An exuberant, hands-on fly-on-the-wall account that combines the thrill of canyoneering and rock climbing with the intellectual sleuthing of archaeology to explore the Anasazi. David Roberts describes the culture of the Anasazi-the name means "enemy ancestors" in Navajo-who once inhabited the Colorado Plateau and whose modern descendants are the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Archaeologists, Roberts writes, have been puzzling over the Anasazi for more than...

"An award-winning author and veteran mountain climber takes us deep into the Southwest backcountry to uncover secrets of its ancient inhabitants. In The Lost World of the Old Ones, David Roberts expands and updates the research from his 1996 classic, In Search of the Old Ones. As he elucidates startling archaeological breakthroughs, Roberts also recounts his past twenty years of far-flung exploits in search of spectacular prehistoric ruins and rock-art...