From Library Journal
An anthropologist, field archaeologist, and founder and director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, Adovasio has been at the frontier of developments in archaeology since the Seventies, when the site he was excavating, Meadowcroft Rockshelter (near Pittsburgh), yielded materials thousands of years older than what was found at the Clovis sites in the Southwest.
Challenging the primacy of "Clovis Man" as the earliest settler of the Western Hemisphere was "not for the timid of heart," Adovasio explains in the introduction to this robustly written insider view of fieldwork, discovery, and warfare among specialists.
In examining various theories, beliefs, and scientific inquiries into who the first Americans were and how they got here, Adovasio touches on many aspects of this question: Native Americans; the views of Europeans, starting with Columbus; conjectures regarding the mound builders; the discovery of the Clovis culture in the 1930s, later dated from 9200 to 8500 B.C.E. by radiocarbon; and evidence from linguistics, genetics, and skeletal remains, including the recent events surrounding "Kennewick Man" (see James E. Chatters's Ancient Encounters).
Written with candor, humor, and passion, this well-documented study makes the latest findings accessible to general readers and students.
For public libraries and special collections in anthropology and archaeology. Joan W. Gartland, Detroit P.L.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.