In this dramatic reconstruction of the daily lives of the earliest Americans, a leading anthropologist tells how people survived the Ice Age and forever altered the course of human history. Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork around the world, Kenneth Tankersley takes readers on an exciting journey into America's most ancient human past--traveling from the deep recesses of underground caverns in the East to the mountains and deserts of the West--providing a behind-the-scenes look at the search, discovery, and examination of Ice Age sites and artifacts. Based on a unique mix of achaeology, anthropology, and history, In Search of Ice Age Americans provides the most up-to-date answers to fundamental questions: Who were the first Americans? Where did they come from? When did they arrive? In Search of Ice Age Americans takes the reader on the archaeological expeditions, from the pioneer days of Daniel Boone in the dense woodlands of Kentucky to a modern-day adventure in the great expanse of Wyoming's High Plains. It is a story that is told from the oral traditions of American Indians, the diaries of Early European explorers, and the journals of America's founding fathers. From the halls of Thomas Jefferson's White House to the ivory towers of today's academia, this book reveals the role politics has played in the search for Ice Age Americans. It is a story plagued by frauds, hoaxes, and professional jealousies, but also rife with heroic victories of perseverant amateurs. This is the first book that tells the real stories behind America's most important archaeological discoveries: It has always been everyday Americans--such as teenagers, cowboys, and farmers--who made them.
This behind-the-scenes look at the search, discovery, and examination of Ice Age sites and artifacts reveals the real stories behind America's most important archaeological discoveries--and the teenagers, cowboys, and farmers who made them.
About the Author
Kenneth Tankersley is a menber of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and a research associate of the Cleveland Musuem of Natural History. His research has been featured on National Geographic's Explorer, the Discovery Channel, All Things Considered, and Nova. He now lives in Highland Heights, Kentucky.
Douglas Preston has written extensively about America's past in books such as Dinosaurs in the Attic, Cities of Gold, and Talking to the Ground. He is best known for his archaeological suspense mysteries including The Relic, Riptide, and Reliquary. He has contributed to motion picture and television projects, as well as The New Yorker, National Geographic, and Harper's magazines. Preston is a research associate at the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe and a board member of the School of American Research. He divides his time between Sante Fe and Italy.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It is late September and there's already a bite of cold in the early morning air. A burst of northwesterly wind pushes waves across the tops of auburn-colored prairie grass. A family of mammoths is foraging on sedge and willow leaves as they follow the dry mud-cracked streambed in search of water. An old matriarch, like her mother before her, is leading the herd to a source of water, just as she has done hundreds of times before. She is taking them slowly across the broad flat plains to a spring-fed pond at the head of a coulee in the western hills. Raising the dexterous tip of her trunk, she detects faint traces of moisture in the air, a reinforcing gesture to the other mammoths that indeed they are on the right path to water.
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