Across Atlantic Ice The Origin of America's Clovis Culture [Paperback]

Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. Distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture established the presence of these early New World people. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditionaland often subjectiveapproaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.

Dennis J. Stanfordis Curator of Archaeology and Director of the Paleoindian Program at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History. Among his books isIce Age Hunters of the Rockies.Bruce A. Bradleyis Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Exeter and Director of its Experimental Archaeology Programme. His books includeClovis Technology.

Across Atlantic Iceis brilliant and ground-breaking. As fascinating as it is controversial, this book brings together decades of research from diverse areas into a single volume that is well argued, factually rich, elegantly written--and absolutely riveting. I could not put it down. Douglas Preston, author ofCities of Gold,Thunderhead, and former archaeology correspondent for The New Yorker magazine