The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World

by Nina G. Jablonski (Editor)

As modern humans spread around the globe, the Americas represented the final continental frontier. These first colonists were modern in appearance and technology, but who were they and when did they arrive? Traditional answers to these questions have come under increasing scrutiny in the face of new findings from artifacts, skeletal remains, genes, and languages. The peopling of the Americas has become one of archaeology's most compelling and contentious subjects, as these new lines of evidence reveal a more complex solution. In this volume, distinguished scientists from the fields of archaeology, physical anthropology, paleoecology, genetics, and linguistics assess the latest evidence from Siberia to Chile and offer provocative ideas for how, when, and where humans entered the Americas.

Bruce Bradley, Linda Brown, Scott A. Elias, Tom D. Dillehay, John Douglas, Jon M. Erlandson, Nina G. Jablonski, David J. Meltzer, D. Andrew Merriwether, Johanna Nichols, Joseph F. Powell, Anna C. Roosevelt, Jack Rossen, Dennis Stanford, D. Gentry Steele, Christy G. Turner II

Distributed for the California Academy of Sciences

Genres: Anthropology, History, Nonfiction

343 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2002

About the author

Nina G. Jablonski is Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University. She edited The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World and The Origin and Diversification of Language (both UC Press), among other books. Her research on human skin has been featured in National Geographic, Scientific American, and other publications.

Reviews

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the books that helped me understand how the Americas were settled by boat people
http://werc.ucsc.edu/Estes/Estes%20Pu...

[Amanda Spacaj-Gorham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the compilation (and editing by Jablonski) of presentations given at the Wattis Symposium Series in Anthropology in (I believe) 2008. It reads like it was written for an academic audience and by people who really care about the subject matter. Highly informative with convincing arguments which challenge one's acceptance of traditional concepts with professional research.

My favorite section was:

Roosevelt, Douglas and Brown "The Migrations and Adaptations of the First Americans: Clovis and Pre-Clovis Viewed From South America"

But I also really enjoyed:

Scott Elias "Setting the Stage: Environmental Conditions in Beringia as People Entered the New World"