Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. Distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture established the presence of these early New World people. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditional—and often subjective—approaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.

This volume provides an up-to-date summary of important new discoveries from Northeast Asia and North America that are changing perceptions about the origin of the First Americans. Even though the peopling of the Americas has been the focus of scientific investigations for more than half a century, there is still no definitive evidence that will allow specialists to say when the First Americans initially arrived or who they were. However, this in no way diminishes the significance of the many new contributions being made in the field. The nineteen papers collected here provide regional archaeological syntheses and address such topics as ice marginal dynamics, the impact of plant nutrients in glacial margins, and periglacial ecology of large mammals. The concluding chapter discusses conceptual frameworks used to explain the peopling of the Americas.

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.

A study of Ice Age Americans, highlighting genetic, archaeological and geological evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of their origins, antiquity, and adaptations.

The fascinating story of how a harsh terrain that resembled modern Antarctica has been transformed gradually into the forests, grasslands, and wetlands we know today.

2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere is a reclaimed history of the deep past of Indigenous people in North and South America during the Paleolithic. Paulette F. C. Steeves mines evidence from archaeology sites and Paleolithic environments, landscapes, and mammalian and human migrations to make the case that people have been in the Western Hemisphere not only just prior to Clovis sites (10,200 years ago) but for more than 60,000 years, and likely more than 100,000 years. Steeves discusses the political history of American anthropology to focus on why pre-Clovis sites have been dismissed by the field for nearly a century. She explores supporting evidence from genetics and linguistic anthropology regarding First Peoples and time frames of early migrations. Additionally, she highlights the work and struggles faced by a small yet vibrant group of American and European archaeologists who have excavated and reported on numerous pre-Clovis archaeology sites. In this first book on Paleolithic archaeology of the Americas written from an Indigenous perspective, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere includes Indigenous oral traditions, archaeological evidence, and a critical and decolonizing discussion of the development of archaeology in the Americas.

This volume provides an up-to-date summary of important new discoveries from Northeast Asia and North America that are changing perceptions about the origin of the First Americans. Even thought the peopling of the Americas has been the focus of scientific investigations for more than half a century, there is still no definitive evidence that will allow specialists to say when the First Americans initially arrived or who they were. However, this in no way diminishes the significance of the many new contributions being made in the field. The nineteen papers collected here provide regional archaeological syntheses and address such topics as ice marginal dynamics, the impact of plant nutrients in glacial margins, and periglacial ecology of large mammals. The concluding chapter discusses conceptual frameworks used to explain the peopling of the Americas.