Oblique Views

Oblique Views: Aerial Photography and Southwest Archaeology Charles A. Lindbergh Adriel Heisey Edited by Maxine E. McBrinn In 1927, the year that Charles A. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic Ocean, another revolution was happening on the ground. A group of young archaeologists was forging an area of study centered on the ancient Southwest. Aviation and archaeology merged when Alfred V. Kidder, of the Carnegie Institution, hired Lindbergh to photograph the sites from an airplane. Lindbergh’s aerial survey of the Four Corners and Upper Rio Grande, made with Anne Morrow Lindbergh at the controls and, possibly, photographing some of the sites, were the first low-angle views of the vast, interconnected ancient landscape. The Lindbergh documentation of the sites remains a valuable historic record of the northern Southwest plateau. Ninety years later, noted aerial photographer Adriel Heisey has been commissioned by Archaeology Southwest, an organization dedicated to preservation archaeology,