First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America

I enjoy reading American history books in my free time, and I was looking for a book that explained how humans first came to America. This book does an excellent job explaining just that. It comes across as an even-handed account of what we currently think happened re peopling North America. The book ends its history around 9,500 years before present, so you'll need a different book to get you from that date to, say, 1492.A few negatives. The book could have used more maps, especially maps with current state lines and cities drawn in, so that you can easily see how the discussion relates to modern America. The book could have used more summary sentences - for instance, after reading all the technical parts on DNA evidence, I would have liked a summary of what the heck we just learned. Some things aren't explained well - for instance, "fluted" points are discussed throughout the book, but I still don't understand what "fluting" actually means. More diagrams and layman discussion would have been helpful. The book could have used a better editor - the word "that" is missing from hundreds of sentences. These small grammatical issues made the reading less enjoyable.The book can be very technical. Chapter 2, especially, was a hard slog (though so important to understanding everything that I'm sure I will reread that chapter again at some point). I wish the book had given a few more nods to non-expert readers like myself. But overall, this book is excellent and exactly what I was looking for. Meltzer is an even-handed expert, and this book is probably the best book you'll find explaining our current understanding of how humans got to North America, and how they spread in the first couple thousand years. I would definitely recommend this to American history buffs who want to go all the way back to the beginning of people in North America. My perspective on Native Americans is changed and very much enriched as a result of reading this book.

A few years ago four Paleo-Indian sites were discovered in the town next to mine in northern New Hampshire. Though I studied archeology years ago at university and have followed archeology news for many years, the discovery of Clovis type points way up here intrigued me and I closely followed the digs and datings. I'd read lots of articles about Paleo-Indianss and followed the controversies about Meadowcroft and Monte Verde and other pre-Clovis sites, but I wanted to know more about who these people were and how they lived so that I could have a better image in my mind about what they were doing here. As far as I can tell, this book provides the best overview of the subject of any book out there.While Meltzer acknowledges that there are pre-Clovis sites, based on his wide-ranging cross-disciplinary knowledge, he is skeptical of some of the earliest claims but supportive of pushing back dates and peoples and routes. Recent linguistic, genetic, and ecological studies reported just in the last few months appear to strongly confirm that the ancestors of the Paleo-Indians made it to Beringia 10-12,000 years prior to the earliest more southerly sites and remained there for much of the last Ice Age before some headed south and others headed back to Asia.If you want to discover more about the very earliest claimed sites, this may not be the best book for you. But if you are interested in learning more generally about Paleo-Indians and the archeology surrounding their sites, this is a great place to start. A good read too(except the section on haplogroups and haplotypes!), as the author is extremely knowledgeable, a good writer, and with a keen sense of humor. Highly recommend.

This was a very exhaustive analysis of the first Americans who migrated to the Western Hemisphere approximately 11,000 years BCE. The author examines physical evidence including Clovis spear heads, dna analysis, linguistic studies along with paleoclimate records and other items. In part, his analysis is highly technical but he lightens his prose with humor which makes his book a worthwhile read for those interested in examining who were the first Americans, where did they come from and how were they able to spread out so quickly. His discussion on the massive extinction of large mammalian species including sabretooth tigers, mammoths, horses was very interesting.

Este libro al igual que el de Deniss Standford y Bruce Bradley "Across Atlantic Ice", son lecturas obligadas para el arqueólogo o aquella persona que esté interesada en conocer las primeras sociedades cazadoras recolectoras del continente americano. Son lecturas básicas que todo arqueólogo debe tener en su acervo.

This is a fabulous book.This book presents an up to date view of all the current theories on who, how and when they came to the Americas first, objectively giving the pros and cons for each. Meltzer's opinions and conclusions do come through but do not over shadow the information. As such it is a great reference source at a university level that includes an historical perspective.The writing style features a wry humor and interesting narrative not often found in what could be used a text book, making it clear enough to be of interest to the general reader, requiring no prior knowledge in the field of archaeology.This is clear presentation of one of most controversial topics in archaeology.Even as one involved in the field of archaeology I still found it informative with a rare objective overview and will continue to be used as one of my key references.

Excellent book, fast delivery