummings’s confidence in leaving Haury in charge of the laborers , his interest in amassing collections for the University of Arizona, and his cooking skills. In his personal recollections, Haury recalled his sense of wonderment at Cuicuilco’s monumental architecture. His words provide insight into Haury’s understanding of human endeavors past and present and the inimitable forces of the environment in shaping them. On his first day, he stood in disbelief “looking at a monumental building about 400 feet in diameter and over 70 feet high, trying to understand the cataclysmic event of nature that sent down from the mountains a lava flow locking and partially burying the structure in a vise-like grip, marveling at the fervor which impelled the builders to erect it, and admiring the archaeologists ’boldness and courage to uncover and understand it”(Haury 1979:7). On September 9, Haury left Mexico City, and he arrived in Tucson at 6:00 a.m. on September 12. So ended eight weeks“of profitable and valuable experience” (E. Haury 2004:82). It was the beginning of a lifelong immersion in the archaeology of the American Southwest and a distinguished career at the University of Arizona. Tucson Haury transferred to the Department of Archaeology at the University of Arizona, where he completed his junior and senior years, his master’s degree in 1928, and where, during the 1928–29 academic year, he held his first teaching position. By 1925, Haury already had experienced the plains of Kansas,the highlands of central Mexico,and had been introduced to the expanses of the Sonoran Desert.Shortly,he would add the rugged uplands of central Arizona and the pine forests of New Mexico to his geographic experience. It is hard for us to imagine, inured as we are to the sprawl of housing developments, strip malls, golf courses, and high-end resorts that constitutes today’s Tucson, what the city must have looked like to Haury in 1925. The university had yet to create the enormous web of brick buildings , dormitories, parking garages, and athletic fields that characterizes it now. But the striking desert landscape surely was much the same. Arizona 21 Tucson lies in a basin...

Share