Founded in 1965, the University Press of Colorado is a nonprofit cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by eleven institutional members, who manage the publication output of four imprints: University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press (2012), University of Wyoming Press (2019), University of Alaska Press (2021).
A refereed scholarly publisher, UPC publishes forty to forty-five new titles each year, with the goal of facilitating communication among scholars and providing the peoples of the state and region with a fair assessment of their histories, cultures, and resources. The Press has extended the reach and reputation of our supporting institutions and has made scholarship of the highest level in many diverse fields widely available. Vital also to our mission is publication for a broader community, including students, who use our books in their studies, and general readers, who find in them enjoyment as well as enlightenment.

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University Press of Colorado Highlights

2025 Frank Moore Cross Book Award

Landscape of Warfare

Landscapes of Warfare offers an in-depth exploration of the Urartian empire, which occupied the highlands of present-day Turkey, Armenia, and Iran in the early first millennium BCE. Lesser known than its rival, the Neo-Assyrian empire, Urartu presents a unique case of imperial power distributed among mountain fortresses rather than centralized in cities. Through spatial analysis, the book demonstrates how systematic warfare, driven by imperial ambitions, shaped Urartian and Assyrian territories, creating symbolically and materially powerful landscapes.

Tiffany Earley-Spadoni challenges traditional views by emphasizing warfare’s role in organizing ancient landscapes, suggesting that Urartu’s strength lay in its strategic optimization of terrain through fortified regional networks. Using an interdisciplinary approach that includes GIS-enabled studies and integrates archaeological, historical, and art-historical evidence, she illustrates how warfare was a generative force in structuring space and society in the ancient Middle East. Landscapes of Warfare situates Urartu’s developments within the broader context of regional empires, providing insights into the mechanisms of warfare, governance, and cultural identity formation.

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Millions of Gifts for the Gods

In Millions of Gifts for the Gods, Jonathan E. Reyman chronicles a remarkable thirty-four-year applied anthropology initiative that bridged ancient traditions with contemporary conservation challenges. From 1982 to 2015 the Feather Distribution Project addressed the critical need for macaw, parrot, and wild turkey feathers essential to Pueblo religious practices, directly supporting their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Millions of Gifts for the Gods is an extended case study in applied anthropology, demonstrating how sustained collaboration between anthropologists and Indigenous communities can effectively address complex cultural, legal, and environmental challenges while preserving sacred traditions. This unique project is of special interest to anthropologists working in the American Southwest, as well as students and scholars of archaeology, ethnography, and ethnohistory.

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Exploring the Mesoamerican Subterranean Realm

Exploring the Mesoamerican Subterranean Realm brings together recent work and interpretations on the use of underground cavities by Mesoamerica’s pre-Columbian cultures, demonstrating their invaluable cultural purpose. Case studies from across the region investigate the ways in which these highly charged points in the sacred landscape were the focus of countless political and religious activities.

Dealing equally with the archaeology of both natural and constructed subterranean spaces, Exploring the Mesoamerican Subterranean Realm challenges preconceived notions of these spaces and their meanings, dramatically shifting the field’s focus and extending the understanding of the critical importance of this “dark side” of archaeology.

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