Digging up America

The muck pits near Chinicna Bay, Alaska, a long lost 25,000-year-old cave near Albuquerque, a ranch in Colorado, an arroyo near Folsom, New Mexico, the mysterious mounds in the Eastern, Central, and Southern states — these and many other discoveries and diggings provide the evidence of North America’s prehistory. Dr. Hibben tells how the evidence was pieced together; how modern science measures the antiquity of an unearthed object. He tells the story of the Eskimo, the Aztec, the Inca, the Mound Indians, the earliest hunters, who some 25,000 years ago wandered from Asia across the Bering Strait — to fan out, down, and across the continent. The story of bur unwritten history is one of the great stories of our continent. Here it is told with skill, with a sense of the dramatic, and with authority. Frank C. Hibben, Professor and Curator in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, is the author of The Lost Americans and Hunting in Africa, among other books. “It is a real pleasure to contemplate the enjoyment this book will give to many readers for many years. ... This reviewer knows of no other book so readable, so informal and which makes the science of American archaeology as appealing as this one does.” — Library Journal 1. American Beginnings ......Page 16 2. How Old Is America ......Page 23 3. Radioactive Time ......Page 39 4. How Did the Americans Come ......Page 53 5. The First Settlers ......Page 97 6. Corn on the Cob ......Page 116 7. The Mystery of the Mounds ......Page 129 8. Mound Mystery Solved ......Page 146 9. Dams and Diggers ......Page 161 10. The Ancient Southwest ......Page 177 11. Eskimo Antiquity ......Page 192 12. The Mathematical Mayas ......Page 206 13. Skulls and Pyramids ......Page 238 14. The Andean Incas ......Page 255 Suggested Readings ......Page 272 Index ......Page 278 Index of illustrations ......Page 10