Paleoamerican Origins: Beyond Clovis presents 23 up-to-date syntheses of important topics surrounding the debate over the initial prehistoric colonization of the Americas. These papers are written by some of the foremost authorities who are on the trail of the first Americans. The papers are written by some of the foremost authorities who are on the trail of the first Americans. The papers in this volume include a discussion of the archaeological evidence for Clovis and Pre-Clovis sites in North America (11 papers) and South America (2 papers). In addition, papers on the genetic evidence (2 papers) and skeletal evidence (4 papers) provide insights into the origins of the first Americans. Additional papers include ideas on the changing perceptions of Paleoamerican prehistory, public policy and science, and a comprehensive concluding synthesis.

This text presents an overview of the peopling of the Americas and how a new law threatens the future of Paleoamerican research. Papers by Paleoamerican specialists make a strong case that the Clovis-first model can no longer be considered valid.

As research continues on the earliest migration of modern humans into North and South America, the current state of knowledge about these first Americans is continually evolving. Especially with recent advances in human genomic studies, both of living populations and ancient skeletal remains, new light is being shed in the ongoing quest toward understanding the full complexity and timing of prehistoric migration patterns. Paleoamerican Odyssey collects thirty-one studies presented at the 2013 conference by the same name, hosted in Santa Fe, New Mexico, by the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. Providing an up-to-date view of the current state of knowledge in paleoamerican studies, the research gathered in this volume, presented by leaders in the field, focuses especially on late Pleistocene Northeast Asia, Beringia, and North and South America, as well as dispersal routes, molecular genetics, and Clovis and pre-Clovis archaeology.

This volume addresses key questions regarding the extent of the Younger Dryas climate event at the end of the Pleistocene and how hunter-gatherer populations worldwide adapted behaviorally and technologically in the face of major climatic change.

This remarkable book is the most ambitious work on mythology since that of the renowned Mircea Eliade, who all but single-handedly invented the modern study of myth and religion. Focusing on the oldest available texts, buttressed by data from archeology, comparative linguistics and human population genetics, Michael Witzel reconstructs a single original African source for our collective myths, dating back some 100,000 years. Identifying features shared by this "Out of Africa" mythology and its northern Eurasian offshoots, Witzel suggests that these common myths--recounted by the communities of the "African Eve"--are the earliest evidence of ancient spirituality. Moreover these common features, Witzel shows, survive today in all major religions. Witzel's book is an intellectual hand grenade that will doubtless generate considerable excitement--and consternation--in the scholarly community. Indeed, everyone interested in mythology will want to grapple with Witzel's extraordinary hypothesis about the spirituality of our common ancestors, and to understand what it tells us about our modern cultures and the way they are linked at the deepest level.