Bones: Discovering the First Americans

Bones—the remains of ancient New World natives now lying in museums and university laboratories across the Americas—are at the center of the scientific and cultural battles described in this provocative book. These bones, award-winning investigative journalist Elaine Dewar asserts, challenge the accepted theory that the first Americans descend from a Mongoloid people who migrated across the Bering land bridge to Alaska at the end of the Ice Age 11,000 years ago. With Native American activists, white supremacists, DNA experts, and physical anthropologists—all vying for control of ancient bones like those of the Caucasoid Kennewick Man—Dewar explores the politics of archaeology, history, law, native spirituality, and race relations at work in this scientific battlefield. She reports, too, on the contention among the experts over alternative theories that suggest the New World may have been populated as early as 60,000 years ago, perhaps by Polynesian voyagers who sailed to South America. “Bound to shake archaeologists out of their complacency.”—Canadian Geographic “Provocative ... likely to rattle the old bones of orthodoxy.”—Calgary Herald