Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent

"Ancient North America" by Brian Fagan is not the book for everyone interested in the topic. Specifically it is not for the casual reader. This is very definitely a textbook on the archaeology and anthropology of North America. The author assumes a basic knowledge of archaeology: its focus, terminology, techniques, and history, and therefore gives only a cursory explanation of topics like "culture," "horizon," and "tradition," etc. In the first few chapters Dr. Fagan discusses the issue of first colonization of the continent, describing the limiting factors and the likely time constraints involved. He goes into the various competing theories of the great migration which have changed very little since the 1960s beause there remains a dearth of unquestioned evidence with which to resolve the issue. Thereafter he discusses the various regional and ecological artifact assemblies and what they indicate about the evolution of life-ways after the initial arrival of human settlers. Make no mistake; this is heavily into discussions of lithic technologies and what they have to say about cultural diversity and spread. Where other, more substantial remains occur--mounds in the southeast and pueblos in the southwest, for instance--or where post-contact life-ways are described, more complete descriptions of life in the past is presented. For the individual who is very much into archaeology and/or what it has to say about life of the indigenous people in North America, the book will be a pure delight. For those for whom the book is a text for a class, like so many undergraduate texts, this one is full to the brim with potentially mind numbing details one might have to memorize for an exam; details that only come easily to a graduate student after having studied individual periods or cultures more intensively! All I can say in this regard is, "That's just the way it goes!" For those who just want to know more about life in the past and have no background or immediate interest in archaeology, the book may be more ponderous than you will want to undertake. A more satisfactory substitute for you might be Fagan's more popular account, The Great Journey: The Peopling of Ancient America, Updated Edition, which does not require a background in the subject to understand it nor does it go lengthily into diagnostic lithic technology. What the latter book does include is statements of the results of research, some of the exact wording of which is found verbatum in the more didactic work reviewed here. For those who need to WRITE PAPERS on some aspect of archaeology, North American archaeology, first settlement of the North American Continent, and so on, the book provides a very good ground work by presenting a logically arranged overview of what is know of the settlement of different regions and of the evolution of cultures in the face of climatic changes following the last glacial period. It also provides an amazing bibliography of sources (unfortunat

Comprehensive book that is a good reference work for the long history of man in North America

David Muench is one of the best landscape photographers I've ever come across. If you can find this book the pictures will blow you away. It is worth the price. I'm an okay photographer, this guy is so good it's hard to believe. These are literally some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen. If you see this book on one of the clearance racks at a book shop, get it quick

This book deserves more than five stars, and is clearly one of the finest color landscape photography books ever published. Go to whatever lengths you must to acquire this amazingly wonderful volume!Ancient America "celebrates the ancient threads that connect our momentary existence to a universal continuum and bind us to larger meaning." Imagine yourself as one of the first people to arrive in the Americas, having traveled across the land bridge from Siberia or across the Pacific by raft or canoe. There is no smog. There are no buildings. You simply see the grandeur of nature in its most pristine and awesome form. The world is a cathedral to you. That is the vision that Mr. Muench shares with us in this great collection.The book begins with several stunning photographs that capture the range of the whole book. There is a brief introduction about the photography, then a superb discussion of American anthropology by Brian Fagan that creates a poetic vision of the book's subject. You will learn much about the settling of the Americas in the process. Did you know that humans arrived here only around 12,000 years ago and that populations were quite small until 350 years ago when the European immigrants began to arrive in substantial numbers? The photographs are subdivided into the following sections: light; earth, rock, water, trees, ruins, and growth. Mr. Muench has a few final words at the end. "Timeless moments of ancient light are for me an expansion of the spirit . . . ."Mr. Muench has many skills as a photographer. Like Ansel Adams, he is brilliant in using dawn, dusk, and moonlight to capture unusual moments and moods. Also like Mr. Adams, he has an unerring sense of composition that captures the interconnections of nature's patterns in fascinating and rewarding ways. But he exceeds Mr. Adams in his ability to use color. And all of these images are in gorgeous color. The color creates an emotional climate of spiritual peacefulness that will help you regain your sense of wonder, as you shed the distractions of "civilization." I was particularly impressed to find that many of the images came from parts of North America that I had never seen before. In many ways, this was like exploring a new land to me. That characteristic added to my ability to let go of my preconceptions and existing emotions, and simply drink in the visual manna here.Here are my favorite images in the book:Moonrise, Mono Lake, California; Ancient Spruce-Fir-Hemlock Forest, Eagle Creek Gorge, Oregon; White Sands Evening, White Sands, New Mexico; Oregon Seastacks Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park, Oregon; Autumn Dawn, Millpond State Park, North Carolina; Cadiz Valley, Mohave Desert, California; Cypress Dawn, Realfoot Lake State Park, Tennessee; White Canyon Sandstone Labyrinth, Utah; Mendocino Tidal Pool, California; Dead Horse Point, Utah; Delicate Arch, Moonrise, Arches National Park, Utah; Eagle Creek Punchbowl, Oregon Cascades; Atchafalaya, Louisiana; Pin