Described as a "masterly study" and an "outstanding volume" on its first publication, The Incas and Their Ancestors quickly established itself as the best general introduction to the cultures and civilizations of ancient Peru.Now this classic text has been fully updated for the revised edition. New discoveries over the last decade are integrated throughout. The occupation of Peru's desert coast can now be traced back to 12,000 BC and ensuing maritime adaptations are examined in early littoral societies that mummified their dead and others that were mound builders. The spread of Andean agriculture is related to fresh data on climate, and protracted drought is identified as a recurrent contributor to the rise and fall of civilizations in the Cordillera. The results of recent excavations enliven understanding of coastal Moche and Nazca societies and the ancient highland states of Huari and Tiwanaku. Architectural models accompanying burials provide fresh interpretations of the palaces of imperial Chan Chan, while the origins of the Incas are given new clarity by a spate of modern research on America's largest native empire.

    Linnea Smith went to Peru on an ecotourism vacation. She was so moved that she abandoned her thriving medical practice in Wisconsin to serve the Yagua Indians in the deepest part of the Amazon rainforest of Peru-alone.Taken straight from the pages of Dr. Smith’s journal, La Doctora offers readers a rare glimpse into the suspense and drama of practicing medicine in a culture far removed from the sophisticated supplies and supports of 20th-century medicine.Learn how Dr. Smith evolved from a “strange white woman” to an adopted member of the indigenous community. Her story of adventure, self-discovery and service creates inspiring testimony to one person’s power to make a lasting difference.

    Primordial beasts roamed the land: creatures like the giant sloth, the flat-faced bear, the woolly mammoth, and the dire wolf hunted there, often coming into conflict with their two-legged prey.When Do-na-ti reaches adulthood, he slays the badger for his ceremonial cloak. By wedding E-lo-ni, he unites their clans. Together they must face battle with dire wolves, a stampede of mammoths that destroys their lodge, and the birth of a new volcano, fulfilling an old woman's prophecy and Do-na-ti's conviction that his son must become brother to the mountain."Mayhar has a way of drawing the reader seamlessly into her historical narratives. You can smell the breath of the dire wolf as it closes in for the kill!" -- Robert Reginald

    She spent her life teaching others how the spirit speaks through the Dream, how the spirit heals, and how the spirit demands to be heard.Greg Sarris weaves together stories from Mabel McKay's life with an account of how he tried, and she resisted, telling her story straight—the white people's way. Sarris, an Indian of mixed-blood heritage, finds his own story in his search for Mabel McKay's. Beautifully narrated, Weaving the Dream initiates the reader into Pomo culture and demonstrates how a woman who worked most of her life in a cannery could become a great healer and an artist whose baskets were collected by the Smithsonian.Hearing Mabel McKay's life story, we see that distinctions between material and spiritual and between mundane and magical disappear. What remains is a timeless way of healing, of making art, and of being in the world.

    In Walking on the Land, he returns to write about the Arctic for the first time in two decades. Using a seminal trip he took through the eastern Arctic as his starting point, Mowat interweaves the stories and the fate of the Barrenground Inuit who were his friends with stunning, lyrical description of the land that was their traditional homeland. With great beauty and terrible anguish, Mowat traces the history of the Barrenground Inuit, revealing how the decimation of the caribou herds in the early part of the century, unleashed a series of famines and epidemics that virtually wiped out their population and left them reliant on a far-away government that understood too little of their needs and circumstances. Through his continued friendship with the survivors, Mowat brings us into the present, showing how the remnant population has survived. No Mowat work is complete without a cast of larger-than-life characters and his trademark marvellous storytelling. Walking on the Land is no exception. Old-time Hudson`s Bay company men, eccentric priests, wild bush pilots and well-meaning interlopers people the pages, bringing to life one of Canada`s most haunted places.

    The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

    The renowned family of paleontologists—Louis Leakey, Mary Leakey, and their son Richard Leakey—has vastly expanded our understanding of human evolution. The Origin of Humankind is Richard Leakey’s personal view of the development of Homo Sapiens. At the heart of his new picture of evolution is the introduction of a heretical notion: once the first apes walked upright, the evolution of modern humans became possible and perhaps inevitable. From this one evolutionary step comes all the other evolutionary refinements and distinctions that set the human race apart from the apes. In fascinating sections on how and why modern humans developed a social organization, culture, and personal behavior, Leakey has much of interest to say about the development of art, language, and human consciousness.

    Distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture established the presence of these early New World people. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditional—and often subjective—approaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.

    In this Very Short Introduction, renowned evolutionary scholar Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings inthe eighteenth century to today's latest fossil finds. Along the way we are introduced to the lively cast of characters, past and present, involved in evolutionary research. Although concentrating on the fossil evidence for human evolution, the book also covers the latest genetic evidence aboutregional variations in the modern human genome that relate to our evolutionary history. Wood draws on over thirty years of experience to provide an insiders view of the field, and demonstrates that our understanding of human evolution is critically dependent on advances in related sciences such aspaleoclimatology, geochronology, systematics, genetics, and developmental biology. This is an ideal introduction for anyone interested in the origins and development of humankind.

    Ranging from the Netsilik hunters who straddle the Arctic Circle to the Natchez farmers of the lower Mississippi River area, the tribes represent each culture area and various levels of socioeconomic complexity among Native Americans. Each chapter focuses on a specific group and culture area, providing students with a detailed portrait of the geographical and cultural adaptations of that region.As he has done for previous editions, author Wendell H. Oswalt has visited virtually all of the extant groups discussed in the text to ensure an accurate and complete picture of the contemporary situation. Updates and major changes featured in this edition include:* A new chapter on the Western Shoshone--a Great Basin tribe centered in Nevada--including a discussion of the 2004 partial resolution of their long-standing major land claim against the federal government * A description of how in recent years some Pentecostal church congregations among the Crow and Tlingit have rejected their Indian backgrounds * A discussion of how the discovery of vast diamond deposits in northern Canada may dramatically change the lifeway of some Chipewyan and the Netsilik * Coverage of timely issues for Native Americans, including the management of individual trust accounts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the disposition of Kennewick Man; and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Lara case in 2004, which centered on an aspect of Indian sovereignty * A more detailed examination of Indian casinos, including typical non-Indian reactions to themThis Land Was Theirs, Eighth Edition, incorporates more than 150 photographs and illustrations, and each chapter-opening offers pertinent text about the subject matter covered in that chapter. Abundant pedagogical aids include maps of each region discussed, a glossary, a pronunciation guide, and two appendixes: a guide to the various artifact types discussed in the text and an extensive list of additional resources for learning about Native Americans.

    government policy toward Indians in the early 1800s is that it persisted in removing to the West those who had most successfully adapted to European values. As whites encroached on Cherokee land, many Native leaders responded by educating their children, learning English, and developing plantations. Such a leader was Ridge, who had fought with Andrew Jackson against the British. As he and other Cherokee leaders grappled with the issue of moving, the land-hungry Georgia legislatiors, with the aid of Jackson, succeeded in ousting the Cherokee from their land, forcing them to make the arduous journey West on the infamous "Trail of Tears." (Library Journal)

    This edition includes thirty-nine photographs, many of them originally presented as slides with the speech, and a rich interpretive essay by the translator.

    

    Maureen Coles finds herself excavating a mass grave in New Mexico filled with the brutalized bodies of women and children.From the internationally bestselling authors of People of the Masks comes a novel of terrifying power about madness and murder eight hundred years ago.

    The Perfection Point is ideal for sports fans interested in the scientific basis of athletic excellence and a fascinating read for science fans interested in the physics of sports.