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This revolutionary archaeological synthesis argues an alternative model of the earliest human population of North America. E. James Dixon dispels the stereotype of big-game hunters following mammoths across the Bering Land Bridge and paints a vivid picture of marine mammal hunters, fishers, and ...

This revolutionary archaeological synthesis argues an alternative model of the earliest human population of North America. E. James Dixon dispels the stereotype of big-game hunters following mammoths across the Bering Land Bridge and paints a vivid picture of marine mammal hunters, fishers, and general foragers colonising the New World. Applying contemporary scientific methods and drawing on new archaeological discoveries, he advances evidence indicating that humans first reached the Americas using water craft along the deglaciated Northwest Coast about 13,500 years ago, some 2,000 years before the first Clovis hunters. Dixons rigorous evaluation of the oldest North American archaeological sites and human remains offers well-reasoned hypotheses about the physical characteristics, lives, and relationships of the First Americans. His crisply written analysis of scientific exploration is essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers.

This record of precolumbian Florida brings to life the 12,000-year story of the native American Indians who lived in the state. Using information gathered by archaeological investigations, many carried out since 1980, Jerald Milanich describes the indigenous cultures and explains why they developed ...

This record of precolumbian Florida brings to life the 12,000-year story of the native American Indians who lived in the state. Using information gathered by archaeological investigations, many carried out since 1980, Jerald Milanich describes the indigenous cultures and explains why they developed as they did. In a richly illustrated book that will appeal to professional and avocational archaeologists, scholars, tourists, and local history buffs, Milanich introduces the material heritage of the first Floridians through the interpretation of artifacts and archaeological sites. Weaving together discoveries from such sites as the Lake Jackson mounds in the panhandle, Crystal River on the Gulf coast, and Granada on the Miami River, he relates the long histories of the native groups whose descendants were decimated during the European conquest of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Milanich begins with an overview of the history of archaeology in Florida. He then describes the earliest aboriginal cultures:,the Paleoindians and the people of the Archaic period. The later, regional cultures (Weeden Island, Fort Walton, Glades, Caloosahatchee, and many others) are correlated with geographical and environmental regions and then compared to provide insights about the nature of chiefdom societies, the effects of wetlands on precolumbian settlement systems, and the environmental history of the state. Maps and illustrations document this history of archaeological research in Florida and of the sites and artifacts (including spectacular Weeden Island pottery vessels and Belle Glade wooden carvings) left behind by the precolumbian people.

Despite field conditions that often include bug bites, bad food, and nonexistent plumbing, legions of amateur archaeologists regularly take to the field - sometimes a muddy one - to dig up ceramic pots, animal bones, and stone spearheads. This book explains how and why the professionals do it. In ...

Despite field conditions that often include bug bites, bad food, and nonexistent plumbing, legions of amateur archaeologists regularly take to the field - sometimes a muddy one - to dig up ceramic pots, animal bones, and stone spearheads. This book explains how and why the professionals do it. In nontechnical language directed at the general public, conservation groups, and land developers, Barbara Purdy summarizes the prehistory of Florida and describes how responsible archaeologists excavate and analyze remains. She answers the questions "How do archaeologists know where to dig?" and "Why do they excavate a particular site?" and discusses the months of planning, surveying, mapping, testing, fund raising, and permit acquisition that precede an excavation. She also includes information on the rules and regulations governing digs, on artifact analysis, dating, and preservation, and on the ways in which excavation affects the balance of nature.