Following the discovery in Europe in the late 1850s that humanity had roots predating known history and reaching deep into the Pleistocene era, scientists wondered whether North American prehistory might be just as ancient. And why not? The geological strata seemed exactly analogous between America and Europe, which would lead one to believe that North American humanity ought to be as old as the European variety. This idea set off an eager race for evidence of the people who might have occupied North America during the Ice Age – a long, and, as it turned out, bitter and controversial search. In "The Great Paleolithic War", David J. Meltzer tells the story of a scientific quest that set off one of the longest-running feuds in the history of American anthropology, one so vicious at times that anthropologists were deliberately frightened away from investigating potential sites. Through his book, we come to understand how and why this controversy developed and stubbornly persisted for as long as it did; and how, in the process, it revolutionized American archaeology.
About the Author
David J. Meltzer is the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory at Southern Methodist University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of "Folsom and First Peoples in a New World". He lives in Dallas.
Reviews
"Meltzer's book is the first detailed and comprehensive historical examination of the scientific debate over whether humans were present in the Americas during the Pleistocene, and the only history that fully recognizes and adequately treats the extent to which this debate played out not only among archaeologists, but involved complex interactions between archeologists, glacial geologists, Pleistocene paleontologists, and anthropologists. This is an important and much-needed contribution that fills a notable gap in the history of anthropology and archeology" – Matthew Goodrum, Virginia Tech
"Meltzer has given us the most detailed historical interpretation of the tumultuous, half-century search for Paleolithic man in America that we are ever likely to receive. Through patient archival digging and first-hand field knowledge, archaeologist and historian Meltzer weighs and balances the evidence – archaeological, paleontological, geological, and most importantly psychological – to reveal finally his critical conclusion: status matters. Controversy in science is settled chiefly when those most competent to judge, and in position to do so, decide it is time to settle it. A superb achievement, with implications far beyond the arcanae of archaeology" – Curtis M. Hinsley, author of "The Lost Itinerary of Frank Hamilton Cushing"
"Readers clinging to the notion that science is a peaceful pursuit of the truth will be shocked by the story told in David J. Meltzer's 'The Great Paleolithic War', which depicts science 'red in tooth and claw. ' Denouncing one another as fakers, frauds, and charlatans, American archaeologists, anthropologists, glacial geologists, and vertebrate paleontologists fought to ascertain when humans first appeared in North America. Focusing on the controversies between the 1870s, when the debate erupted, and the late 1920s, when discoveries in New Mexico resolved it in favor of a Pleistocene antiquity of humans in the New World, the distinguished archaeologist Meltzer provides a riveting account of this momentous episode in the history of American science" – Ronald L. Numbers, University of Madison-Wisconsin
