1491 : new revelations of the Americas before Columbus

Summary: A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus’s landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong. In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

Record details

ISBN: 1400032059 (pbk.)
ISBN: 140004006X (alk. paper)
ISBN: 9781400032051 (pbk.)
ISBN: 9781400040063 (alk. paper)
Physical Description: print
xii, 465 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: New York, NY : Knopf, 2005.
Badges:
- Top Holds Over Last 5 Years: 3 / 5.0

Content descriptions

General Note:	"A Borzoi book"--t.p. verso.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (p. [403]-449) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Holmberg's mistake -- A view from above -- 1: Numbers from nowhere? -- Why Billington survived -- In the land of four quarters -- Frequently asked questions -- 2: Very old bones -- Pleistocene wars -- Cotton (or anchovies) and maize (tales of two civilizations, part I) -- Writing, wheels, and bucket brigades (tales of two civilizations, part II) -- 3: Landscape with figures -- Made in America -- Amazonia -- The artificial wilderness -- The great law of peace.