This collection of archaeological essays, the third volume in the Amerind Foundation New World Studies Series, examines sociopolitical developments in the prehistoric American Southeast and Southwest, two regions rarely discussed together.

The contributors compare change in great towns, regional polities, and macroregions, document the diversity of intermediate-level societies, and search for underlying commonalities in diverse sites such as Snaketown, Pueblo Bonito, and Galaz in the Southwest and Moundville, Kincaid, and Macon Plateau in the Southeast. The chapters are presented in pairs, one dealing with the Southeast and one with the Southwest, and are ordered by successively larger spatial scales.