The settlement of the American continents : a multidisciplinary approach to human biogeography
"This book approaches the human settlement of the Americas from a biogeographical perspective in order to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of this unique event. It considers many of the questions that continue to surround the peopling of the western hemisphere, focusing not on sites, dates, and artifacts but rather on theories and models that attempt to explain how the colonization occurred." "Unlike other studies, this book draws on a wide range of disciplines - archaeological data, human genetic and osteological studies, linguistics, ethnology, and ecology - to present the big picture of this migration. Its wide-ranging content considers who the Pleistocene settlers were and where they came from; their likely routes of migration; and the ecological role of these poineers and the consequences of colonization. Comprehensive in both geographic and topical coverage, the contributions include an explanation of how the first inhabitants of North America could have spread across the continent within several centuries; the most comprehensive review of new mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data relating to the colonization; and an important critique of recent linguistic theories." "This volume goes beyond the simplistic emphasis on dating that has dominated the debate so far to a concern with late Pleistocene forager adaptations and how they might have coped with a wide range of environmental and ecological factors. It offers researchers in this exciting field the most complete summary of current knowledge and provides non-specialists and general readers with new answers to the challenging and intriguing questions surrounding the origins of the first Americans."--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©2004
University of Arizona Press, Tucson, ©2004
vi, 281 pages : illustrations, maps ; 29 cm
9780816523238, 0816523231
53830999
1. An interdisciplinary perspective on long-term human biogeography and the Pleistocene colonization of the Americas / Geoffrey A. Clark, C. Michael Barton, Georges A. Pearson, and David R. Yesner
[Part] I. The first American settlers. 2. An anthropological genetic view of the peopling of the New World / Theodore G. Schurr ; 3. Peopling of the New World : a comparative craniofacial view / C. Loring Brace, A. Russell Nelson, and Pan Qifeng ; 4. Evaluating historical linguistic evidence for ancient human communities in the Americas / Jane H. Hill ; 5. The concept of Clovis and the peopling of North America / Kenneth B. Tankersley ; 6. A review of bioarchaeological thought on the peopling of the New World / Kamille R. Schmitz
[Part] II. The trail to the Americas. 7. Rapid migrations by Arctic hunting peoples : Clovis and Thule / Stuart J. Fiedel ; 8. Pan-American Paleoindian dispersals and the origins of fishtail projectile points as seen through the lithic raw-material reduction strategies and tool-manufacturing techniques at the Guardiría Site, Turrialba Valley, Costa Rica / Georges A. Pearson ; 9. Deconstructing the North Atlantic connection / Geoffrey A. Clark ; 10. Invented traditions and the ultimate American origin myth : in the beginning ... there was an ice-free corridor / Carole A.S. Mandryk
[Part] III. The land and people transformed. 11. Modeling the initial colonization of the Americas : issues of scale, demography, and landscape learning / David J. Meltzer ; 12. The ecology of human colonization in pristine landscapes / C. Michael Barton, Steven Schmich, and Steven R. James ; 13. Beyond "big" : gender, age, and subsistence diversity in Paleoindian societies / Elizabeth S. Chilton ; 14. Early Paleoindians as estate settlers : archaeological, ethnographic, and evolutionary insights into the peopling of the New World / Douglas H. MacDonald ; 15. Late Pleistocene extinctions through second-order predation / Elin Whitney-Smith ; 16. Megafauna, Paleoindians, petroglyphs, and pictographs of the Colorado Plateau / Larry D. Agenbroad and India S. Hesse ; 17. Peopling of the Americas and continental colonization : a millennial perspective / David R. Yesner, C. Michael Barton, Geoffrey A. Clark, and Georges A. Pearson
Notes
Bibliography
About the editors
About the contributors
Index
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