In Search Of Ice Age Americans

Download In Search Of Ice Age Americans full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online In Search Of Ice Age Americans ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

In Search of Ice Age Americans

Author : Kenneth B. Tankersley
Publisher : Salt Lake City, Utah : G. Smith
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (89 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis In Search of Ice Age Americans by : Kenneth B. Tankersley

Download or read book In Search of Ice Age Americans written by Kenneth B. Tankersley and published by Salt Lake City, Utah : G. Smith. This book was released on 2002 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: $24.95 hardcover � 1-58685-021-07˘ x 9 in, 256 pp, 50 Color Photographs, 32 Black & White Photographs and Line Drawings, Rights: W, Non-Fiction/ArcheologyWho were the first Americans? Where did they come from? When did they arrive? In this dramatic reconstruction of the daily lives of the earliest Americans, leading anthropologist Kenneth Tankersley tackles those questions, explaining how people survived the Ice Age and forever altered the course of human history. Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork around the world, Tankersley takes readers on an exciting journey into America's most ancient human past-from the deep recesses of underground caverns in the East to the mountains and deserts of the West-providing a behind-the-scenes look at the search, discovery, and examination of Ice Age sites and artifacts. Based on the author's unique mix of archaeology, anthropology, and history, In Search of Ice Age Americans provides the most current theories and up-to-date answers to the fundamental questions of our past. This is the first book to tell the real stories behind America's most important archaeological discoveries by those who made them-farmers, teenagers, and cowboys-and through the oral traditions of Native Americans, the diaries of early European explorers, and the journals of America's founding fathers. This book is a must-read for anyone, young or old, interested in America's history. Kenneth B. Tankersley is a member of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and a research associate of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. His research has been featured on National Geographic's Explorer, the Discovery Channel, All Things Considered, and Nova. He lives in Highland Heights, Kentucky.Douglas Preston has written extensively about America's past in books such as Dinosaurs in the Attic, Cities of Gold, and Talking to the Ground. He is best known for his archaeological suspense mysteries including The Relic, Riptide, and Reliquary. He has contributed to motion picture and television projects, as well as The New Yorker, National Geographic, and Harper's magazines. Preston is a research associate at the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe and a board member of the School of American Research. He divides his time between Sante Fe and Italy.

After the Ice Age

Author : E.C. Pielou
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226668096
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis After the Ice Age by : E.C. Pielou

Download or read book After the Ice Age written by E.C. Pielou and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating story of how a harsh terrain that resembled modern Antarctica has been transformed gradually into the forests, grasslands, and wetlands we know today.

First Peoples in a New World

Author : David J. Meltzer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108498221
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis First Peoples in a New World by : David J. Meltzer

Download or read book First Peoples in a New World written by David J. Meltzer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of Ice Age Americans, highlighting genetic, archaeological and geological evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of their origins, antiquity, and adaptations.

First Peoples in a New World

Author : David J. Meltzer
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520943155
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis First Peoples in a New World by : David J. Meltzer

Download or read book First Peoples in a New World written by David J. Meltzer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-05-27 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Atlas of a Lost World

Author : Craig Childs
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 034580631X
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (458 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Atlas of a Lost World by : Craig Childs

Download or read book Atlas of a Lost World written by Craig Childs and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first people in the New World were few, their encampments fleeting. On a side of the planet no human had ever seen, different groups arrived from different directions, and not all at the same time. The land they reached was fully inhabited by megafauna—mastodons, giant bears, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, enormous bison, and sloths that stood one story tall. These Ice Age explorers, hunters, and families were wildly outnumbered and many would themselves have been prey to the much larger animals. In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs blends science and personal narrative to upend our notions of where these people came from and who they were. How they got here, persevered, and ultimately thrived is a story that resonates from the Pleistocene to our modern era, and reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Through it, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light.

Across Atlantic Ice

Author : Dennis J. Stanford
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520949676
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Across Atlantic Ice by : Dennis J. Stanford

Download or read book Across Atlantic Ice written by Dennis J. Stanford and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

EYR THE HUNTER

Author : Margaret Zehmer Searcy
Publisher : Pelican Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 1455603988
Total Pages : 69 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (556 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis EYR THE HUNTER by : Margaret Zehmer Searcy

