The First American: The Suppressed Story of the People Who Discovered the New World

by Christopher Hardaker, Charles Naeser (Foreword)

Forty years ago, an amateur historian discovered an engraved mastodon bone near Mexico City, showing a virtual bestiary from the Ice Age. Harvard University took notice and excavated nearby sites around the Valsequillo Reservoir. They found perfectly buried kill sites with the oldest spearheads in the world. Some archaeologists postulated their age at 40,000 years, three times older than the official 12,000-year-old date for the first Americans. Then the shocker--United States Geology Survey (USGS) geologists came up with the date of 250,000 years old! Even though these dates were published in peer-reviewed geological journals, archaeologists wrote off the geologists, saying they were mistaken and that their dates were too ridiculously old. Archaeologists never returned to the site and curiosity died out. Soon after, this once world-class archaeology region became off-limits for official research, a "professional forbidden zone." The Valsequillo discoveries were legendary, but regarded as "fringe" by professional archaeologists. Why this radical turn-about? What was found that was so unspeakable, so impossible? What happened to these artifacts--America's earliest art and spearheads, and why don't archaeologists seem to care? In the new book, The First American, archaeologist Christopher Hardaker tries to unearth the mystery. The book details the events of the discovery and its subsequent dismissal, as well as the attempt in 2001 by a wealthy outsider to find the truth about the Valsequillo discoveries. Included in The First American are photos of the original artifacts, and excerpts from reports, letters, and memos from the site participants themselves. Archaeologists will once again be forced to ask the same question their mentors asked: Are we too in love with our own theories to ignore the evidence of science yet again? And readers will hear the real story of the great Valsequillo discoveries, the greatest story of early American man never told.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

319 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2007

Reviews

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: It does say the book is about the supressed story, so I should have been forewarned that it was a book about the supression, not later discoveries - so this review is based on what I expected, not on what I SHOULD have expected.

I didn't finish it. It talks about how the site was abandoned by archeologists as soon as the date of human activity (inscription on a bone) was said to be many thousands of years before archeologists believed was possible. They threw under the bus the man who had discovered the piece. Then, decades later, the site was apparently reopened by people not terrified nor threatened by evidence that didn't match their paradigms.

So, after that, I was expecting to read what they had discovered when they were finally allowed (by Mexico, who thought the original artifacts had been put at the site by workers) to reopen the site (which was essentially covered by water by the time the author wanted to reopen the site).

But, no. The book does jump to the "present" a few times, but went into agonizing detail about what had happened in years past (AFTER they had already said what had happened).

I kept expecting the author to jump to the present and stay there, but he didn't. I looked ahead many pages. Nope.

Maybe he did that in the last few chapters, but the format makes the book not easily scanned, so I gave up.

Yes, I know that people who make brilliant discoveries in science are often ostracized, shunned, black-balled, pushed into abject poverty, and even driven insane - with their value only being discovered after their death.

But I was not interested in reliving the man's suffering, betrayal, etc. I wanted to read about his exoneration.

I gave it 4 stars instead of three because there is a lot of information in there for people interested in archeology (the author is an archeologist), and who really want to know all of the details about the sad story and betrayal.

Me, I'll stick to Graham Hancock. He isn't an archeologist, but he IS an excellent researcher and journalist, who tells the story in a way that flows, and doesn't make my heart hurt when he talks about what archeologists reject because it doesn't fit their paradigms.

[Brady Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just not well written. It's very circular and gets lost. Could be a very interesting topic.