Synopses & Reviews
"Meltzer's compelling account of the data and the debates takes readers behind the scenes of the often contentious arguments that have redirected the scientific pursuit of the first Americans."and#151;Tom D. Dillehay, author of
The Settlement of the Americas"In remarkably comprehensive and lucid fashion, Meltzer synthesizes the complex and commonly conflicting evidence for the earliest human presence in the Americas and provides an honestly told lesson about the workings of scientific thought."and#151;David Hurst Thomas, author of Skull Wars
"A natural storyteller, David Meltzer gives us a vivid picture of both the colonizing bands of humans who moved into the Americas and the researchers who followed their footsteps from Alaska to Chile. This is an insider's account, told with a keen eye and sense of humor, as if Meltzer were there when discoveries were made and when disputes were airedand#151;as, indeed, he often was."and#151;Ann Gibbons, author of The First Human: The Race to Discover our Earliest Ancestors
"The settling of the Americas has been a first-rate scientific puzzle since Columbus stumbled across the peoples of the Caribbean. David Meltzer is its ideal chronicler: a major participant in the research that is unlocking the mystery and a fine writer with a wry humor. Thank goodness there aren't too many scientists like himand#151;science journalists like me would be out of business."and#151;Charles C. Mann, author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Review
and#8220;A masterful exploration and encapsulation of the last two centuries of American archaeology and the first five millennia of the earliest Americans.and#8221;
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and#8220;A must read for anyone interested in what is undeniable the greatest debate in American archaeology. . . . Essential.and#8221;
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"Informative and entertaining."--Antiquity
Review
and#8220;A good review of topics and controversies surrounding the peopling of North America.and#8221;
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and#8220;[Meltzer] has written the most in-depth synthesis of the history of the debate about the early peopling of North America yet published.and#8221;
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and#8220;The book is . . . sharply written and narratively compelling.and#8221;
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“Informative and entertaining.” American Scientist
Review
“A good review of topics and controversies surrounding the peopling of North America.” E. James Dixon - Antiquity
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“[Meltzer] has written the most in-depth synthesis of the history of the debate about the early peopling of North America yet published.” Susan C. Vehik - Great Plains Research
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“Often lively and occasionally bemused, Meltzer's study—part detective story and part archeological research—is stimulating and sometimes tantalizingly controversial.” Juliet E. Morrow - Journal Of Iowa Archeological Society
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and#8220;Informative and entertaining.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Often lively and occasionally bemused, Meltzer's studyand#8212;part detective story and part archeological researchand#8212;is stimulating and sometimes tantalizingly controversial.and#8221;
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
Maize is the worldand#8217;s most productive food and industrial crop, grown in more than 160 countries and on every continent except Antarctica. If by some catastrophe maize were to disappear from our food supply chain, vast numbers of people would starve and global economies would rapidly collapse. How did we come to be so dependent on this one plant?
Maize for the Gods brings together new research by archaeologists, archaeobotanists, plant geneticists, and a host of other specialists to explore the complex ways that this single plant and the peoples who domesticated it came to be inextricably entangled with one another over the past nine millennia. Tracing maize from its first appearance and domestication in ancient campsites and settlements in Mexico to its intercontinental journey through most of North and South America, this history also tells the story of the artistic creativity, technological prowess, and social, political, and economic resilience of Americaand#8217;s first peoples.
About the Author
Michael Blake is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia who studies the origins of maize agriculture in the Americas and the emergence of sociopolitical complexity in Mesoamerica and the Northwest Coast of Canada. He is the author of Colonization, Warfare, and Exchange at the Postclassic Maya Site of Canajaste, Chiapas, Mexico and the editor of Pacific Latin America in Prehistory.