Clues to America's Past

Fülszöveg

in a remote grand canyon cave an archeologist finds animal figurines made of willow twigs; somé have sticks - üke tiny spears - thrust through them. Another scientist uncovers, at the site of a Pleistocene bison hunt, a miniatűré spearpoint near a postmold -the impression left on the ground by a pole that has long since rotted away. A third, re-creating Thanksgiving at Plymouth, finds evidence of dancing, sports, and revelry. What do these clues teli us? How do archeologists, sifting dirt from digs and yellowed records from archives, reach their conclusions? Examining somé of the most significant research projects in progress today, this book takes you behind the scenes for the answers. The willow figurines are part of the hunting rites of an unknown and vanished people. The postmold and spearpoint come from a io,ooo-year-old religious tradition that survived into historic times. That "first Thanksgiving" closely resembled a harvest festival in Elizabethan England. Clues to... Tovább

Fülszöveg

in a remote grand canyon cave an archeologist finds animal figurines made of willow twigs; somé have sticks - üke tiny spears - thrust through them. Another scientist uncovers, at the site of a Pleistocene bison hunt, a miniatűré spearpoint near a postmold -the impression left on the ground by a pole that has long since rotted away. A third, re-creating Thanksgiving at Plymouth, finds evidence of dancing, sports, and revelry. What do these clues teli us? How do archeologists, sifting dirt from digs and yellowed records from archives, reach their conclusions? Examining somé of the most significant research projects in progress today, this book takes you behind the scenes for the answers. The willow figurines are part of the hunting rites of an unknown and vanished people. The postmold and spearpoint come from a io,ooo-year-old religious tradition that survived into historic times. That "first Thanksgiving" closely resembled a harvest festival in Elizabethan England. Clues to America's Past ranges through time to explore these and other questions. A Spanish bell in an Indián child's grave in Mississippi speaks poignantly of de Soto's expedition in 1541. The wreck of a i7th-century merchant vessel off Bermuda provides clues to the ships that brought the early settlers to the New World. Records and on-the-ground inspection of the battlefield at Antietam show us how facts become obscured by wishful thinking and outright deception. As one officer expressed it in 1905: "On the actual day of battle naked truths can be picked up for the asking: by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms." Lively accounts by archeologists, historians, and other observers; superb color photographs; and especially commissioned paintings bring you new insight into America's past. This book lets you share current work of scholar-detectives as they unravel the confused skeins of myth and history. Vissza