Customer Reviews

America Past, America Present: Genes and Languages (Papers in the Prehistory of Languages)

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There are some questions about the past which archaeologists are afraid to face up to. Anything involving genetic research, racial groupings, or Native American ethnicity is anathema to most scholars who want to keep on the right side of tenure committees. Colin Renfrew is head of the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research at Cambridge University so he can afford to go out on a limb. For decades he has been one of archaeology's most creative thinkers, and this book shows that he has not lost his edge. It is true that he and his colleagues have not yet reached the ultimate goal (to link linguistic groupings to genetic patterns to archaeological remains) but gee are they close! Some of this book is quite heavy-going, but the underlying potential here for knowing who our most distant ancestors were is extraordinary (even a little scary).