The Great Paleolithic War: How Science Forged an Understanding of America's Ice Age Past
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.
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The Great Paleolithic War: How Science Forged an Understanding of America's Ice Age Past
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.
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The Great Paleolithic War: How Science Forged an Understanding of America's Ice Age Past
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.
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.
Table of Contents
Roster of IndividualsCHAPTER ONE A Study in Controversy1.1 Beginning and ending 1.2 A powerful lens 1.3 Approaching the inquiry 1.4 The data of history 1.5 The scope and structure of controversyCHAPTER TWO Setting the Stage2.1 Establishing the parameters 2.2 Bringing the Paleolithic to America 2.3 Rude Americans? 2.4 Looking anew 2.5 Where to next?CHAPTER THREE Establishing the American Paleolithic, 1872- 18813.1 Charles Abbott builds the foundation 3.2 Frederic Ward Putnam comes aboard 3.3 Firming up the structure 3.4 The Trenton paleoliths go public 3.5 Subdividing the glacial epoch 3.6 Abbott’s Primitive Industry 3.7 The sound of the applause 3.8 The creed of George Frederick Wright 3.9 Seeking his just rewardCHAPTER FOUR The American Paleolithic Comes of Age, 1882-18894.1 The Paleolithic comes in quartz 4.2 Lest Trenton be forgotten 4.3 The American Paleolithic comes together 4.4 Abbott takes center stage 4.5 Pushing the antiquity envelope 4.6 Thomas Chamberlin and the question of glacial history 4.7 The Kettle Moraine moves east 4.8 Mapping the Pennsylvania moraine 4.9 An uneasy association 4.10 Hard times for the USGS 4.11 Wrangling over the glacial boundary 4.12 Synthesis and antithesis 4.13 Wright’s Ice Age in North America 4.14 The bandwagon rolls 4.15 Looking to the future of the pastCHAPTER FIVE The Great Paleolithic War, 1890- 18975.1 The Bureau of Ethnology takes the field 5.2 William Henry Holmes and the lessons of Piney Branch 5.3 Abbott returns fire 5.4 The gathering storm 5.5 The preliminary skirmish 5.6 The Great Paleolithic War 5.7 The “Betinseled Charlatan” affair 5.8 Mounting a defense 5.9 Collateral damage 5.10 Holmes’s march through the American Paleolithic 5.11 Point/counterpoint 5.12 On the unity or diversity of the glacial period 5.13 Showdown in Madison 5.14 Interregnum 5.15 Returning to the field of battle 5.16 An end and a beginning CHAPTER SIX Cro-Magnons in Kansas, Neanderthals in Nebraska, 1899-19146.1 Human skeletal remains emerge from the Trenton Gravel 6.2 Aleš Hrdlička 6.3 The Trenton femur: A preliminary look 6.4 Hrdlička finds his method 6.5 Holmes gets his man 6.6 Cro-Magnons in Kansas? 6.7 On the origin and age of loess 6.8 Loess and the Lansing man 6.9 Remedial lessons 6.10 Dressed for battle, no one to fight 6.11 Neanderthals in Nebraska? 6.12 Hrdlička’s Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America 6.13 Over before it began 6.14 Lansing to Long’s Hill: Loess to dust 6.15 Trenton redux?CHAPTER SEVEN Dangerous to the Cause of Science, 1915-19257.1 Oliver Hay offers a faunal solution 7.2 Men and mammoth at Vero 7.3 A nonharmonic convergence 7.4 Spinning the message 7.5 Turf wars 7.6 Finding Vero’s place on the human family tree 7.7 Violating the sacred confines 7.8 Eras’ ends 7.9 Dangerous to the cause of science 7.10 With friends like these 7.11 Speaking of old evidenceCHAPTER EIGHT In the Belly of the Beast, 1921-19288.1 Harold Cook and Jesse Figgins— willful revolutionaries 8.2 Anthropoid apes in America? 8.3 Another head of the Hydra 8.4 When it rains . . . 8.5 Bearding the lion 8.6 What’s in a name? 8.7 Mammoths and metates 8.8 Baiting the trap 8.9 From the lion’s den . . . 8.10 . . . to the belly of the beast 8.11 Seeking a new identity 8.12 Hedging bets 8.13 Will the rising tide lift all boats? 8.14 Whereas, Folsom 8.15 Coming apart at the (mu)seams 8.16 Once more, with feeling 8.17 Dead men walking 8.18 The sound of victory, the silence of defeatCHAPTER NINE Fast Forward, 1930- 19419.1 Lining up the shot 9.2 “Scattered around like a dog buries bones” 9.3 Still fighting the last war 9.4 Not just another old site 9.5 Refining the Pleistocene 9.6 Converging on a chronology 9.7 The peopling process 9.8 Recognizing variation and change 9.9 A Philadelphia story 9.10 What have the bones to say? 9.11 Profiling 9.12 Finding the time 9.13 Fast forwardCHAPTER TEN Controversy and Its Resolution10.1 The medium is not the message 10.2 Challenging context 10.3 Ascertaining antiquity 10.4 Numbers going nowhere 10.5 Flattening the past 10.6 “Savaging” the present 10.7 Hrdlička’s lament 10.8 When disciplines collide 10.9 Last days of the tyro 10.10 All scientists are equal, but some are more equal than others 10.11 “Be sure to mention Kidder” 10.12 Victims of the Matthew Effect 10.13 Prehistory repeats itself 10.14 Living in an old New World 10.15 Controversy and its resolutionAppendix: Whatever became of . . . ? Notes Bibliography A. Manuscript sources B. Printed sources: Primary C. Printed sources: SecondaryAcknowledgments Index