Download or read book EYR THE HUNTER written by Margaret Zehmer Searcy and published by Pelican Publishing Company. This book was released on 1995-10-31 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Travel back 12,000 years and learn of Eyr, a youngster who saved his tribe from a woolly mammoth as they traveled from Siberia to Alaska . . . well told in metered verse that flows smoothly throughout...Realistic sketches in burnished colored pencil show details of clothing, family life, and geography." --Children's Literature In this tale, a young Ice-Age boy plays a key role in the survival of his band more than twelve thousand years ago. Eyr s band is hungry and in need of new skins. The old seer predicts a coming snow, and without a good supply ofmeat, the band may starve or die of cold. Eyr walks over meadows and hills with the other hunters looking for tracks, but they return with little game. That night Eyr dreams of killing the great woolly mammoth with his sharp spear. He imagines how his band would dance and feast, with food to last them through the dark winter. The next morning the bands hunter-leader wakes him. Having reached the age that he can hunt alone, Eyr is sent to scout the large beaststhat roam the tundra, especially the woolly mammoths. Taking only his cape, his knife, his spear, and a smoldering ember, Eyr sets out to become a man and save his band.Told in rhyming couplets, just as many ancient storytellers told the epic tales of the past, Eyr the Hunter: A Story of Ice-Age America is based upon many facts. Margaret Zehmer Searcy is a cultural anthropologist who has taught classes about Native Americans and their customs for more than two decades in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. She has visited archaeological sites and is familiar with the kinds of animals that existed in the Ice-Age landscape. Joyce Haynes has won numerous local, state, and national awards for her illustrations. She has illustrated more than a dozen books and is the author of Drawing Wild Animals . She lives in Southwest Missouri.A story both involving and entertaining, Eyr the Hunter: A Story of Ice-Age America is made all the more moving by its wonderful rhythms and use of vivid detail. A childrens book that can be likened to the Clan of the Cave Bear series, this book can also be useful for explaining how the earliest Americans led their lives. It is a wonderful tie-in to any discussion about native cultures around the world as well.

Beyond the Sea of Ice

Author : William Sarabande
Publisher : Domain
ISBN 13 : 0553268899
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (532 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Beyond the Sea of Ice by : William Sarabande

Download or read book Beyond the Sea of Ice written by William Sarabande and published by Domain. This book was released on 1987-11-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stunningly visual, extraordinarily detailed, powerfully dramatic, here is the first volume of a remarkable new series . . . The First Americans. When humans first walked the world, when nature ruled the earth and sky, a proud tribe is threatened by a series of natural disasters. A bold young hunter named Torka, who lost his wife and child to a killer mammoth, leads the survivors over the glacial tundra on a desperate eastward odyssey to the save their clan. Through attacks of savage animals and encounters with strangers not unlike themselves, they must brave the hardships of a foreign landscape and learn to live in an exotic new world of mystery and danger. They must travel toward the land where the sun rises for a new day for their clan—and an awesome future for the American.

The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age

Author : D. Shane Miller
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817321284
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age by : D. Shane Miller

Download or read book The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age written by D. Shane Miller and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1996, the University of Alabama Press published a prodigious benchmark volume, The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast, edited by David G. Anderson and Kenneth E. Sassaman. It was the first to provide a state-by-state record of the Paleolithic and early Archaic eras (to approximately 8,000 years ago) in this region as well as models to interpret data excavated from those eras. It summarized what was known of the peoples who lived in the Southeast when ice sheets covered the northern part of the continent and mammals such as elephants, saber-toothed tigers, and ground sloths roamed the landscape. In the United States, the Southeast has some of most robust data on these eras. The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age is the updated, definitive synthesis of current archaeological research gleaned from an array of experts in the region. The volume is organized in three parts: state records, the regional perspective, and perspective and future directions. State-by-state chapter overviews of the eras are followed by chapters with regional coverage on lithics (point types), submerged archaeology, gatherers, megafauna, chipped-stone technology, and spatial demography. Chapters on ethical concerns regarding the use of data from avocational collections, insight from outside the Southeast, and considerations for future research round out the volume. The contributors address five questions: When did people first arrive? How did they get there? Who were they? How did they adapt to local resources and environmental change? Then what?"--

A Cold Welcome

Author : Sam White
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674981340
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis A Cold Welcome by : Sam White

