First Peoples in a New World

Colonizing Ice Age America

By: David J. Meltzer

Narrated by: Christopher Prince

More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology. This dazzling, cutting-edge synthesis, written for a wide audience by an archaeologist who has long been at the center of these debates, tells the scientific story of the first Americans: where they came from, when they arrived, and how they met the challenges of moving across the vast, unknown landscapes of Ice Age North America. David J. Meltzer pulls together the latest ideas from archaeology, geology, linguistics, skeletal biology, genetics, and other fields to trace the breakthroughs that have revolutionized our understanding in recent years. Among many other topics, he explores disputes over the hemisphere's oldest and most controversial sites and considers how the first Americans coped with changing global climates. He also confronts some radical claims: that the Americas were colonized from Europe or that a crashing comet obliterated the Pleistocene megafauna. Full of entertaining discriptions of on-site encounters, personalities, and controversies, this is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of how science is illuminating our past. The book is published by University of California Press.

©2009 The Regents of the University of California (P)2011 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A natural storyteller, David Meltzer gives us a vivid picture of both the colonizing bands of humans who moved into the Americas and the researchers who followed their footsteps from Alaska to Chile. This is an insider's account, told with a keen eye and sense of humor, as if Meltzer were there when discoveries were made and when disputes were aired - as, indeed, he often was." (Ann Gibbons, author of The First Human)

great read, learned alot

Absorbed alot of great and very detailed information, if you take interest in the subject it's very easy for the narrator to carry you through the book. Also read the book and I feel like hearing a guy speed through it clean helps understanding as well

A Fantastic Dive

No issues with the narrator for me. The wealth of information provides for multiple, I’d say necessary, re-listens and bookmarks. It being abridged notwithstanding, I highly recommend picking this up along with the 2nd edition printed book if able.

Can also search the author on any podcast app. Has done several interviews, A Life In Ruins podcast had one that is worth hunting down, among others.

Very informatine

Informative. The detail sometimes very technical provided context and was very helpful. The naration was will done.

First Peoples - Fantastic

This is a fantastic summary of our present understanding of early human life in America. It not only gave me a good summary of migration to and through America, but also the science behind this understanding. Though the explanations got quite technical at times (genetics, for example), I never felt overwhelmed. Both the writing and reading were great.

Riveting story!

If you could sum up First Peoples in a New World in three words, what would they be?

Interesting information and its not complete

What was one of the most memorable moments of First Peoples in a New World?

This book was very interesting but the part about grasses changing and that being toxic to the mega fauna as apposed to human incursion was particularly so since most of what I have read to date points to human hunting pressure as the culprit.

What three words best describe Christopher Prince’s performance?

Mr. Prince reads too fast to get the full picture. This is intricate and complex. The geography alone encompasses half the world. He leaves no space between sentences to absorb information.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

epic adventure

Any additional comments?

Re-record and have the reader add better inflection, better timing and pacing.

Great book, horrible audio

The information contained in the book is intriguing and informative. Many questions of how and why people came to the Americas are thoughtfully answered.
The audible version of this book is almost unbearable. The reader is monotonous using no inflection or emotion. It is almost robotic.

leaves room for imagination.

What I loved about this book was Meltzer's way of conveying what was possible to actually know via archeological research and what would likely stay in the realm of speculation. I also loved the fact that the author seemingly stayed open to all ideas and theories on the peopling of the Americas should enough evidence arise to support them, rather than just the same old "this is how it is" dogma that's present in a lot of scientific disciplines today.

so informative

this is great book with lots of detail but still easy to understand highly recommend

No Issues with the Narrator

There seems to be a lot of prominent complaints about the narrator, despite the overall high ratings for this audiobook. Personally, I had no problems with him. There are a few slightly awkward pauses in his reading, so be aware of that if that's a big deal for you, but I hardly noticed them. Other reviews have called him monotonous, which he definitely isn't. This is an academic book, so you can hardly compare it to a prose novel with emotional dialogue. He might have a favored note to end his sentences on, but again, I barely noticed once I got used to it.

As far as the book itself, I really enjoyed it. It gets quite technical for a couple of chapters in the middle, but the info is useful for understanding the rest of it. Would definitely recommend.

Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would, on the sole condition that I may brief them beforehand and debrief them afterwards.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

It was as expected, a defense and reinforcement.

What does Christopher Prince bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He reads faster than I do, so it was finished sooner.

Could you see First Peoples in a New World being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

I should hope not. These old stories have been worn out.

Any additional comments?

Expect an anthropological book written from the recent and dominant American academic perspective. The author cannot help but leap out of science or massage it thoroughly into the acceptable and desired sociopolitical narratives. If you have a reasonable world history perspective you'll be perplexed by the simplistic and unfairly repeated perspectives. A summary would be; Innocent Native Americans done wrong by somewhat advanced, mean, diseased, and lucky Europeans. If you go abroad be careful not to regurgitate this at peril of reinforcing the well founded "Americans are ignorant of history" belief.
Just as the weather these days is reported in nature-hostile and silly anthropomorphized lingo- Hurricane Hugo is attacking, killing and wreaking havoc in its path, this book discusses genetics, archeology, geology, and a few other ologies with the same installed template.
A better book would have taken a few steps back and described the same merciless advancement of people upon other people being the norm not only to the Americas but on every continent and in a continuity with the rest of humanity. Britons suffered Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Old Europe suffered Huns, Vikings, Mongols and eventually Arabs who in their turn had suffered invasions, violence, disease, decimation so on and so on for eons by peoples and empires long gone.
Maybe those Siberians crossed Beringia to escape this never ending interaction and infringement and did so successfully for a long while until their old world caught-up and closed back around upon them.
Maybe the most recent wave of Paleoindians themselves being more advanced from the old world brought weapons, warfare, disease and infringed upon and destroyed a pre-Clovis people with the same disregard and cruelty that the Spanish and later British did to them. Knowing how most native Americans treated each other, it is a very likely story not discussed in this book.