New Perspectives on the First Americans

The field of first American studies is undergoing significant changes. The traditional model that the Americas were only peopled once by Clovis big-game hunters from Siberia at the end of the last Ice Age has seriously been challenged. Most now believe that the Americas were peopled more than once. Against this backdrop of controversy, the CSFA and its partners convened the Clovis and Beyond Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1999, and brought many of the major players of the field to the conference forum who have a stake in the future of America's past. New Perspectives on the First Americans contains short and concise papers from this conference that focus on the following themes: pre-Clovis archaeology, Clovis-era archaeology, Paleoamerican paleobiology, new approaches to the study of Paleoamericans, Paleoamericans and public policy, and new directions for Paleoamerican archaeology. Collectively, these papers represent the intellectual fermentin a field seeking to reconcile itself with changing scientific developments in an evolving social/political context.