First peoples in a new world : colonizing ice age America / David J. Meltzer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meltzer, David J.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Paleo-Indians--North America.

Paleo-Indians.

Glacial epoch--North America.

Glacial epoch.

North America--Antiquities.

North America.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (481 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Colonizing ice age America

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. OVERTURE

2. THE LANDSCAPE OF COLONIZATION

3. FROM PALEOLITHS TO PALEOINDIANS

4. THE PRE-CLOVIS CONTROVERSY AND ITS RESOLUTION

5. NON-ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANSWERS TO ARCHAEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS

6. American Origins: The Search for Consensus

7. What Do You Do When No One's Been There Before?

8. CLOVIS ADAPTATIONS AND PLEISTOCENE EXTINCTIONS

9. Settling In: Late Paleoindians and the Waning Ice Age

10. WHEN PAST AND PRESENT COLLIDE

FURTHER READING

NOTES

REFERENCES

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [345]-420) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786612360879

9781282360877

1282360876

9780520943155

0520943155

OCLC:

609850106