Strangers in a New Land ─ What Archaeology Reveals About The First Americans

For many years, the accepted version of American prehistory dated the arrival of peoples to the Western hemisphere between 12,900 and 13,200 years ago. This consensus, called the "Clovis Barrier," has recently been challenged by discoveries at numerous archeological sites in both North and South America. New genetic analysis has confirmed a Siberian origin for Native Americans and linguistic research suggests they arrived in three waves.

Due to these findings, most American archeologists are now convinced that people came to the Western Hemisphere thousands of years prior to Clovis--just how much earlier is the subject of continuing research, with evidence of human presence as early as 33,000 years ago. The history of the very earliest settlement of the New World is the subject ofStrangers in a New Land.

This book documents 26 Clovis/Folsom Age Sites, Pseudo Pre-Clovis Sites, Legitimate Pre-Clovis Sites and Controversial Pre-Clovis Sites. An account of the history, discoveries and controversies surrounding each site is accompanied by photographs, maps and diagrams illustrating the excavations and dating the evidence of human activity. While these sites have been described in academic journals,Strangers in a New Land brings these findings together for the first time written in language accessible to the general reader.

J.M. Adovasio is the Director of Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute and Dean of The Zurn School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Mercyhurst University. Since 1971 he has overseen archaeological work at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, one of the best dated Pre-Clovis sites in the Western Hemisphere. Adovasio is author of over 250 journal articles and five books on the peopling of the New World.

David Pedler is the Director of the Geographic Information Systems Laboratory at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Mercyhurst University, Erie, PA.