Scientific understanding of the peopling of the Americas is as unsettled as the Western Hemisphere once was.
Raff articulates scientific arguments for these settlement scenarios in clear, nontechnical language. But her narrative revs up when she describes how geneticists, with some admirable exceptions, have treated Indigenous groups as afterthoughts or as passive DNA donors.
One example concerns a roughly 9,000-year-old skeleton found in Washington state in 1996, dubbed Kennewick Man or the Ancient One. That find sparked a legal battle between scientists who wanted to study the man’s remains and local tribes intent on reburying their ancestor. The scientists won.
Raff also provides a glimpse of how she came to study ancient DNA. A lifelong love of exploring caves, starting as a child in a caving club, imbued Raff with a respect for extensive preparation and intense focus in the moment. Those traits proved essential for conducting the many exacting lab procedures she outlines for coaxing DNA out of bone samples.
After mentioning that a few large, well-funded labs dominate ancient DNA research, Raff leaves unexplored the implications of that concentration of resources for studying ancient human migrations. But her book gives a balanced view of what’s known about the First Peoples and how scientists can cooperate with their modern-day descendants.is a Bookshop.org affiliate and will earn a commission on purchases made from links in this article.
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