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Book Cover
Book
Author Mann, Charles C.

Title 1491 : new revelations of the Americas before Columbus / Charles C. Mann
Edition First edition
Published New York : Knopf, 2008
©2005

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  970.011 Man/Fno  AVAILABLE
Description xii, 465 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Contents Introduction : Holmberg's mistake -- 1. A view from above -- 2. Why Billington survived -- 3. In the land of four quarters -- 4. Frequently asked questions -- 5. Pleistocene wars -- 6. Cotton (or anchovies) and maize (tales of two civilizations, part I) -- 7. Writing, wheels, and bucket brigades (tales of two civilizations, part II) -- 8. Made in America -- 9. Amazonia -- 10. The artificial wilderness -- 11. The great law of peace -- App. A. Loaded words -- App. B. Talking knots -- App. C. The syphilis exception -- App. D. Calendar math
Summary "A 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."--BOOK JACKET
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [403]-449) and index
Subject Indians -- Antiquities.
Indians -- History.
Indians -- Origin.
Indians of South America -- History.
SUBJECT Americas -- Antiquities. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85004221
Americas -- History -- To 1810. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85004264
LC no. 2004061547
ISBN 140004006X (alk. paper)
9781400040063
Other Titles Fourteen ninety one