Pre-Columbian archaeology: Readings from Scientific American

The articles included here address the major problems of this prehistoric past... First, who were the first representatives of humankind in the New World? Where did they come from, and when did they arrive? What kind of lives did they arrive? What kind of lives did they lead? Second, when, where, and how did the descendants of these first immigrants establish an agricultural mode of existence? Third, from these beginnings of farming and settled life, how were more complex societies and orders fashioned? And, fourth, how did these societies produce the civilizations and Pre-Columbian American states that confronted the first European explorers when they landed on the shores of the New World? An excellent text or supplement for courses in introductory archaeology and world prehistory. Pre-Columbian Archaeology gives readers insight into the cultural history of the New World form its initial human habitation until the first contact with Europeans more than 20,000 years later. The introductions by Gordon R. Willey and Jeremy A. Sabloff tie the Scientific American perspective and background on the subject.