The Pueblo Revolt and the Mythology of Conquest: An Indigenous Archaeology of Contact

The Pueblo Revolt and the Mythology of Conquest: An Indigenous Archaeology of Contact. By Michael V. Wilcox. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. xiv, 316 pp. $39.95, isbn 978-0-520-25205-9.)

In The Pueblo Revolt and the Mythology of Conquest Stanford University assistant professor of anthropology Michael V. Wilcox uses the revolt of 1680, led by Tewa religious leader Po'pay, as a test case for an archaeological paradigm that integrates "indigenous archaeology" (after a 2000 book ofthat name by Joe Watkins) into older historical narratives. His account follows recognition of Native American ownership of ancestral remains and associated burial objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, enacted at a federal level in 1990.

As Wilcox describes it, the conquista combined Christian militancy (he calls it "militarizing Jesus") with...