Customer Reviews

The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a gem. There is no other book about the first Americans that has such an even handed thoughtful analysis of the complex array of data involved in the controversy. Haynes is one of the key players in this controversy and his research has cleared up much of the confusion around what can be considered reliable archaeological evidence of human presence. His work with African elephants throws considerable light on how bones can be broken or otherwise altered by natural processes and appear as pseudoartifacts. The book provides a rich background and is written in a readable style for most scientically literate readers. It should be on the shelf of any anthropologist, archaeologist, geologist, ecologist, or enthusiast interested in the peopling of the Americas at the end of the Pleistocene.

This book was a thoughtful reinterpretation of the existing data pertaining to the nature of Clovis lifeways and settlement in the New World. Rather than concerning himself with the nature or timing of the first Americans, Haynes introduces an ecological perspective to the study of Clovis, a population movement model in which adopting a very specialized adaptive strategy would enable a 'fugitive' culture such as Clovis to spread rapidly throughout the New World.

I read this book back in May 2001, and it is a very nice comprehensive book on Paleo Americans. The book is not so technical that a person with some familiarity with paleo science is able to understand and enjoy it. A few of the topics were not things that interest me, but they might interest you. This book covers many subjects, from hafting of Clovis projectiles, to modern replication of butchering, to comparisons of old and new world technology, dispersal, foraging, extinction, adhesives, etc. Well worth the money, and re-reading several times.

I liked reading this book because, although it appears to be written for specialists, it's very accessible to the interested layman. For me the best part was the presentation and analysis of the archeological evidence of Clovis people in North America. It's striking how scant this evidence is, how difficult it is to discriminate tools from naturally shattered rocks and bone, how difficult it is to gather and date, and, as a result, how little can be said firmly about the first settlers of the Americas. The only thing that's completely for sure is that there have been people living, in your area, for thousands and thousands of years. That's what I learned from this book! And, there were some great pictures of Clovis artifacts, with some paleolithic European stuff, too.

About half way through or so, the author started to speculate about the lifeways of the Clovis people. It seemed like he was going way beyond his evidence, whereat I put the book down, and demoted him to four stars. I'm sure he's still reeling. Onward and upward. Interesting to read, if you enjoy archeology.

The info and analysis on the Clovis period is pretty good. However, the emphasis on the "authoritative" position that the Clovis people were the first settlers in the face of a tremendous quantity of mounting evidence that Homo sap. settled North and South America at least 20,000 years before Clovis, greatly detracts from the value of the book.

a lifeless story ... a chore to wade through ... I wonder how it turns out.