The first Americans : the Pleistocene colonization of the New World

Jablonski, Nina G. (Added Author). Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Foundation Endowment Symposium 1999 : California Academy of Sciences) (4th : (Added Author).

Summary: As modern humans spread around the globe, the Americas represented the final continental frontier. These first colonists were modern in appearance and technology, but who were they and when did they arrive? Traditional answers to these questions have come under increasing scrutiny in the face of new findings from artifacts, skeletal remains, genes, and languages. The peopling of the Americas has become one of archaeology's most compelling and contentious subjects, as these new lines of evidence reveal a more complex solution. In this volume, distinguished scientists from the fields of archaeology, physical anthropology, paleoecology, genetics, and linguistics assess the latest evidence from Siberia to Chile and offer provocative ideas for how, when, and where humans entered the Americas.

Record details

ISBN: 0940228491
ISBN: 9780940228498
ISBN: 0940228505
ISBN: 9780940228504
ISBN: 9790940228503
Physical Description: print
xiv, 331 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.
Publisher: San Francisco, CA : California Academy of Sciences : Distributed by University of California Press, ©2002.

Content descriptions

General Note:	"The Fourth Wattis Symposium, 'The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World, ' was held on October 2, 1999 at the California Academy of Sciences ..."--Preface.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Changing perspectives of the first Americans : insights gained and paradigms lost / Nina G. Jablonski -- Setting the stage : environmental conditions in Beringia as people entered the New World / Scott A. Elias -- What do you do when no one's been there before? : thoughts on the exploration and colonization of new lands / David J. Meltzer -- Anatomically modern humans, maritime voyaging, and the Pleistocene colonization of the Americas / Jon M. Erlandson -- Facing the past : a view of the North American human fossil record / D. Gentry Steele and Joseph F. Powell -- Teeth, needles, dogs and Siberia : bioarchaeological evidence for the colonization of the New World / Christy G. Turner II -- The migrations and adaptations of the first Americans : Clovis and pre-Clovis viewed from South America / A.C. Roosevelt, John Douglas and Linda Brown -- Plant food and its implications for the peopling of the New World : a view from South America / Tom D. Dillehay and Jack Rossen -- Ocean trails and prairie paths? : thoughts about Clovis origins / Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley -- The first American languages / Johanna Nichols -- A mitochondrial perspective on the peopling of the New World / D. Andrew Merriwether.