First Peoples in a New World
Populating Ice Age America

A study of Ice Age Americans, highlighting genetic, archaeological and geological evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of their origins, antiquity, and adaptations.

David J. Meltzer (Author)

9781108498227, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 October 2021

500 pages
26 x 18.2 x 3 cm, 1.1 kg

'The book is an exciting read that offers a lot of information, but always takes the reader along because the author knows how to explain … the book is highly recommended.' Herausgeber, AmerIndian Research

Over 15,000 years ago, a band of hunter-gatherers became the first people to set foot in the Americas. They soon found themselves in a world rich in plants and animals, but also a world still shivering itself out of the coldest depths of the Ice Age. The movement of those first Americans was one of the greatest journeys undertaken by ancient peoples. In this book, David Meltzer explores the world of Ice Age Americans, highlighting genetic, archaeological, and geological evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of their origins, antiquity, and adaptation to climate and environmental change. This fully updated edition integrates the most recent scientific discoveries, including the ancient genome revolution and human evolutionary and population history. Written for a broad audience, the book can serve as the primary text in courses on North American Archaeology, Ice Age Environments, and Human evolution and prehistory.

1. Overture
2. Glaciers, climates and environments of Ice Age North America
3. The search for Ice Age Americans: the path from Paleoliths to Paleoindians
4. Ascertaining archaeological evidence of antiquity
5. What language, skeletal anatomy and genetics reveal (or not) of the population history of the Americas
6. Who, from where, when and how? The search for consensus
7. What do you do when no one's been there before?
8. Clovis adaptations and Pleistocene Megafaunal extinctions
9. Settling in: late Paleoindians and the waning ice age
10. When past and present collide.

Subject Areas: Indigenous peoples [JFSL9], Environmental archaeology [HDP], Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Archaeology [HD], History of the Americas [HBJK]