Download or read book A Cold Welcome written by Sam White and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cundill History Prize Finalist Longman–History Today Prize Finalist “Meticulous environmental-historical detective work.” —Times Literary Supplement When Europeans first arrived in North America, they faced a cold new world. The average global temperature had dropped to lows unseen in millennia. The effects of this climactic upheaval were stark and unpredictable: blizzards and deep freezes, droughts and famines, winters in which everything froze, even the Rio Grande. A Cold Welcome tells the story of this crucial period, taking us from Europe’s earliest expeditions in unfamiliar landscapes to the perilous first winters in Quebec and Jamestown. As we confront our own uncertain future, it offers a powerful reminder of the unexpected risks of an unpredictable climate. “A remarkable journey through the complex impacts of the Little Ice Age on Colonial North America...This beautifully written, important book leaves us in no doubt that we ignore the chronicle of past climate change at our peril. I found it hard to put down.” —Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age “Deeply researched and exciting...His fresh account of the climatic forces shaping the colonization of North America differs significantly from long-standing interpretations of those early calamities.” —New York Review of Books

Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America

Author : Blaine W. Schubert
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253342683
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (426 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America by : Blaine W. Schubert

Download or read book Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America written by Blaine W. Schubert and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-10 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gathers the findings of a number of studies on North American cave paleontology. Although not intended to be all-inclusive, Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America contains contributions that range from overviews of the significance of cave fossils to reports about new localities and studies of specific vertebrate groups. These essays describe how cave remains record the evolutionary patterns of organisms and their biogeography, how they can help reconstruct past ecosystems and climatic fluctuations, how they provide an important record of the evolution of modern ecosystems, and even how some of these caves contain traces of human activity. The book's eclectic nature should appeal to students, professional and amateur paleontologists, biologists, geologists, speleologists, and cavers. The contributors are Ticul Alvarez, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Christopher J. Bell, Larry L. Coats, Jennifer Glennon, Wulf Gose, Frederick Grady, Russell Wm. Graham, Timothy H. Heaton, Carmen J. Jans-Langel, Ernest L. Lundelius, Jr., H. Gregory McDonald, Jim I. Mead, Oscar J. Polaco, Blaine W. Schubert, Holmes A. Semken, Jr., and Alisa J. Winkler.

Ice Age Mammals of North America

Author : Ian M. Lange
Publisher : Mountain Press
ISBN 13 : 9780878426805
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (268 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Ice Age Mammals of North America by : Ian M. Lange

Download or read book Ice Age Mammals of North America written by Ian M. Lange and published by Mountain Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lange untangles the complex evolutionary lineages of mammal families, including the gomphotheres, elephant-like creatures that coexisted with humans at the end of the Pleistocene. You�ll learn about the geologic events that led to the ice ages, along with possible causes for the mass extinctions of so many species.

In Search of Ancient North America

Author : Heather Pringle
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0471042374
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis In Search of Ancient North America by : Heather Pringle

Download or read book In Search of Ancient North America written by Heather Pringle and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1996-04-20 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost unimaginably immense, North America stretches from a fewdegrees short of the North Pole to a few degrees shy of theequator. Archaeologists are now racing to unravel the mysteriouspast of the forgotten peoples who once inhabited this sprawlingland. In Search of Ancient North America explores many of thesescientists' most fascinating findings as Heather Pringle chroniclesher journeys among the ancient sites of Canada and the UnitedStates. Her enthralling voyage of discovery uncovers the richnessof now-vanished cultures and illuminates the intriguing world ofarchaeology itself. Journeying from the mosquito-infested forests of the far north tothe bleak deserts of the American Southwest, Pringle accompaniesleading archaeologists and their crews into the field. At theBluefish Caves in the northern Yukon, Jacques Cinq-Mars chases downclues to an Ice Age mystery; at the "immense geometric riddle" thatis Hopeton Earthworks, Mark Lynott scours the countryside forvestiges of ancient village life; in the thorny wilderness of theLower Pecos, Solveig Turpin deciphers the enigmatic rock artpainted more than 3,000 years ago. What emerges from Pringle's accounts are surprising portraits oflong-lost cultures--the rapacious mariners of southern Californiawho nearly wiped out one of the world's most productive ecosystems;the wealthy nobles of British Columbia who wore salmon-skin shoesand counted their wealth in bottles of salmon oil; the powerfullords of the Mississippi River who won the adoration of theirfollowers with a mysterious medicinal tonic. Equally intriguing arethe controversial new theories that the author presents on a hostof subjects, from the origins of art and hallucinogenic drugs tothe rise of private property, the identities of the earliest NewWorld migrants, and the astonishing extent of trade in prehistoricNorth America. Complemented by superb color and black-and-white photographs, InSearch of Ancient North America blends incisive science journalismwith evocative travel writing to bring the latest archaeologicalfindings and interpretations to light. Delving into the previouslyunmined saga of this vast continent's lost and extinct cultures,this captivating book is a thrilling invitation to endlessdiscovery. "Drawing on some of the latest archaeological research, Pringle'sbook is vivid, witty, and responsible in a field too often filledby cranks and bores. All who are curious about life in NorthAmerica before the European invasion will find the book astimulating introduction." -- Ronald Wright author of StolenContinents "In Search of Ancient North America brings the distant past muchcloser and its inhabitants almost become neighbors to us onceagain. A first-rate examination of the mystery and fascination ofmodern archaeological research in North America." -- Farley Mowatauthor of The People of the Deer "Captures the essence of what archaeologists are learning aboutNorth American prehistory. The book is a pleasure to read and willinspire a new awareness of the importance of the history of NorthAmerica prior to European contact." -- Bruce Trigger author of TheChildren of Aataentsic

