The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory

Archaeology is radically rewriting American prehistory. Since 1932, when exquisite stone points were first discovered at Clovis in New Mexico, accepted theory has asserted that humans did not begin to populate the New World until the retreat of glaciers that were blocking entry from Asia about 12,000 years ago. Then, in 1997, a group of archaeologists confirmed that objects found preserved in a peat bog in the far south of Chile--stone tools, bones, even chunks of mastodon meat--could securely be dated to at least 12,500 years ago. In The Settlement of the Americas, Thomas D. Dillehay--the archaeologist who excavated this material--gives his reasons for believing that people reached the Americas before the ice sheets moved south more than 20,000 years ago. It is a fascinating detective story based on tantalizingly meager data, one in which logic and a powerful imagination are required to fill vast blank areas in the geography and prehistory of two continents. The author sets the scene at a time when so much water was locked up in glaciers that coastlines were several hundred feet lower than they are now. Scientific studies such as stone-tool technology, linguistics, and genetics are used to build an overwhelming argument. Academic battles can be as bitter as any others, and the author is ruthless in his demolition of rival theories. Every scientist has his own bias, and this study is heavily weighted toward South American evidence, but Dillehay's interpretations appear to be objective and well-argued. The Settlement of the Americas answers basic questions, such as who were the first Americans and how did they colonize an empty land, in an exciting and readable way. --John Stevenson