Author: Gavin Menzies
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062236776
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Greatly expanding on his blockbuster 1421, distinguished historian Gavin Menzies uncovers the complete untold history of how mankind came to the Americas—offering new revelations and a radical rethinking of the accepted historical record in Who Discovered America? The iconoclastic historian’s magnum opus, Who Discovered America? calls into question our understanding of how the American continents were settled, shedding new light on the well-known “discoveries” of European explorers, including Christopher Columbus. In Who Discovered America? he combines meticulous research and an adventurer’s spirit to reveal astounding new evidence of an ancient Asian seagoing tradition—most notably the Chinese—that dates as far back as 130,000 years ago. Menzies offers a revolutionary new alternative to the “Beringia” theory of how humans crossed a land bridge connecting Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, and provides a wealth of staggering claims, that hold fascinating and astonishing implications for the history of mankind.
Who Discovered America?
Author: Gavin Menzies
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062236776
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Greatly expanding on his blockbuster 1421, distinguished historian Gavin Menzies uncovers the complete untold history of how mankind came to the Americas—offering new revelations and a radical rethinking of the accepted historical record in Who Discovered America? The iconoclastic historian’s magnum opus, Who Discovered America? calls into question our understanding of how the American continents were settled, shedding new light on the well-known “discoveries” of European explorers, including Christopher Columbus. In Who Discovered America? he combines meticulous research and an adventurer’s spirit to reveal astounding new evidence of an ancient Asian seagoing tradition—most notably the Chinese—that dates as far back as 130,000 years ago. Menzies offers a revolutionary new alternative to the “Beringia” theory of how humans crossed a land bridge connecting Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, and provides a wealth of staggering claims, that hold fascinating and astonishing implications for the history of mankind.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062236776
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Greatly expanding on his blockbuster 1421, distinguished historian Gavin Menzies uncovers the complete untold history of how mankind came to the Americas—offering new revelations and a radical rethinking of the accepted historical record in Who Discovered America? The iconoclastic historian’s magnum opus, Who Discovered America? calls into question our understanding of how the American continents were settled, shedding new light on the well-known “discoveries” of European explorers, including Christopher Columbus. In Who Discovered America? he combines meticulous research and an adventurer’s spirit to reveal astounding new evidence of an ancient Asian seagoing tradition—most notably the Chinese—that dates as far back as 130,000 years ago. Menzies offers a revolutionary new alternative to the “Beringia” theory of how humans crossed a land bridge connecting Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, and provides a wealth of staggering claims, that hold fascinating and astonishing implications for the history of mankind.
Origin
Author: Jennifer Raff
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 153874970X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story—and fascinating mystery—of how humans migrated to the Americas. ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution. 20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed. A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 153874970X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story—and fascinating mystery—of how humans migrated to the Americas. ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution. 20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed. A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"
The Settlement of the American Continents
Author: C. Michael Barton
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816523238
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
When many scholars are asked about early human settlement in the Americas, they might point to a handful of archaeological sites as evidence. Yet the process was not a simple one, and today there is no consistent argument favoring a particular scenario for the peopling of the New World. This book approaches the human settlement of the Americas from a biogeographical perspective in order to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of this unique event. It considers many of the questions that continue to surround the peopling of the Western Hemisphere, focusing not on sites, dates, and artifacts but rather on theories and models that attempt to explain how the colonization occurred. Unlike other studies, this book draws on a wide range of disciplinesÑarchaeology, human genetics and osteology, linguistics, ethnology, and ecologyÑto present the big picture of this migration. Its wide-ranging content considers who the Pleistocene settlers were and where they came from, their likely routes of migration, and the ecological role of these pioneers and the consequences of colonization. Comprehensive in both geographic and topical coverage, the contributions include an explanation of how the first inhabitants could have spread across North America within several centuries, the most comprehensive review of new mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data relating to the colonization, and a critique of recent linguistic theories. Although the authors lean toward a conservative rather than an extreme chronology, this volume goes beyond the simplistic emphasis on dating that has dominated the debate so far to a concern with late Pleistocene forager adaptations and how foragers may have coped with a wide range of environmental and ecological factors. It offers researchers in this exciting field the most complete summary of current knowledge and provides non-specialists and general readers with new answers to the questions surrounding the origins of the first Americans.
