San Antonio College Library

Presents recent archaeological findings about the first people to settle the Americas, how they got here, and from what continent they came.

When did the first settlers of the Americas arrive? What can we discover about their culture? Distinguished archaeologists and anthropologists take advantage of fresh finds from major excavations, and developments in dating techniques and paleoecology to discuss the origins and migrations of early people in ancient North America. Controversies in the field are faced, the application of new techniques examined, and new areas for inquiry identified....

It is now thought possible that man lived in the Western Hemisphere as much as 100,000 years ago. By reading the articles in this collection, the student can trace the acceptance during the past two decades of increasingly earlier dates for the arrival of man in American. A reading of these articles will also give the student a basic understanding of how modern archaeological techniques are used to reconstruct dectials of early Indian life. In his...

Plumbs the controversy over the origins of the first Americans, capturing the essence of the current debate among archaeologists, anthropologists, activists, and others over who was the first to arrive.

"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. The presence of these early New World people was established by distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies,...

This magnificently readable book, fully illustrated with maps, photographs and reconstruction drawings, gives the most authoritative and up-to-date account of the first Americans yet produced.

"Who were the first Americans? What is their relationship to living native peoples in the Americas? What do their remains tell us of the current concepts of racial variation, and short-term evolutionary change and adaptation. The First Americans explores these questions by using racial classifications and microevolutionary techniques to better understand who colonized the Americas and how. It will be required reading for all those interested in anthropology,...

Mann shows how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques have come to previously unheard-of conclusions about the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans: In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. Certain cities ; such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital ; were greater in population than any European city. Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running...