The Ice Age

Author : Kirsten Reed
Publisher : Text Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1921520744
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (215 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ice Age by : Kirsten Reed

Download or read book The Ice Age written by Kirsten Reed and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-29 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We stopped at a roadside diner. People asked if I was his daughter. They ask all the time. Hoping, accusing. We never say yes, and we never say no. We ate our food at a booth in a hungry, self-conscious rush, straight out of the wrappers. They didn't have plates. We left a tip, just change. The waitress scooped it up straight away as we slid out of the booth. She was middle-aged and bulgy, in a proper matronly waitress's dress. She shot us what I suppose was intended to be a look of gratitude. She really only managed a weak glare. I guess that's the countryside for you. People are a little edgy.' Across the heartless expanse of middle America, a teenaged girl is riding shotgun with an older man. She watches him; she sees her fascination tallied in the black looks of waitresses, the knowing smiles of motel clerks. The man can see no proper way of conducting this relationship but is bound to her by concern and tenderness; perhaps desire. The girl craves only closeness. She knows the Ice Age is coming, and we will need to huddle together for warmth. Kirsten Reed's debut novel, with its echoes of Nabokov, Kerouac and Bret Easton Ellis, captures the translucent moment at the end of childhood in all its awkwardness, sincerity and heedless vulnerability. In prose both lyrical and earthy, comic and darkly harrowing, this extraordinary young writer creates a journey of irresistible momentum and tragic possibility. It will leave you with the sense that you have met someone significant; and you will not soon forget her.

The Little Ice Age

Author : Brian Fagan
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 1541618572
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (416 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Little Ice Age by : Brian Fagan

Download or read book The Little Ice Age written by Brian Fagan and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only in the last decade have climatologists developed an accurate picture of yearly climate conditions in historical times. This development confirmed a long-standing suspicion: that the world endured a 500-year cold snap -- The Little Ice Age -- that lasted roughly from A.D. 1300 until 1850. The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today's global warming. With its basis in cutting-edge science, The Little Ice Age offers a new perspective on familiar events. Renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold affected Norse exploration; how changing sea temperatures caused English and Basque fishermen to follow vast shoals of cod all the way to the New World; how a generations-long subsistence crisis in France contributed to social disintegration and ultimately revolution; and how English efforts to improve farm productivity in the face of a deteriorating climate helped pave the way for the Industrial Revolution and hence for global warming. This is a fascinating, original book for anyone interested in history, climate, or the new subject of how they interact.

Ice Age People of North America

Author : Oregon State University. Center for the Study of the First Americans
Publisher : Corvallis : Oregon State University Press for the Center for the Study of the First Americans
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (89 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Ice Age People of North America by : Oregon State University. Center for the Study of the First Americans

Download or read book Ice Age People of North America written by Oregon State University. Center for the Study of the First Americans and published by Corvallis : Oregon State University Press for the Center for the Study of the First Americans. This book was released on 1999 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides an up-to-date summary of important new discoveries from Northeast Asia and North America that are changing perceptions about the origin of the First Americans. Even though the peopling of the Americas has been the focus of scientific investigations for more than half a century, there is still no definitive evidence that will allow specialists to say when the First Americans initially arrived or who they were. However, this in no way diminishes the significance of the many new contributions being made in the field. The nineteen papers collected here provide regional archaeological syntheses and address such topics as ice marginal dynamics, the impact of plant nutrients in glacial margins, and periglacial ecology of large mammals. The concluding chapter discusses conceptual frameworks used to explain the peopling of the Americas.

The Search for the First Americans

Author : Robert V. Davis
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780806192291
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (922 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Search for the First Americans by : Robert V. Davis

Download or read book The Search for the First Americans written by Robert V. Davis and published by . This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.