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816523238
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
When many scholars are asked about early human settlement in the Americas, they might point to a handful of archaeological sites as evidence. Yet the process was not a simple one, and today there is no consistent argument favoring a particular scenario for the peopling of the New World. This book approaches the human settlement of the Americas from a biogeographical perspective in order to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of this unique event. It considers many of the questions that continue to surround the peopling of the Western Hemisphere, focusing not on sites, dates, and artifacts but rather on theories and models that attempt to explain how the colonization occurred. Unlike other studies, this book draws on a wide range of disciplinesÑarchaeology, human genetics and osteology, linguistics, ethnology, and ecologyÑto present the big picture of this migration. Its wide-ranging content considers who the Pleistocene settlers were and where they came from, their likely routes of migration, and the ecological role of these pioneers and the consequences of colonization. Comprehensive in both geographic and topical coverage, the contributions include an explanation of how the first inhabitants could have spread across North America within several centuries, the most comprehensive review of new mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data relating to the colonization, and a critique of recent linguistic theories. Although the authors lean toward a conservative rather than an extreme chronology, this volume goes beyond the simplistic emphasis on dating that has dominated the debate so far to a concern with late Pleistocene forager adaptations and how foragers may have coped with a wide range of environmental and ecological factors. It offers researchers in this exciting field the most complete summary of current knowledge and provides non-specialists and general readers with new answers to the questions surrounding the origins of the first Americans.
Peopling of the Americas
Author: Barbara Bennett Peterson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611227116
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
This book provides an answer to the question 'Who are the Native Americans?' Their origins are significant in world history because they suggest early globalization. 'Peopling of the Americas, Currents, Canoes, and DNA' explains that cultural diffusion from the Old World to the New World is a reality and a concept no longer to be marginalized. Peoples of many ethnic backgrounds entered the Americas from many parts of the globe very early in our history. Seen from this perspective, America is not really a new country, but has a long and rich pre-history revealed to us through archaeology and skull morphology research and most recently by DNA and genetic studies. Science, especially genetics, has meshed with cultural history to create this book explaining multiple origins of Native Americans.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611227116
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
This book provides an answer to the question 'Who are the Native Americans?' Their origins are significant in world history because they suggest early globalization. 'Peopling of the Americas, Currents, Canoes, and DNA' explains that cultural diffusion from the Old World to the New World is a reality and a concept no longer to be marginalized. Peoples of many ethnic backgrounds entered the Americas from many parts of the globe very early in our history. Seen from this perspective, America is not really a new country, but has a long and rich pre-history revealed to us through archaeology and skull morphology research and most recently by DNA and genetic studies. Science, especially genetics, has meshed with cultural history to create this book explaining multiple origins of Native Americans.
Dolní Vestonice–Pavlov
Author: Jirí A. Svoboda
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623498120
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 702
Book Description
Perhaps the oldest modern human settlement in Europe, the archaeological site at Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov, located in the rolling, forested plains just north of the Danube River, has yielded a treasure trove of Ice Age artifacts since its first excavation in 1924. The earliest people who lived here some 30,000 years ago produced tools crafted from stone and bone and carved elaborate animal and human figurines fashioned of mammoth ivory and sculptures of fired clay, including the famous “Venus of Dolní Věstonice,” one of the oldest known ceramic artifacts in the world. Interestingly, novelist Jean M. Auel took much of the inspiration for her popular novel, Clan of the Cave Bear, from the discoveries at Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov. Richly illustrated throughout, including beautiful color renderings of scenes from Paleolithic life suggested by Svoboda’s research, this first English translation of Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov: Explaining Paleolithic Settlements in Central Europe is sure to provide not only vital information for scholars, researchers, and students but also insightful and thought-provoking background for interested general readers.
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623498120
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 702
Book Description
Perhaps the oldest modern human settlement in Europe, the archaeological site at Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov, located in the rolling, forested plains just north of the Danube River, has yielded a treasure trove of Ice Age artifacts since its first excavation in 1924. The earliest people who lived here some 30,000 years ago produced tools crafted from stone and bone and carved elaborate animal and human figurines fashioned of mammoth ivory and sculptures of fired clay, including the famous “Venus of Dolní Věstonice,” one of the oldest known ceramic artifacts in the world. Interestingly, novelist Jean M. Auel took much of the inspiration for her popular novel, Clan of the Cave Bear, from the discoveries at Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov. Richly illustrated throughout, including beautiful color renderings of scenes from Paleolithic life suggested by Svoboda’s research, this first English translation of Dolní Věstonice–Pavlov: Explaining Paleolithic Settlements in Central Europe is sure to provide not only vital information for scholars, researchers, and students but also insightful and thought-provoking background for interested general readers.
Bones
Author: Elaine Dewar
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307375552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 642
Book Description
Scientists not so long ago unanimously believed that people first walked to the New World from northeast Asia across the Bering land bridge at the end of the Ice Age 11,000 years ago. But in the last ten years, new tools applied to old bones have yielded evidence that tells an entirely different story. In Bones, Elaine Dewar records the ferocious struggle in the scientific world to reshape our views of prehistory. She traveled from the Mackenzie River valley in northern Canada to the arid plains of the Brazilian state of Piaui, from the skull-and-bones-lines offices of the Smithsonian Institution to the basement lab of an archaeologist in Washington State who wondered if the FBI was going to come for him. She met scientists at war with each other and sought to see for herself the oldest human remains on these continents. Along the way, she found that the old answer to the question of who were the First Americans was steeped in the bitter tea of racism. Bones explores the ambiguous terrain left behind when a scientific paradigm is swept away. It tells the stories of the archaeologists, Native American activists, DNA experts and physical anthropologists scrambling for control of ancient bones of Kennewick Man, Spirit Cave, and the oldest one of all, a woman named Luzia. At stake are professional reputations, lucrative grants, fame, vindication, even the reburial of wandering spirits. The weapons? Lawsuits, threats, violence. The battlefield stretches from Chile to Alaska. Dewar tells the stories that never find their way into scientific papers — stories of mysterious deaths, of the bones of evil shamen and the shadows falling on the lives of scientists who pulled them from the ground. And she asks the new questions arising out of the science of bones and the stories of first peoples: "What if Native Americans are right in their belief that they have always been in the Americas and did not migrate to the New World at the end of the Ice Age? What if the New World's human story is as long and complicated as that of the Old? What if the New World and the Old World have always been one?"
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307375552
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 642
Book Description
Scientists not so long ago unanimously believed that people first walked to the New World from northeast Asia across the Bering land bridge at the end of the Ice Age 11,000 years ago. But in the last ten years, new tools applied to old bones have yielded evidence that tells an entirely different story. In Bones, Elaine Dewar records the ferocious struggle in the scientific world to reshape our views of prehistory. She traveled from the Mackenzie River valley in northern Canada to the arid plains of the Brazilian state of Piaui, from the skull-and-bones-lines offices of the Smithsonian Institution to the basement lab of an archaeologist in Washington State who wondered if the FBI was going to come for him. She met scientists at war with each other and sought to see for herself the oldest human remains on these continents. Along the way, she found that the old answer to the question of who were the First Americans was steeped in the bitter tea of racism. Bones explores the ambiguous terrain left behind when a scientific paradigm is swept away. It tells the stories of the archaeologists, Native American activists, DNA experts and physical anthropologists scrambling for control of ancient bones of Kennewick Man, Spirit Cave, and the oldest one of all, a woman named Luzia. At stake are professional reputations, lucrative grants, fame, vindication, even the reburial of wandering spirits. The weapons? Lawsuits, threats, violence. The battlefield stretches from Chile to Alaska. Dewar tells the stories that never find their way into scientific papers — stories of mysterious deaths, of the bones of evil shamen and the shadows falling on the lives of scientists who pulled them from the ground. And she asks the new questions arising out of the science of bones and the stories of first peoples: "What if Native Americans are right in their belief that they have always been in the Americas and did not migrate to the New World at the end of the Ice Age? What if the New World's human story is as long and complicated as that of the Old? What if the New World and the Old World have always been one?"
Across Atlantic Ice
Author: Dennis J. Stanford
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520949676
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. Distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture established the presence of these early New World people. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditional—and often subjective—approaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520949676
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. Distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture established the presence of these early New World people. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditional—and often subjective—approaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.
First Peoples in a New World
Author: David J. Meltzer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520943155
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology. This dazzling, cutting-edge synthesis, written for a wide audience by an archaeologist who has long been at the center of these debates, tells the scientific story of the first Americans: where they came from, when they arrived, and how they met the challenges of moving across the vast, unknown landscapes of Ice Age North America. David J. Meltzer pulls together the latest ideas from archaeology, geology, linguistics, skeletal biology, genetics, and other fields to trace the breakthroughs that have revolutionized our understanding in recent years. Among many other topics, he explores disputes over the hemisphere's oldest and most controversial sites and considers how the first Americans coped with changing global climates. He also confronts some radical claims: that the Americas were colonized from Europe or that a crashing comet obliterated the Pleistocene megafauna. Full of entertaining descriptions of on-site encounters, personalities, and controversies, this is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of how science is illuminating our past.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520943155
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology. This dazzling, cutting-edge synthesis, written for a wide audience by an archaeologist who has long been at the center of these debates, tells the scientific story of the first Americans: where they came from, when they arrived, and how they met the challenges of moving across the vast, unknown landscapes of Ice Age North America. David J. Meltzer pulls together the latest ideas from archaeology, geology, linguistics, skeletal biology, genetics, and other fields to trace the breakthroughs that have revolutionized our understanding in recent years. Among many other topics, he explores disputes over the hemisphere's oldest and most controversial sites and considers how the first Americans coped with changing global climates. He also confronts some radical claims: that the Americas were colonized from Europe or that a crashing comet obliterated the Pleistocene megafauna. Full of entertaining descriptions of on-site encounters, personalities, and controversies, this is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of how science is illuminating our past.
Late Pleistocene Archaeology and Ecology in the Far Northeast
Author: Claude Chapdelaine
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603447903
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
The Far Northeast, a peninsula incorporating the six New England states, New York east of the Hudson, Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Maritime Provinces, provided the setting for a distinct chapter in the peopling of North America. Late Pleistocene Archaeology and Ecology in the Far Northeast focuses on the Clovis pioneers and their eastward migration into this region, inhospitable before 13,500 years ago, especially in its northern latitudes. Bringing together the last decade or so of research on the Paleoindian presence in the area, Claude Chapdelaine and the contributors to this volume discuss, among other topics, the style variations in the fluted points left behind by these migrating peoples, a broader disparity than previously thought. This book offers not only an opportunity to review new data and interpretations in most areas of the Far Northeast, including a first glimpse at the Cliche-Rancourt Site, the only known fluted point site in Quebec, but also permits these new findings to shape revised interpretations of old sites. The accumulation of research findings in the Far Northeast has been steady, and this timely book presents some of the most interesting results, offering fresh perspectives on the prehistory of this important region.
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603447903
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
The Far Northeast, a peninsula incorporating the six New England states, New York east of the Hudson, Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Maritime Provinces, provided the setting for a distinct chapter in the peopling of North America. Late Pleistocene Archaeology and Ecology in the Far Northeast focuses on the Clovis pioneers and their eastward migration into this region, inhospitable before 13,500 years ago, especially in its northern latitudes. Bringing together the last decade or so of research on the Paleoindian presence in the area, Claude Chapdelaine and the contributors to this volume discuss, among other topics, the style variations in the fluted points left behind by these migrating peoples, a broader disparity than previously thought. This book offers not only an opportunity to review new data and interpretations in most areas of the Far Northeast, including a first glimpse at the Cliche-Rancourt Site, the only known fluted point site in Quebec, but also permits these new findings to shape revised interpretations of old sites. The accumulation of research findings in the Far Northeast has been steady, and this timely book presents some of the most interesting results, offering fresh perspectives on the prehistory of this important region.
The Search for the First Americans
Author: Robert V. Davis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806192291
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Who were the First Americans? Where did they come from? When did they get here? Are they the ancestors of modern Native Americans? These questions might seem straightforward, but scientists in competing fields have failed to convince one another with their theories and evidence, much less Native American peoples. The practice of science in its search for the First Americans is a flawed endeavor, Robert V. Davis tells us. His book is an effort to explain why. Most American history textbooks today teach that the First Americans migrated to North America on foot from East Asia over a land bridge during the last ice age, 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. In fact, that theory hardly represents the scientific consensus, and it has never won many Native adherents. In many ways, attempts to identify the first Americans embody the conflicts in American society between accepting the practical usefulness of science and honoring cultural values. Davis explores how the contested definition of "First Americans" reflects the unsettled status of Native traditional knowledge, scientific theories, research methodologies, and public policy as they vie with one another for legitimacy in modern America. In this light he considers the traditional beliefs of Native Americans about their origins; the struggle for primacy--or even recognition as science--between the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology; and the mediating, interacting, and sometimes opposing influences of external authorities such as government agencies, universities, museums, and the press. Fossil remains from Mesa Verde, Clovis, and other sites testify to the presence of First Americans. What remains unsettled, as The Search for the First Americans makes clear, is not only who these people were, where they came from, and when, but also the very nature and practice of the science searching for answers.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806192291
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Who were the First Americans? Where did they come from? When did they get here? Are they the ancestors of modern Native Americans? These questions might seem straightforward, but scientists in competing fields have failed to convince one another with their theories and evidence, much less Native American peoples. The practice of science in its search for the First Americans is a flawed endeavor, Robert V. Davis tells us. His book is an effort to explain why. Most American history textbooks today teach that the First Americans migrated to North America on foot from East Asia over a land bridge during the last ice age, 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. In fact, that theory hardly represents the scientific consensus, and it has never won many Native adherents. In many ways, attempts to identify the first Americans embody the conflicts in American society between accepting the practical usefulness of science and honoring cultural values. Davis explores how the contested definition of "First Americans" reflects the unsettled status of Native traditional knowledge, scientific theories, research methodologies, and public policy as they vie with one another for legitimacy in modern America. In this light he considers the traditional beliefs of Native Americans about their origins; the struggle for primacy--or even recognition as science--between the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology; and the mediating, interacting, and sometimes opposing influences of external authorities such as government agencies, universities, museums, and the press. Fossil remains from Mesa Verde, Clovis, and other sites testify to the presence of First Americans. What remains unsettled, as The Search for the First Americans makes clear, is not only who these people were, where they came from, and when, but also the very nature and practice of the science searching for answers.